The End

I was the first one at my father’s burial.

I drove around the small town some. I stopped for gas, drove past the city hall where my grandfather once teased an imprisoned clown, past “Presbyterian Hill” where one of the first academy’s in the state was founded, and went back to the cemetery. I saw the funeral home’s tent and, next to my father’s grave, my grandfather’s temporary marker (misspelled) and my brother’s tombstone.

Eventually the rest of the family arrived. We waited until about the appropriate time and stepped outside.

We mingled some, and then the priest arrived (a fine Asian-Indian Father who, unlike his native born coreligionist at the funeral, kept to the liturgy). I was supposed to be a pallbearer (as at the funeral), but my uncles and a cousin relieved me of that duty.

Instead, I held my mom.

After, we gathered at my grandfather’s old house. My cousin has kept it up well — perfected it, really — and we told stories. Then, as conversations among family tend to do so, we turned to happier subjects. Lunch was tasty, and it was good to eat with so many loved ones.

I will continue to write of this as appropriate, but today is a real end. I went from worried concern, to hope, to despair, to my father’s death, to his funeral, and now his burial. I don’t know what else to say here. I suspect there is not much more. How many times can you say, “I love you, dad”?

So I expect tomorrow will see a resumption of normal blogging. A world has ended, but I am still here. So is my girlfriend, who my dad loved, in spite of being sucked under a semi. This life goes on.