Humble Tidbits of Vacuity

So…having the time change back an hour one week later than usual made the first part of Halloween kinda sucky. I don’t know about you, but our Trick-or-Treat times were from 6pm to 8pm, and at 6pm it was still daylight out. It didn’t start getting dark until about 7 or so. There was just something…unnatural…about watching kids walking around in broad daylight dressed up for Halloween. It was just weird. There’s this neighborhood “haunted house” that is set up every year during trick-or-treat time. It just wasn’t any good from 6-8. Not. Scary. At. All.

But…we spent all two hours walking all over our neighborhood. We carried extra bags with us so the kids could dump their candy when their baskets got full. They ended up dumping 4 times. We had a lot of candy to sort through when we got back home.

One of the great things about my kids is that they don’t get all that excited about their candy and want to eat eat eat. After we sorted the candy we had this great big mound of crap for me to take into work and leave in the break room, while each of the kids kept enough to fill their baskets. This Halloween candy will, without a doubt, still be around at Halloween 2008. My kids just don’t eat all that much candy. For them, Halloween is more about dressing up and walking around. The candy is just a side benefit.

Then, about an hour later, just as I was getting ready to head to Kroger for a Totino’s pizza, my sister called telling me that my oldest brother had just died. So, after asking if they needed me to come to the hospital and being told (in no uncertain terms) that I was NOT to come to the hospital, I hung up the phone. I told my wife, who said, “What? Oh my god! When? Do you need to leave? Oh my god!” and then went out to get the pizza.

Upon my return, I was hit with more questions:

“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did it happen?”
“I don’t know.”
“When’s the funeral?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s the funeral?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you eat pizza?”
“I’m hungry.”

::Sigh:: This is harder to write about than you might think. And I’m only writing about it because I’m sure there will be things that happen later on that will cause me to reference this and it just wouldn’t do to have any of you confused.

I was never close with my brother. Well, half-brother. He was 19 years old when I was born and already living out of the house. In fact, I just found out that he was 19 years older than me this past Saturday at his funeral. I had no idea how old he was, no idea when his birthday was, couldn’t match up his kids names with the faces, didn’t know where he lived in the city…none of that. Typically, throughout my life, we would only see each other at Thanksgiving and Christmas. In the two years since my dad died, I’ve seen my brother more than ever…about 10 times. So, I wasn’t that close with him. In fact, all of my (half) brothers and (half) sisters (originally 3 and 2, now down to 2 and 1) have always been more like friends of my parents to me.

I was torn. I felt like I HAD to go to the funeral. I mean, he WAS my brother, after all. And if I didn’t go, my mom would NEVER forgive me. Try to imagine feeling obligated to go to your mother’s friend Madge’s funeral. That’s about what I felt like. Unless you are someone who happens to be really close to your mother’s friend Madge.

The minister who was officiating the funeral was the same guy who did my dad’s. This guy went on and on talking about the Lord and quoting David and Psalms and Ecclesiastes all sorts of stuff. Which I suppose is standard for a funeral but I just see as a complete waste of time and effort. I spent of this time with my head in my hands looking at the floor until I realized that there would be some people who would think I was upset and want to talk to me about it afterwards. So I made sure not to do that anymore.

After the service, I hugged his wife, and my nephews and neice, said goodbye to my mom, 2 brothers and sister and headed home to finish getting the house ready for my oldest daughter’s birthday sleepover.

After that was done, my other two kids, Z and A, and I went over to my mom’s house to spend the night. My house isn’t big enough for all the people that were going to be there and my oldest didn’t want the two younger ones hanging around.

While we were at my mom’s house, she pointed out that I was the only immediate family member who didn’t cry. I pointed out to her that MY immediate family is my wife and kids and her and that I NEVER counted my brothers and sisters as family. She said, “Well, they are.”

I said, “Only legally.” It was a rather tense evening.

But please don’t misconstrue my lack of sadness as belittling the significance of his death. I’m well aware that there are plenty of people who are deeply affected: My mom, her kids, my brother’s wife, their kids, their grandkids. Their lives are irrevocably altered, and their outpouring of emotion at the funeral is a testament to their loss.

It’s just not a loss that I share.

This post was hand-crafted especially for you by Kevin at 6:50 PM |