weirdly i feel like i have something more to live for, to be happy for…that he's there and not here like that makes me want to dance a bit, sing a bit…rather have him here, but in total full health and happy and awesome, but he'd already had that and then some and some and some.
i feel like that's something to aspire to, not to go out like per se but aspire to have known you lived your life. and have no doubts. and be ready to go, knowing that it was well done. and we're doing well, better than well all that he leaves behind.
what comes next? we must be driven to succeed in living our life with each other, with really knowing the joys of connecting. to never feel like there was something you meant to say and didn't. a way you wanted to feel but couldn't.
It's a hard task, but a welcome one to share.
26 February 2006 @ 06:04 pm My grandfather's funeral was one of the best ones I've ever been to. My mother and uncle took care of most of everything and the programs were sweet, with color photographs dating back 75 years. it was hard to keep it together, but i made the choice to miss the internment which made things a lot better. i couldn't deal with the dirt part, walking over people's graves to get to one you're about to fill just freaks me. I was thinking: the body is so much less than a shell. When a shell is empty of whatever it once held, you can still use it for something. put it on the shelf, or put your ear to it. not so with a dead body, ya know? My gramps is gone somewhere else now. it's been feeling strange in ways, I'm not exactly ready to share but I feel loads better all the way to the inside of my bones. Something happened to solidify me. It'll always be hard knowing that he's not physically here anymore, but I'm lucky to feel him around me. My mother sang the hell out of a couple of songs, she has an amazing voice –deep and clear like my grandfathers with just a hint of his bass. And my uncle told this joke which had us rolling in the aisles. My mother apologized for all the years of estrangement and my stepdad got up and said what a nice guy Cictor always was, which would have gone over better if he hadn't have been wearing flip flops. But it was nice what he said, and I was grateful for a drama free day. This is what I read as my tribute during the funeral. I added some jokes off the cuff, and for the record my grandmother told me to toss the tv stuff in. The whole church laughed and smiled and it was very nice, and I felt him being proud.
FEBRUARY USED TO BE WINTER A Tribute to my grandfather Victor Emmanuel Cheltenham Perhaps it's my subconscious but a few nights ago – I had a dream about my grandfather. Fluorescently searing but slightly subdued dream colors: there was grandpa and me sitting in front of a TV. We were watching the End of him and he was crying but grinning fiercely too. In the corner of the room was man who was instantly known to me as "a representative". He had an insurance man quality, the kind of special being that lacks frivolity while seeming to know everything. And in my dream I was certain he did. He stepped forward, clipboard in hand and pointed to the TV where I was telling a friend how my Gramps was having a hard time. The long illness, the previous decline. This man in a slightly glowing suit said, "A hard time of it, a heart attack" and on the screen came a much younger Victor Cheltenham. I felt my grandfather squeeze my hand, and heard his voice calling sweetly to me as if from another room. I woke up with a miracle; illuminating a path of acceptance, one not hampered by the quest for correct past tense grammar and other pressing matters. WE WERE LOVED! WE LOVED! WE LOVE! My grandfather loved each and every one of us. You can yell that from the rooftops. He was a rock, a shelter against the storm, a man of many many telephone calls, and the warmest laughing lighthouse in your living room. He was there when I was born. He taught me to whistle, to ride a bike, and to finish my chores. Solid, he never gave up on me, especially on the chores. When I saw that younger Victor Cheltenham on my dream TV screen; I saw behind its pixels to other possible pasts too. What if grandfather was never listening in, not whistling as he came in the door, or never telling me to get my stuff of the floor. I am grateful. Last Thursday we were doing quite a depressive thing, we were “finalizing” caskets. A neighbor called and told me she'd just seen me on Oprah as part of a TV series I had a small hand in. Check me out on Black. White. March 15th, FX. Hard choice, jump for joy in the middle of a casket store? Thank you grandfather for looking out like this for me! During times like these and even harder ones we seen. How rare to be happy at a sad time, how many variations are there of this thing? WE WERE LOVED! WE LOVED! WE LOVE! Let there be nothing but peace, joy and love in this room. We are here to celebrate! Let it be true celebration of what we have learned too, because of this man Victor E. Cheltenham.
NEVER IS THERE A CURE FOR THE COMMON AILS (2006) Never is there a cure for the common ails. The things that fail you. {faith flailing about (are my insides showing?) absolutely harrowing} Excuse me! I speak on the disease of common ails the things that fail No awaiting antidote or existing vaccine shall erase the search from me sweeping the path with floodlights I know I have not lived a truly loveless life. But what cure-all for my common ail? For my fairytale! Soulmates knit the perfect fit 80's dance moves and all that shit? A loving home I create Security balancing fate A roof against hail is what I'll build on the beach even if it's a sandcastle might it stand tall? if I don't kick it at all? Here come wind waves rain and toes yet year after year the sand remains… All my monuments break apart mixing into the wash loves lost paths crossed rising ice cream costs all the important things done, and wished undone and done again Ay, it is a common ail That only time will tell.