Saying Goodbye to George

June 10, ’05

Riding in the car with my, if nothing else, dismissive cousins, there is little to do but reflect back onto the last 72 hours of my life.

Coming off a too-long weekend of Violet, L.A., and varied substance abuse prefaced by a week of Orange County indulgence, I arrive in my office sans coffee, Dale, and motivation. Checking my email, backups, and DTS I decide to check my voice mail for the first time in days.

The calm, collected, and measured voice of my mother on the line tells me something is wrong even before my ears or brain have processed the words. My grandfather, the man who had shown me everything a father could have/should have been; the man whose spoken and written words had quite literally shaped my adult life… was dead. I had known it was coming; we all had. I had taken the week prior to St. Patrick’s Day to drive up and spend some time with him before his corporeal form failed him. It didn’t make this any easier. Autopilot kicks in as I immediately called my manager and informed him I would be leaving for a few days so arrangements can be made. Next I call my mother to let her know when I would arrive and make sure I didn’t miss anything. She gives me the details.

He had died the Saturday prior. While I was gearing up to slip into the world of movie stars and would-be-rockers, he was slipping out of this world and into the next. 10 p.m. give or take. I tried to remember what I could have been doing at that exact moment. Probably sipping some concoction and running my mouth. A few more phone calls and I’ve got my flight coordinated with my sisters and Emily is babysitting Jenna while I’m away.

I make the obligatory notifications and have begun preparing for the replacements when it begins. I need to touch someone, not physically… maybe even more than that, I need to be touched. I need to connect to the human race again. Only one person comes to mind. I try putting her out of my mind but she won’t go. Like some heroin junkie in detox I need it. My veins feel empty and I can think of nothing else to fill them with. I get a car allocated to me for the return trip to town today and keep pushing it back farther and farther under the pretense of accomplishing more work. Finally at 9:30 when I can do no more work and it’s too late to drive to her, it’s safe to leave. The feeling doesn’t abate, this empty hollowness where my guts should be, and an hour later I am poised on the edge of my bed, her number on the display of my phone and my thumb poised over the send button like a guillotine blade. After what seemed like an eternity, in reality no more than perhaps ten minutes, the blade fell. In that moment I knew how Sisyphus felt, feeling that grating rough surface shift, ever so slightly, then push it’s way free of my guiding hand, bent back, and take the sheer volume of loathing, horror, and rage translated into pure mass as an eternal boulder crashing back down the treacherous slope of my resolve. So much for twelve steps.

The conversation starts with even less fanfare than the tryst ended.

She asks, “Hello?�?
‘Hey.’
“Hi…�? (that shocked tone followed by an expectant pause)
‘I, uh… Are you busy?’
“Yeah.�? I read finality in her tone.
‘Ok, sorry. I’ll let you go.’ I move to hang up, quickly.
“Wait! It’s ok. I can talk.�?
‘Um, I’ve had kind of a weird day, and I really need someone to talk to. I don’t know who else to call.’

We talk on about what’s going on with me for a while, then, not because she is really conscious of it, but with the unconscious accuracy of a savant, she guides me away from my somber reality back into a world where I’m ok; Where it’s natural that she and I are talking. Eventually we get back to our last exchange. She used denouement as her myspace title for some time, hoping I would see.

I never looked.

Finally the time comes when I have to go pack and she returns to her beau. It’s pathetic that I needed this but it steels me for the advancing emotional assault. Packing absentmindedly and falling into a sleep plagued by never fully realized demons, the night ends and the morning begins later than it should have.

I have plenty of hassle getting to work passing through the 2 guard gates and eventually get some semblance of preparation made for the week ahead. Leaving early and packing a little too slow gets me to my flight not a minute too soon. Coffee all over my lap makes for an interesting mid air clothing change in the airplane potty closet. I think when designing these rooms, those involved must have laughed their asses off. Gumby couldn’t function in here, how am I supposed to change clothes out of my bean assaulted raiment into anything else? Very carefully. I manage to finally slip into new clothes; slip and fall almost but with nowhere to fall to I remain upright and get back to my seat before we begin landing.

My sisters are waiting for me at baggage claim with their backs turned to me. Each of them looking the wrong direction, I am able to walk up between them, bags and all, and loudly query, “Who are we waiting for?�? The resulting jump and exclamations from them were pure gold in a week of tarnished, rusting emotion.

The car ride is a relapse to happier times, perforated at intervals by my stepfather’s general demeanor and a phone call from my sister Katie’s fiancé. Paige, the baby at 17, and I fill the air with as much prattle as it can hold, not having seen much of one another in the last decade. We talk about television (not my forte), music, school, work, boys; it relaxes me. I can feel tension I wasn’t aware of leaving my back, arms, legs, and chest; running out through the floor in rivulets washing away with the light rain that has coated the I-15 in a glistening moonlit blanket.

My arrival at my grandparents’ house is buried under that of my travel mates: my stepfather and sisters. Confusing and forgetting my cousins, aunts, and uncles names, I am reminded of how long it has been since I have seen them. Most of them, over a decade; some of them, almost two.

After a long evening, Paige and I make a break for our lodgings, walking down the street that we played in as children to Mike and Bill’s house. Not gay men, as the names seem to imply, but the daughter of a Y-chromosome challenged man who, to spite his disappointing daughters and the men crazy enough to marry them, named them all quite masculine names.

Now, I had never been to their home before, and had only met them once earlier than year in March. Guided by some unknown voice in my head I arbitrarily picked a house in the cul-de-sac and started walking towards it. Paige asked if I knew where I was going. “Of course!�?

I’ve seen lots of movies, having been an American my entire life and lapping up the egregious leavings of Hollywood for entertainment since a very young age. Some of the movies about burglars and the like in some comedic rote trying to break into a building or bank vault. I can only imagine that my sister and I looked very much like the worlds worst thieves while entering this house. Carrying luggage, stumbling around in the dark whispering to each other asking if it was the right place, petting the dog, leaving the front door wide open, we finally reaching a room in the basement with matching twin beds. We start unloading and set up our base camp.

Words occupied the air between us like lemmings; each one caroming along on the tail of the prior; manic, unguided, and hilarious. Paige and I talked until far too late in the evening about everything imaginable. We came to the realization that if any of our parents’ children were going to do anything in the world aside from raise a family and perpetuate the faith, it would either be she or I. My oldest sister, Emily, rife with promise had married young and was popping out babies for her degenerate husband. Katie, the adopted middle girl, was soon to follow suit. Chris, my adopted brother, had been in jail for the last 5 years on and off, and barring some miraculous rap career will likely inhabit some correctional facility for the rest of his fruitless life. That left me, having a good career and upward mobility, and my sister, having infinite potential. Sleep and prudence finally winning out over our slumber party chat-a-thon we are awoken early by the matron of the house we were staying at, Mike.

In a ritual I had thought lost to me, I share the bathroom with Katie and Paige to get ready for this day of days. Funny, maybe having a family is like riding a bike, you just never forget. It seems that way as we 3 made it through the morning with much less headache than I had imagine would be intrinsic to said situation. The girls raiding my shaving kit to shore up the missing implements in their hygienic arsenals, I just try to get clean and get out of there with all haste; knowing full well the wrath of any woman whose beautification routine is interrupted by any male. Woebetide.

Breakfast is organized with all the efficiency of an army mess hall, with nearly as much food. There is aberrance like my Uncle Louis who has chocolate soy milk on his cereal, but for the most part the troops partake of the hotcakes, eggs, and biscuits that are provided by my grandmother. Even on this day she won’t relinquish control of her home to others. My mother and aunts help of course, but she reigns supreme, guiding and directing like the general of her get. I suppose she has to have something to occupy her mind, lest the awful reality of the situation overcome her. I wish I could spend more time with her here but it is not to be so. Like George would often tell me, it’s the way of the world. The young pick up where the old left off as they exit this world and I have my duties to return to.

I’m able to sneak off into town after breakfast and pick up a black suit coat to go with the slacks I’m wearing for the day, it fits and matches well. Reminiscent of Jason Statham or the Hitman, I don a well tailored white button-down and black tie with a new pair of black slacks and Italian square toed black leather shoes. I’m only missing the black driving gloves. Time for the ceremonies.

My grandfather, George, worked for the D.O.D. in one facet or another for the majority of his life. He was proud of it and justifiably so. He had fought alongside men and in later years designed and tested weapons technology to protect and safeguard the next generation of American defenders. Outside the chamber where he is laid for viewing for family members is a large table slathered with regalia. Awards, pictures, and his Auto-biography adorn the table in a tribute to the man whose progeny fill the building with their memories, hopes, and sorrows.

Paige and I stand outside the main entrance to the vestibule loathe to even look inside. Most family members are within but we haven’t been able to cross the doorframe. After many long minutes of staring at each other, the floor, anything but the ornate container holding the physical remnants of our ancestor, our hands find one another and through strength greater than the sum of our separate beings we walk into the room joining the rest of the clan. We spend another long sequence of time sitting halfway through the room unable to go further, speaking with our myriad family members.

People I don’t remember, people I’ve never met, and some I wish I never had are scattered around the room, blowing to and fro like leaves in a mischievous autumn whorl. Alighting on conversations, thoughts, chairs on their way barely warranting my attention. After a small forever Paige and I clasp hands again. With nothing but a glance we have made the communal decision to brave the distance of emotional miles from these small folding chairs to that huge box of foreboding. We are slow and purposeful as those in mourning always seem to unavoidably be, and I stand with a solemnity I don’t truly feel staring at something that could have been my grandfather, perhaps an eternity ago in another life. It has a similar face and those hands that would seem enormous and misplaced on any frame other than his, but there is no life, no heat; no hint that it was once ever a man. It’s comforting to know that this is not in fact my grandfather, just some used container now cast off and empty. The sure knowledge that he is indeed elsewhere, and probably enjoying himself to great extent makes this easier, the expected rush of tears doesn’t come. Holding my sister as close as I am, I try to convey this sense of peace through osmosis, a light touch and solid support for her shaking frame.

Walking with Katie and Paige back to our seats in silence, I become more aware of everyone there; as if seeing the dead has suddenly brought the living into focus through sharp contrast. I spend the rest of the time watching and occasionally speaking with the balls of life occupying this room. A prayer over the dead but really for the living and we are once again engaged in an orderly activity.

Picture time comes and it’s strange to think of all the family reunions we have had over the years and the conflagration of flashes and silly poses they included. This is the beginning of the end. The Praetor of this family is gone. Soon all those below him will slowly fall from the ranks of the living and those gathered here will never be together again as we once were: a family.

Pictures over for the moment, we are herded into the large chapel and I’m given pause at the sheer number of people here. As a testament to the life of character and uncompromising selflessness that he lived the chapel is filled to overflowing. I know almost none of them. I sit apart from my family the row ahead of them not out of any space restriction, there is room if only just barely, but because it just feels more natural. I’m allowed to take in the experience unaffected by their presence. The casket is rolled into the front beneath the pulpit, ornate and adorned with trappings George never had time for in life. My Uncle Steve, who in a life of avoiding my family I have seen the absolute least out of any of my mothers siblings, is the first to speak on my grandfathers passing. Avoiding the so far prevalent topic of his family and dedication to them, Steve speaks of George’s love and devotion to only one person: my grandmother, Nell. When he met my grandmother she lived in Amarillo, TX. Throughout their life together he would sing, at some times almost absentmindedly at others loudly and with purpose, a song he sang to her in their early years: The Yellow Rose of Texas. Steve, out of deference to the man to whom this song will always belong, opts not to sing, but simply recites the lyrics for all to hear. As the words roll forth propelled by his husky Texan bass, hidden between them is a language entirely separate from that in which the song was written and sung; a language of devotion and love shared between my grandparents over their 60 plus years together.

Finishing, words cracking with remembrance and awe, he steps down and my mother steps up to recite her eulogy. My mother speaks with beauty and intimacy, gifted as she has always been with words, touching everyone uniquely. She surrounds the topic of his family and dedication to them with her singular interpretation of his life. Hearing him spoken of in this fashion my thoughts accelerate, bordering panic. I need this. I need to be missed and loved in this way. I need to be a father. I need this woman so long and purposely absent from my thoughts and arms, that her return to my mind is jarring, an almost physical sensation. I need to call her and tell her now that she is too far away, too far removed. We need to be together now and start our family immediately. We need to be immersed in the mess that is the American dream. I need to call her, but I won’t. This burning need, this desire for her will fade again, pressed back into obscurity and cooled by waters of necessity. This woman, I won’t call; I already know the outcome. Her eulogy ended; my mother steps down and the pallbearers carry the envelope holding so much of our family’s past, now sealed away irrevocably, out of the church and to the waiting transport. Mothers kick into gear organizing and mobilizing the caravan to the grave site.

The graveyard is small, barely 2 acres, as befits this little town. The headstones all bear names I recognize from my short stint here as a child. Children I knew, taken before their time. A friend’s mother; my scout leader who succumbed to brain cancer before we were even old enough to understand that she was sick. The albino boy who loved pinwheels so much his parents still make the monthly trip to adorn his site with his windblown fascination, decades later. The more recent addition of my youthful crush, pregnant and unable to withstand the unfocused fury of a drunken driver. Here, perched atop one off two plots of land purchased years ago, is the sarcophagus to which we have come to bid farewell.

I keep noticing a woman in a purple dress that I know I should remember. Try as I might I can’t focus on her long enough to place her, flitting in and out of view as she does. My grandfather’s service in the military has brought him a color guard to see him off. Recitations and flag folding out of the way, we are treated to taps in true military form. The bugle player seeming as frail and old as any man I can see attending, transforms as he raises the instrument to perform his duty. The notes ring clearly and beautifully in my mind affixing themselves to this memory; this music borne moment. That warm summer midday gave way to the chills that raced through my body with each peal. As the last wafting note melted into the trees, the gentleman assumed his previous unassuming stature and lowered his horn, but for those moments that he played he stood as straight and tall as any serviceman in the world that day. Speaking to man playing taps afterward I thanked him with as little fanfare as possible, striving to emulate the dignity with which he performed his given task. The girls of the family take flowers from arrangement for pressing or drying as they are so inclined. I take the chance as people are milling about preparing to leave to snap some pictures for my own keeping. The first emotional rupture I have seen from my mother is directed at three random little girls as they attempt to steal flowers off the casket of a man they didn’t know and couldn’t care less about. The return trip to the church is less emotional that I would have expected; everyone simply organizing their broods and evacuating this field of stone memories. Everyone is probably a little drained and the prospect of food has something to do with their current state of disinterest.

I stand at the far edge of the gym we are feeding in by myself for the majority of the time, simply watching; taking it in. It’s amusing to me to see how the maternal instincts of the women click in when they see me solitary and separate. Almost every female in the place makes eye contact with me and turns as if to head in my direction at some point or another. The significant majority of them read in my eyes and stance my need for isolation and quickly change course to go to a table of more amiable subjects for their ministrations; not all of them though. I’m getting tired of being told to eat and so wend my way to the table, collect some fuel and head for the table holding my siblings. Slaloming through the obstacle course of tables and chairs I take note of the caste and cliques that segregates our family tree into different tables and conversations. None of it sounds interesting enough to warrant more than a second of my eavesdropping. After finishing my hastily assembled fare, I attempt to help clean up the disaster area left by my extended family of slobs and snobs but am promptly ushered away by volunteers, little old ladies with grey and purple hair in what I’m sure hold more shades than I can see with my limited color scope, and I head back the half mile to grandparents’ house in the car.

Sitting around the house for the remainder of the day provides ample opportunity to get into trouble. The bishop lives next door so my sister and I decide it would be a great idea to go raid his games collection for some board games. The fact that his wife is completely at ease with us entering her house and rummaging through her closet taking whatever we want at will says a lot for this community and my granddad. He was a great man, and although this woman has no idea who we are, she is willing on the reputation of a deceased man alone, to allow us free reign of her home and belongings, secure in the knowledge that it will be well treated. Back at headquarters, playing in the basement as we did when we were children brings out sides of the family I thought were gone. Smiles and semi-jovial interaction abound and for a while the weight lifts.

My phone rings and it’s Michelle on the line. She wants to get a drink tonight and I tell her I’ll call her if I have time. Katie and Paige have concocted some reason to get out of the house so I agree to drive, loathe as I am to leave this oasis, it’s been a long time since I have seen either of them and I’m enjoying it.

Upon my return, all the Neanderthal cousins suddenly apparate Gameboy DSs. One of them pulled one out of a suitcase and with rabbit-like profusion it suddenly multiplied until it filled their entire family’s hands. The strangest thing about this particular brood is that in an overly extended branch of sameness, almost complete genetic lack of unique identity; overlarge brow and mouth, bad teeth and excessive body hair, one cousin is hawt! At first I mistook her for someone’s wife. I asked who she belonged to and was quietly informed she was my cousin. Rubbing my arms as though cold, trying to wipe away the thought of being attracted to my cousin, I wander around the house for a while. I sit and peruse the movies George and I used to watch; cowboy movies, film noir, musicals. I had some great times in this basement, pulled up next to the towering frame of George Gore as he tried his best to explain the dynamics of the Western to his wide eyed page. Looking over his crazed music collection, I have to laugh. One half old cowboy music (not western or country as George would adamantly correct you if you misspoke), the other half a hodgepodge of choral and orchestral classics that would give any serious musician pause. How does a man come from shit kicking shindigs to an aficionado of the world’s most aloof musical offerings in just one lifetime? Like the Tootsie Pop commercial says: The world may never know.

Perhaps inspired by this musical treasure trove, Paige and I go play on the grand piano upstairs; singing together and playing whatever comes into our heads for a while. Eventually we are joined by mom, grandmother, uncles, and aunts; music of all types spilling around filling the house as it once did but equivocal with it’s noted lack of the reverberating baritone of the home’s Patriarch.

I need to get out so I call Michelle and we go cause some trouble, the entire night is a running freak show; coffee fanatics, dairy farmers, and all manner of odd individuals that you would and would not expect to find in a sleepy little valley like this. I get back way too late in the morning and upon finding the door to my interim home locked I manage to raise Katie from the basement on her cel phone to let me in. Stumbling down the stairs hoping I don’t reek too badly, I clean up as best I can with the 2 brain cells I have still functioning and collapse into bed.

The morning routine is rushed. Mike is discourteous in all her A.M. glory while rousting us roughly from sleep and informing us that mom is trying to track us down. Looking at the miniature alarm clock on the nightstand betwixt my sister’s head and mine I’m met by the glaring bloodshot red digitized numbers informing me I have to make it through the rest of the day with 4 hours sleep and an edgy hangover. The morning air does me some good on the walk to our headquarters, clearing my head and lungs of yesterday’s leftovers and I walk in reasonably clear headed considering the beating my liver took last night. People eager to return to the lives they put on hold to celebrate and remember that which my grandfather lived, scurry around the house on short lived missions of dubious import. All but ignored and forgotten; days ago the returning prodigal black sheep, now the guy sitting in the corner that no one can quite remember; I am allowed a removed view and time to experience my own thoughts. Renewed sense of purpose fills me in the form of thoughts and ideals I had thought long gone from my intellectualized repertoire. I’m ready to return to my life. Not just to the existence that I play out day by day, but to start living again. I’m ready to take chances and move forward with a larger goal in mind, a brighter future. Hope.

Family scatters like roaches under the glaring light of responsibilities put on hold and dissipating vacation days. And here I am, listening to those crisp resounding bugle notes play back across my consciousness with the clarity of fine crystal, on my way back to a life that it took a dead man to remind me I wanted to live.