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Browsing Tag: #funeral
My Grandmother had died. We were planning her non-funeral and trying to determine what to put on a headstone. She wasn’t a religious woman. Nothing seemed right, all these pat phrases about healing and peace and joy. She was probably a little mad about dying, to tell you the truth. She wasn’t done watching her stories, or watching her grandson grow up. She was pretty much done with me, though, I’ll tell you that. My grandmother was a PISTOL, right up to the end. I went to great lengths not to cross her. She had everything wrote out, which my mother decided to blatantly disobey. She didn’t want her name in the paper under obituaries “because it ain’t nobody’s damn business when I die”, she didn’t want a funeral “because I don’t want anybody lookin’ at me while I’m layin’ there, dead” and she didn’t want a preacher “cause they’re all a bunch of liars.” Well. She swore she’d haunt us, but I didn’t think she would because she didn’t want to die in the house on account of me being afraid to live there. More on that in a minute. But mom wasn’t scared of her, and neither was Uncle Dale, so they conspired to give a memorial service. Nobody…
{#411 The story you shouldn’t have overheard on the bus} I was looking at their shoes and thinking they didn’t belong. I admit, I judge people by their footwear. I can’t help it, I profile. Forrest was right, you can tell a lot about people by looking at their shoes. Where they are headed, where they’d been. And these Christian Louboutin’s did NOT belong on a scuzzy old city bus past midnight, or any other time. You’ll find duct taped running shoes on the bus. Or polished-within-an-inch-of-their-life secondhand oxfords. Or sensible thick soled lunchlady shoes. People eking their way through life, working two jobs in order to scrape by. But never Louboutin’s. Maybe some knockoffs on a hooker, some that she’d painted the soles red to fool no one. Because the people who knew what Louboutin’s were knew they weren’t gonna find ’em on a girl painted up like a brazen hussy at two o’clock in the afternoon. But as I was saying, it wasn’t two o’clock in the afternoon. It was two in the morning and I sat very still in my muddy Redwing work boots, pretending to look at my phone but really watching a guy on the aisle two rows up on the right, silently nodding along to his iPod music. Or maybe he…
A soft, gentle, much needed rain will be falling this morning at the gravesite of Mr. Ralph Newman. Maybe I should call it a “mourning rain”. Ralph might’ve got to Heaven & made that his first order of business, ’cause he sure knew we needed it. My heart is with all the Newmans this morning as they lay David’s daddy in the earth. Many of you know him, have bought hay from him, have seen him working in the fields. I loved Mr. Newman. He was one of the first farmers I ever waited on when I came to work at Co-op. He was patient with me as I hunted item numbers for his requested feed and baler twine. He has been patient with me over the years as I tracked down the right bolts, seeds, shoestrings, oil, vaccines, and information for him on herbicide & pesticide application rates. I’d spot him ambling along the aisles of the store & I’d break off from whatever I was doing to go speak to him. Well, go holler at him, is more accurate. We got along good because his hearing had been sub par for several years & I tend to talk loud. ” Hello, Mr. Newman!” I’d bellow, & he’d grin ear-to-ear. “Hello, Amy!” He’d holler back. Or sometimes he’d call me “sis”. It…
Y’all settle in. There are a few places in this world where life gets real. You know what I mean. Where rubber meets the road. Hospital rooms, church altars, courtrooms, gravesides, and bars at two a.m, to name a few. Delmar Maples was my co-worker for my cumulative years at Co-op. He didn’t say much, but that’s ok, because what he said counted. He always, always, said “Good Morning,” (which seems to be becoming less common these days). If yes or no was adequate, that’s what you got. I think the first time we ever really had a conversation was when he was showing off his first grandson, he carried him all over the store, grinning ear to ear. Delmar was a small man, with ropy muscled arms, dark eyes, and a scraggly beard. He was never without a mesh-backed “old man” hat that he carefully folded down in the center, essentially making a crown around his head. He traveled with a limp & a whistle. Delmar changed the oil in Patsy many times, & filled a bunch of propane tanks for me & the rest of Sevier County. He didn’t complain or ask for a break in the rain & sleet & snow. He simply bowed his head to the weather & kept working. He crushed boxes too, & I’m ashamed to admit how many times he saved…
