cretinfamily

i wonder about funerals....and open caskets. i saw jimmy's grandfather but it wasn't him. it was only a shell....it almost looked like him but was more like a wax model.
his eyes were closed and his hands were on his lap overlapping. his hands were the only part of him that looked real. they still seemed to hold the years that he had lived. they had age spots and a bit of a tan. the creases were deep and meaningful.....almost as though they were made purposefully. they seemed to hold a story of years spent working hard, holding tight, and building a life.
i refused to cry...i thought that if i did it would somehow take away from the blood related family. so i kept it inside. when the bagpipes played amazing grace i swallowed the cement that formed in my throat. when i saw jimmy help lift his grandfathers casket into the hurst i blinked away the oceans that filled my eyes.
i smoked one cigarette after another and felt better when my throat burned because i could focus on that instead of the emptiness that i had been feeling every since i heard the news. i took a million pictures just trying to hide behind my camera......i tried to pretend i was just capturing a story...that somehow it wasn't real.
we drove for an hour and a half to get to the burial location. the whole time we tried to smile and talk about good times. when jimmy would start to cry i would hold his hands and just tell him to cry.
the military had already arrived when we finally made it to the grave site. i saw them in their uniforms and the somber faces that they are forced to wear on such an occasion. the rest of the family arrived....i spoke with the minister and he told me how brief he planned to keep it because of the heat and the ages of friends and relatives.
it was at that moment that i realized it was over.....he was really gone. that this was the place that the wax figure was going to lay for eternity....but the life was gone from us. i just felt a numbness as i started to remembered the first time i met him and the hug he had given me.....i can't believe it has been 7 years since i first felt that hug..........the way he said my baby's name, the way he held him and got on the floor to play with him, the way he always took care of everyone and everything and did it with such ease as though he was just taking a stroll in a park. this is the life that is gone. this is breaking my heart.
so i sat down in between jimmy's mom and his aunt and watched him walk over to stand with the pall bearers.
i watched the military men open the door to the hurst and remove his casket. they walk over and place it on the stand....the american flag on top threatening to slide off. i see the minister open his bible and start reading.....i hear the words but only can remember when i start to hear the final words "ashes to ashes, dust to dust". i watch them fold the flag and hand it to jimmy's grandmother and i'm trying to imagine how lonely she must feel right now how empty her insides must feel. then i hear the gun fire from the military and taps starts to play. my tears start to flow, big choking sobs leave me with such force that i have to tell myself to breathe.
it's over.....he's really gone.