So I went to my Grandmother's funeral yesterday. My family woke and I had to get up in that time where the sky is closer to black than blue. By the time we were walking out the door there was enough caffeine in us to light a lightbulb.
The first stop was the funeral home to see the body. The only problem was there wasn't a body. My grandmother was cremated. Imagine 25 people having to all sit classroom style facing only snapshot photo of my grandmother and my grandfather togeather. The room was so quiet that everyone had to use their smallest whisper so my uncle, the guy who organized the whole funeral procession, didn't hear us talking about how fucked up and weird this was. We sat there like this long enough so that for the last half hour everyone was anxiously checking their wristwatches.
We then drove to the catholic church to concecrate the ashes. The only problem was my Grandmother wasn't catholic. We sat their while the preist spoke of a woman he never met, and conduced a ceremony that wasn't of her faith While my uncle and aunt were proudly the first ones to accept communion, my father and our family sat still in a blind stare. After all the hymns and psalms conducted by my Uncle's family, the priest began to give his eulogy, which was a connection with my grandmother's musical background to the catholic church. My aunt planned on saying some of the same things as the priest in her eulogy which would follow, so she screamed in a whisper "no!" in the middle of his quasi-sermon. Luckily the priest didn't invade all of her territory; in fact he couldn't have because she actually made up events, quotes and was grossly inaccurate when mentioning her accomplishments. She made up how my Grandmother donated foods to soup kitchens and what she said to her sons when they were little. She used the words "caring", "compassionate" and "gentle" talking about my grandmother the way George Bush uses the words "freedom" "terrorists" and "liberating"..
But at least the actual funeral at the grave was shorter than the slow, detoured drive up. Acutally, you couldn't finish a cigarette in the time priest spoke over her box of ashes. As we all stood there, men in mechanic-like jumpsuits lingered in the background watching and like wolves waiting for the farmer to leave the chicken coup.
It was a weird, ridiculous, and offensive day.
The first stop was the funeral home to see the body. The only problem was there wasn't a body. My grandmother was cremated. Imagine 25 people having to all sit classroom style facing only snapshot photo of my grandmother and my grandfather togeather. The room was so quiet that everyone had to use their smallest whisper so my uncle, the guy who organized the whole funeral procession, didn't hear us talking about how fucked up and weird this was. We sat there like this long enough so that for the last half hour everyone was anxiously checking their wristwatches.
We then drove to the catholic church to concecrate the ashes. The only problem was my Grandmother wasn't catholic. We sat their while the preist spoke of a woman he never met, and conduced a ceremony that wasn't of her faith While my uncle and aunt were proudly the first ones to accept communion, my father and our family sat still in a blind stare. After all the hymns and psalms conducted by my Uncle's family, the priest began to give his eulogy, which was a connection with my grandmother's musical background to the catholic church. My aunt planned on saying some of the same things as the priest in her eulogy which would follow, so she screamed in a whisper "no!" in the middle of his quasi-sermon. Luckily the priest didn't invade all of her territory; in fact he couldn't have because she actually made up events, quotes and was grossly inaccurate when mentioning her accomplishments. She made up how my Grandmother donated foods to soup kitchens and what she said to her sons when they were little. She used the words "caring", "compassionate" and "gentle" talking about my grandmother the way George Bush uses the words "freedom" "terrorists" and "liberating"..
But at least the actual funeral at the grave was shorter than the slow, detoured drive up. Acutally, you couldn't finish a cigarette in the time priest spoke over her box of ashes. As we all stood there, men in mechanic-like jumpsuits lingered in the background watching and like wolves waiting for the farmer to leave the chicken coup.
It was a weird, ridiculous, and offensive day.
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Sadly, my last ditch marriage right has already been claimed by a repressed Chinese boy (who wont admit hes really gay) and a tall artistic gay friend (who wont admit hes really straight).