June 20, 2006


Welcome to my therapy

Today felt slow and long. I spent most of the day crying, in a skirt and driving slowly.

I picked up breakfast for the family (Dad, Caitlan, StepMom, & Step Mikey) and sat around while they got ready in the house I grew up in. My old bedroom is now locked and I can't get inside of it. My step brother blatantly talks to me about his being gay and I wonder how my dad handles that. Another step brother shows up and I don't remember his name, Ricky maybe? My dad, always in the overworked jeans and grey tshirts well suited for his plumbing career walks out in khakis and a button up. That's how I know something real is about to happen.


I'm not sure where they got the 99 Cadillac they drove to the funeral home, but I remember seeing my Grandma Jewell drive by on her way and we all drove slowly together. Caitlan and I in my car together and alone. We parked; they smoked. I wish I had a vice that was calming and on autopilot to fall back on at times like these.

There was just a sheer curtain separating where we had gathered from the chapel where she was laid out. I had never done a funeral with a viewing before, so it didn't really register with me that the faint figure on the otherside of the curtain was my grandma, my flesh and blood. Also in my mind I hadn't expected all the people there. I stared at the floor and shivered in the cold while we waited for all the family to gather. We were evenly split, those of us who were visibly Cherokee and those of us who visibly unregistered our native blood.

They gathered the family and led us into the pews. My dad held LuAnn's hand as they walked in, and my step brothers followed next to them, then myself, my grandma Jewell then Caitlan. I know I briefly wondered why I couldn't sit closer to my dad. He was my dad, this was my grandma, and I'm stuck on the far end from him with these two strangers I have as step brothers in between us.

The casket had been closed at this time and there was singing in Cherokee. I wish I remembered the songs. There was a message, but I don't remember it. I sat and cried and stared at the picture of my grandma that sat next to the casket. That smile she always had. The big oversized owl glasses. The high waisted silky purple loose grandma dresses she always wore. The dark lipstick. The hair pulled back on the sides and parted unevenly just so, but always worn long. We're always so proud of our hair, straight, curly, dark or grey.

My dad was out of my view, but I could see his 3 brothers crying.

Never being to a funeral in this manner I was taken back at the end when they opened the casket again for everyone to file by and make their peace. I didn't want to see her, not from one pew back and not from one foot away, but even more than that I didn't want my sister to see it. Once it was just family it was our turn to walk up and I remember just stalling in the center aisle. I looked up and I just kept stepping back. That wasn't my grandma and that wasn't her hair.

My heart broke in two when my dad walked up to her. My words can do no justice to his pain. I remember grabbing his arm and walking to the side and then holding on to a side of a pew so hard my knuckles turned white, but just as quickly I was outside in my car again with my sister waiting for the trip to the cemetary. Again, just my sister and I following my dad and his (new) family. It bothered me so much more and strongly this time.

My grandma Rosie now rests in her home for many years, Pumpkin Hollow.

We drove slowly through town, and it was odd for me to see people pulling onto the side of the road for the funeral procession. I started crying again as I drove everytime I saw someone going so far as to pull their hat off for us, which actually happened numerous times. We drove forever towards Pumpkin Hollow and down much farther into it than I remember driving before.

I couldn't throw dirt on my grandma's casket, and neither could my sister or my dad. Just as quickly as we had gotten to the cemetary, the casket was in the ground and everything was closed. Oddly I stopped crying the minute the cement casing was out of my site. Out of sight, out of mind.

My family was all going to spend the afternoon together, and I would have loved to have joined but I had to get Caitlan back in town to pay a ticket. She wouldn't have wanted to go anyways. One of these days she'll understand the importance of just setting yourself aside and just being there for the sake of being. I still don't completely understand it, but I'm learning it and so will she. We can handle a lot more than we think we can, there's just no knowing until you do it.

The trees along the road where full and hanging over the road. I want to go park out at Todd's Access and get some pictures of them since now, without grandma, I don't know when I'll find myself out there ever again.

Posted by Courtney at June 20, 2006 03:36 AM
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