I had an interesting experience this past weekend. A little background info: Other than my grandmother and my two uncles (my dad's actual brothers... not those cousins once removed you just call your "uncles"), I hadn't seen any of my dad's side of the family in more than a decade. Long story short: my grandmother went a little insane after my grandfather died and moved to Georgia to live with one of the above uncles. And thus the reason for me to travel to that west Texas wasteland went away. Also, I lived really far away for most of those years. So there you go.
Anyway, my grandma passed away in March. We waited to have the memorial service because one my uncles was at sea, my dad was in an outage at the plant, etc., etc. So finally this past weekend, we brought my grandma and grandpa's ashes back to the town that time forgot (Margaret, Texas) to be "sprinkled" in the cemetery (what actually happened was my dad and my uncles ripped these plastic bags of ashes open with my dad's pocket knife and dumped them over the headstone. Very romantic.)
I was dreading this experience, not just because funerals suck and I've been to my fair share. I was dreading all of the small talk I was going to have to make with relatives I hadn't seen since I was a teenager. When I was a kid, we used to go visit all the time. My cousins and I would stay up all night playing cards with my great aunts (actually my dad's cousins... see weird family reference above), we would go down to the Pease River and come back covered in red dirt, and we would play countless hours of truth or dare after the old ladies finally called it a night.
I always loved going and hanging out with everyone. But as the years went by, and more time passed, they just became a memory and I wasn't sure I would ever see them again. I wrote them off as part of the past and moved on. After Grandma went downhill, the separation widened. (Quick clarification: this is my grandpa's family and the town where he grew up. Grandma was actually from Louisiana.)
So anyway, there I was, driving down a deserted highway, nothing but grass and blue sky in either direction, experiencing all kinds of deja vu. "Oh yeah, I remember that billboard," or "Yeah, I do remember passing the jail on the way out of Vernon," were the kinds of thoughts passing through my mind as I got closer. I was the last one to arrive at the lunch before the service (and let me just say, old ladies definitely know how to cook. I ate ALL the trans fats on Saturday).
I was pretty nervous when I walked inside. First of all, I hate small talk anyway, and second, this was a chapter I considered closed and really had no interest in reopening. However, as the day went on, and I managed to detach myself from my mom, whom I had clung to since arriving, and talked to a few cousins, caught up with some people, listened to one of the aunts say inappropriate things without giving a fuck, etc, I relaxed. I realized that I actually enjoyed talking to these people as an adult. They were basically the same people I remembered. And although I know that I, and my cousins who are close to my age, are all very different people than we were as children or teenagers, a lot hasn't changed. We still have a bond because we grew up together, and they're still my family. And even besides that, we actually have a lot in common as adults, which for some reason really surprised me.
So yes, the day was about remembering Grandma (or Aunt Nancy or whoever she was to all of these different people) and saying goodbye to such a fun, adventurous, generous lady, but it was also about reconnecting with family and roots that actually are important to me and worth remembering. I think that would've made Grandma really happy. The Taylors weren't her biological family, but she loved them like they were. It's not the same without her, but I hope that another 12 years don't go by before I see my dad's family again.
