A Life Worth Living

My grandmother passed away this week.  O.K. actually she was my step grandmother.  And more often than not a part of me thought of her as a step grandmonster.  And as funerals usually do, I found myself reflecting a bit… about life and the meaning of it all.  Ruth Broadbent was the name of my grandmother.  And I know one thing for sure about her.  She didn’t like us when we were little.  I don’t know how she felt about me when I got older.  But I know for a fact that when we were little she didn’t like us.  Not that she came up and said I don’t like you.  But when you’re a kid, you can tell.  When I was about 5 or 6, and my brother, sister and I were in Cadiz for our annual summer visit of 2 weeks, we spent one week with Grandma and Granddaddy Walker.  The second week was spent with Granddaddy and Grandmother Broadbent.  Usually, the set that picked us up, got us first; and the second pair delivered us back.  Anyway, it was a Grandma Walker first year.  And the switch over was happening.  Grandmother Broadbent came to help me put my shoes on and I told her that I didn’t want to go with her.  The memory is a bit vague, as I’m older and my memories all blend together.  But I remember it being a bit of a battle of wills.  And I know that she left and I stayed with Grandma Walker.  I don’t remember much in the way of laughter or smiles, but much in the ways of heavy sighs and frowns.  When I got older, much older, I learned that there was also some difficulty between her and my aunt Cheryl.  Though I don’t profess to know what that is…nor do I really want to know.  What I do know is that it wasn’t just my perception that she was a  hard, difficult person to love.  And as I walked into the funeral home, my aunt  Yvonne hugged me and told me she loved me.  And it took everything that I had to not laugh out loud in shocked disbelief.  Perhaps I was at the wrong funeral?  And as I was sitting through the ungodly long music ( I swear it lasted 20 minutes or more), and then the strange merging of peaceful, easy feeling and amazing grace, and then some strange 1970s must have come from a spaghetti western, ballad (at which point, again I was trying not to laugh), it hit me that this was simply a travesty.  I should be overwhelmed with grief.  This woman, though not really my grandmother, was the only grandmother that I had ever known.  And I felt nothing for her passing.  I felt bad for Yvonne, because they were close, and for Sarah and Katie (the real grandchildren), and some for Cheryl, but not for the death or the passing.  And as the preacher began his sermon (in Cadiz there is apparently a no eulogy talk about the person rule if Amy Serrano attends the funeral) and the preacher said that she made good biscuits, country ham, and red eye gravy.  And what a summation of a life that must have been.  What a horrible thing that there was no one to stand up and say more about her.  Even at this late date, I would  have relished an opportunity to hear someone’s positive regard for her.  To hear that she loved, gave, laughed, had joy – even if she never chose to share that with me.  And I sat there wondering why didn’t she like me.  And though I suppose I could have been maudlin and whined about the unfairness of it all…really what was the point.  I had accepted for some 20 years that I was nothing important, and I was already o.k. with that.  Wishing it were different didn’t make it so.  But more importantly, it made me want to work on myself so that at my funeral – which of course no one will attend because they don’t attend my parties when I’m alive, that I’d like for someone to be able to say something more about me than I made a mean pancake (I don’t do red-eye gravy – really grease and water, bleck…).  Of course, who am I kidding…I’m never going to set aside money for a funeral, it’s a waste of funds.  So when everyone comes to Elijah and Isaiah’s house, I hope that someone is genuinely upset that I’m gone, but does not regret my relationship with them (except perhaps Satan from Eleventh Street, she can regret all she wants).  But I’m pretty good with my standing with all others in my life.  And that says something.  I just want to have lived a life that was worth something, to others and to myself (mostly to myself because I can’t do anything for others really).  And if that’s what I walk away with from the stepgrandmonster’s funeral, well then that was  lesson worth learning and I suppose she gave me a gift after all.