Beards, Bottles and Time
Tuesday 4/1/25 9pm CST
We are at my mother-in-laws tonight. I cannot count how many times I've been right here in the last 35 years. The rooms dimensions haven't changed, just the decoration. The walls have changed colors, new photos have appeared on the walls that stay the same even as we grow paler, wrinkled and diminished. I wonder how many more times I will grace a seat here before this place passes out of our lives. Certainly fewer times ahead than behind.
RV, AV, SLBY the boy, SLBY the girl and FCV are here. We are looking at photos and telling stories. There is laughter. And a few tears. Much of the shock and anger has ebbed and drifted away in the spring air. We joke that my MIL hates when guests don’t finish their bottled water, but abandon soiled, anonymous, half-empty plastic bottles everywhere. Pet peeves. I make sure to drain both of my bottles and dispose of them conscientiously.
I catch a glimpse of my wife's recently passed sister in a few photos… I can feel the tears building behind my eyes. I can’t believe how much I miss her. SLBY the boy distracts me with a photo of my wife and me from 1993. It makes me smile to see how gorgeously blond my hair was. Not this drab dishwater I have now. I suppose eventually it will go grey… but moms is still bright blond in her seventies… so. :–/ At least it's still full and wild and I fantasize myself with long, bushy hair. I always longed for a mane like the mythic Thor in comic books... but the vision is ALWAYS tempered when I seem some wretch with his stringy, lackluster locks pulled back in a ratty pony tail or twisted up in a fuzzy man-bun. So, I keep it short and respectable like a good Christian man. Be a good example, Wolf, at least as far as you can manage.
Maybe I should shave this grey mop off of my face. But my wife does like it. Not sure if she likes me looking older or that it feels good when we kiss. My suspicion is that as we get older, she is becoming sensitive that being a decade younger and genetics and life choices are maintaining my youthful appearance even as I approach mid-fifty. She enjoys the same shine of youth, but no amount of healthy eating, exercise, genetics, or lifestyle can stave off time forever. She is worried about that gap. So, she encourages me to keep my grey beard saying that it makes me 'look like a writer', stroking my ego. She says I need a full beard for my jacket photo when I publish my novel. I argue that I have to first WRITE said novel. It could be that she just enjoys the sensual effects. It's very handy for back scratches. Though hardly ergonomic for me.
I digress. The kids (funny that we still think of this group of men and women in their late-twenties and mid-thirties as 'kids') are all vigorously trading stories about growing up with grandpa and contrasting his peaceful and kind personality with his wife's assertive and sometimes caustic one. They laugh about eating too much, getting in trouble with grandma and the dynamic they witnessed between my wife, her sisters and their parents. It makes me a little sad that we didn't have children. It is better we did not, but I hear these people and I realize that they were recorders to the history of our lives. Even after we are gone, they will still tell the story of who we were.
What a blessing a child is to a parent that way. The things they remember and say about you. Sometimes evisceratingly honest and true, but also so full of unconditional love that it defy's description. It strikes me in this moment that I never realized that... how utterly adored a parent is, even a bad parent. Even a parent that is blamed for a person's woes... in most cases, there is still love there. Maybe one day, I'll experience that. But, that's a long-term thing. In the short, I just need to survive another sunrise.
We are tired. The last two days have been a long month. And this is a particularly intense period between now and Saturday, the scheduled funeral. So we excuse ourselves, dispose of our empty water bottles and drive home to finish the obituary, program and memorial video. Ugh, we have miles to go before we sleep.
#essay #death #memoir #100DaysToOffload #Writing
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Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
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