Sunday mornings, my bullshit detector went off. This was a woman, a child of God, who had no idea.
When she was done speaking, there was another uncomfortable pause in the service. I glanced discreetly at Mom and saw that she had no intention of approaching the altar. Elinda sat next to Mom, holding her hand. I thought about going up myself but I couldn’t think of anything to say.
One of the only good memories I have of my father are of the times when we’d go to some river or creek somewhere and I would gather agates or any other cool rocks. The year before he died, when I remembered to send him a Father’s Day card, I had mentioned these memories. It was one of the few times I wanted to give him something genuine. I knew that he was getting closer and closer to his end.
I stayed seated in my pew, unsure about my ability to speak. I did feel an emotional tug, a burst of tears ready to fall, but they couldn’t make it over whatever hurdles were there in my heart. I imagined myself in the casket. My funeral. What people would say. I imagined all of this selfishly, to bring tears, but that didn’t work either.
Matt sat next to me, also thinking about what he would say. He told me after the service that he thought about getting up and saying that John was a flawed man, a lonely, disappointed person who wanted forgiveness. He thought about announcing his forgiveness. But maybe the silence was more suitable.
My brother Russell eventually stepped up and started speaking. It seemed like he was up there merely to take up the slack for those of us who had nothing good to share. His words were cautious and faintly praising. He said, “John was a good provider.” But, I wondered, of what?
After
After the service, everyone filed out the front doors of the church and we each said hello to the priest and shook his hand. Some people thought there was going to be an open casket and a chance for people to see my dad one last time, but the casket stayed closed. I got the feeling that people felt awkward about it and didn’t want to ask if the casket could be opened. There was an anticlimactic feel to the whole thing.
Before the service, Matt, Russell, Mark, and I had to carry the casket from the hearse into the church, and now we had to carry it back out. It was heavier than I thought it would be and the handles felt like they were made of hard plastic. They dug into my fingers uncomfortably. It was as if Dad wanted to give us, the kids, one last moment of discomfort. I could imagine him purposely picking out the heavy one with crappy handles.
With Dad back in the hearse, we gathered on the church steps to figure out who was driving with whom to the cemetery. Then Mom stumbled down the church steps, and even though I was holding her hand, she fell awkwardly on her side. Some relatives I didn’t know helped me get her up and she said she was okay, just clumsy.
A short line of cars followed the hearse out to the cemetery. Like a tragically comic movie, it had begun raining and the wind began whipping around like it does in a desert city. At the cemetery, we again had to carry the coffin, this time to the grave. I hadn’t brought a jacket and I was pretty cold. I could barely hear the last formulaic words of the priest and I just wanted to get back in my car. I saw the backhoe behind the crowd, behind a tree, like it was an animal trying to hide from us.
Olive Garden
That night, a bunch of the family met at an Olive Garden for dinner. I felt a nagging sense of shame that we went to such a cheerful place. Its peppy waitstaff gave the illusion that the world is a fair and happy place and no one ever dies.
I sat next to my cousin Terry, who is about ten years older than me. I didn’t know him that well. He asked me about living in Portland and said he sometimes visited there to go to bookstores. He was a history teacher at a high school in Walla Walla and had a room in his house just for his library. There aren’t too many people in my family whom you’d call literary, so I was excited to have someone to talk books with. The conversation soon turned to family though. We played connect the dots with the bloodline. His mom was my dad’s sister, Evelyn, who had spent time at Medical Lake, being treated for psychosis at the same time Elinda was there getting shock treatments. His dad was someone he never knew. Apparently, he was a drug dealer who was shot and killed in their front yard when he was a little boy.
He asked me in all earnestness, “How was it growing up with John?” I could tell he knew the answer wasn’t going to be good, and I could also tell that he had his own opinions to share.
“It was kind of crappy,” I offered.
He nodded and said, “I used to go to your place a lot when you guys were little and I just wondered how you guys dealt with him. He was a bastard.”
I ordered another Spanish coffee and we talked more as we ate. By this time, I was tired of everyone treading softly and pretending that Dad’s life was saintly. “It’s nice to know that there’s someone here who isn’t full of shit,” I said to Terry. I was actually starting to feel like Dad’s death would become a reason for the family to open up more. After all, if there’s someone in your family whom you’re always afraid of offending, it can be stifling for everyone involved. Terry told me about being a kid and going to visit my dad a few times with his mom. This was a couple of years before I was born, when Matt was a baby and Mom and Dad were split up. Dad was living in some kind of motel out by the airport in Kennewick and there were
Matt heard us talking about Dad and joined in the conversation. Soon we were joking and laughing about his spazzy temper and creative cursing. Matt and I tried to remember the exact order of f-words and other swears when he smashed his fingers moving the fridge down the stairs. It’s the closest we got to a eulogy.
Hotel
That night, I stayed in a hotel room with my older brother Russell. I was in bed, with the lights out, falling asleep, when Russell said, “I was surprised to hear how negatively you spoke of your dad today.” He must have been referring to some of the things he heard at the restaurant.
At first I thought he was going to scold me for that, but I told him frankly about how disappointing a father he was. I talked calmly for fifteen minutes about all the reasons. In a way, Russell reminds me of Dad, so I wasn’t sure whose side he would take.
I was surprised to hear him respond with similar stories and feelings. I listened to Russell’s voice in the dark and could feel the pain in the air around us. I had always thought of Russell as the serious-minded, conservative, military, older brother, but now I could see that he was vulnerable too. I told him about how having a bad father made me try to be a good father and he told me about some of the things he, too, learned as a father. He had a son named Charles when he was much younger, with a woman he was not with for long. When the relationship ended, he let her take his son. Now, after years of having not talked to him, he had no idea where his son was.
After he lost contact with his son, Russell fell in love with a Korean woman and married her. She had two children from a previous marriage, a son and a daughter, and Russell became their father. A couple of years into the marriage, his wife was in a car accident and was paralyzed. She’s been in a wheelchair ever since. They went back and forth from Korea to America and maintained a strong and loving relationship. But still, I got the feeling that Russell was regretful about not staying in touch with his son.
We talked for a couple of hours and then fell asleep. At five in the morning, the alarm went off and Russell had to get up to catch a flight. I stayed in bed, half-asleep, and said good-bye to him. He set his bags in the hallway and stood in the doorway. “Well, it was really good to talk to you,” he said. “And I want you to know that I love you
