just and old stick in the mud
We never face regret like we do at funerals. Shit, i am writing another fucking death post. Well, this one is personal so I will let it pass for the time being.
I don't think that we are ever really done with people that we love and that includes people that we don't know. That sadness that folks feel when their hero, even if it's someone they would never in a lifetime meet or know...dies, is real and undeniable. we weren't done listening to them. reading their words. seeing them drive fast cars on the screen. we lose our celebrities and mourn them because like it or not, we have developed relationships regardless of "knowing" them. i realize that this notion is built on fantasy and escapism but shit, what good would life be without fantasy and escapism. Ugly, that's what it would be.
I will tell the truth here and say that I am writing this one because I have to write about my uncle kurt. most of this post passage is just warming me up to tell a short story about him so the minister can use it to "understand" my uncle better and use it for his memorial service our memorial service for him that will take place almost exactly one month from now.
KURT DIED PURPOSEFULLY AND FOR THE MOST PART, ON HIS OWN TIME. HIS LAST FEW YEARS ARE A STORY THAT IS NOT MiNE TO TELL, I WASN'T THERE AND WAS ONLY GIVEN UPDATES FROM MY PARENTS. IT DIDN'T SOUND VERY FUN, BUT KURT NEVER REALLY HAD ANY FUN ANYWAY. hE WAS MISERABLE. AT THE END HE COULDN'T BREATH WITHOUT ARTIFICIALLY OXYGENATED AIR.
a short parable of Kurt that may or may not be true because memory is usually filled with lies we tell ourselves to feel better (or worse) about living.
I don't remember when this story came to me. It could have been when the mother of my boys and I were moving back from Minneapolis, which encapsulates another Kurt story separate from the one I was beginning to tell. My wife and I had added a cat to our family while we were living in Minnesota. We had stopped at the farm to rest for day before we continued our sojourn back to our Idaho home. The cat, released from its bondage in the car was meandering a bit in the sun-room porch. To his great and furious dislike, he was esconsed not only in collar, but leash as this was the only safe method for potty breaks along the way. The leash and collar were, of course because why not add insult to injury to this feline, pink. Kurt came in through the sliding door bedraggled and rough. Covered in the truth of mud. The soil of work. He looked at the cat. He looked at us, sitting at the table looking at him size up the cat. He looked back to the cat and proceeded on, smirking with derision said simply, "city folk" as he continued on into the house to wash away the stain of disapproval.
He was, of course, feigning his disgust. That short respite at the farm was a short and sweet time. I got to hang with my grandfather and my uncle in that room in the evening. Had them both to myself that night for awhile. what a gift that is now. It wasn't any less of a gift then but now...that time becomes even more important. I sit and write this now and am flooded with tears from a time I have had the privilege of taking for granted. What a gift that night was. now.
It was high summer during that road trip. I am going to decide here for the narrative arc that the subject of weather had come up around the table. I will also decide that my grandfather had gone to bed and it was only Kurt and I at the table. (HA! the table that Kurt saw my yellow Sony walkman and a cassette tape next to it that happened to be The Dead Kennedy's Plastic Surgery Disasters. Needless to say he was UNIMPRESSED by that band's choice of name and record cover art. I am sure I didn't even try and explain) As hot and sticky as it was on that Nebraska evening I was taking great joy in the fact that I was never going to have to suffer a Minneapolis winter again. Kurt agreed that this was a good thing, and began to decry the shit Nebraska winter as a farmer. As a sheep farmer in particular. Now all of my cousins and uncles here may cry foul and say it was cattle but I don't care. I am what they call, "city folk" apparently. Kurt talked bout how absolutely miserable it was to go out to help those ridiculously stupid, stinking, filthy animals give birth to their young. Three in the morning, twenty below zero, exhausted from the day before with a new day already upon him. Hateful misery without recourse or apology. And you know what he said? After all his lamentation and vitriol he said, "can you imagine how those Ewe's felt?" His own self pity immediately turned towards those ridiculous sheep and how horrible it must have been for them. Ten times worse. It wasn't about him. It was in the end only about them.
Kurt showed this abundantly. To everyone that knew better. Compassion and understanding for those less fortunate. I suppose that reminds me of another guy that people tell stories about in rooms like this.
I didn't get enough with you Kurt. I guess I always thought there would be another time on a porch somewhere. That kind of thinking is misguided at best, I know better than that.
I had some friends that were murdered a few weeks ago. they were minding there own business. literally killed while running their bed and breakfast in a small mountain town in rural idaho. shot to death by a mentally ill psychopath who was released from prison because the authorities had ran out of options to keep him under their gaze. rory and sarah were really good people. young, compassionate, caring human beings gunned down like targets in a shooting gallery. for no good reason at all.
this world is fucked.
Comments