2004-07-14 - 9:50 a.m.
A Wake
Today is the wake. Rode my bike this morning, which is something I haven't been able to do. Hopefully, somehow, that will get me through the day. Heart pumping. Head cleared. Had a nice chat with a woman who's a teacher at one of the local schools.
I was just starting to get the image of my emaciated mother out of my head, but I'll have to see her again today. I'm hoping that it won't be like salt in a wound, but...I dunno. I keep thinking, "What right do I have to not want to see it? Boo-fucking-hoo. Poor me. She's the one who had to endure it all!" So then I stop thinking about it and try to remember the good times. Still, the good times make me sad.
Last night as I tried to sleep, I heard my drunk father telling someone the story of how my mom wanted to work away from home, and so, in a Lucy and Ethel turn events, she and one of her sisters [the one who helped take care of her] got jobs at Goldblatt's. As my father told the story and as I drifted to sleep, I saw my mom and aunt B. in the episode of "I Love Lucy" where Lucy and Ethel get jobs at a chocolate factory. My mom and B. couldn't keep up with the conveyer belt and there was a chocolate mess everywhere.
I don't remember exactly what my mom did at Goldblatt's, but I'm sure it was a minimum wage deal, somewhere in the back of the store. There probably weren't even windows, just the mind-numbing buzz of fluorescent lights. Not the high powered executive type, she always chose to remain low key. And so do I.
So today, I'll have to endure the crowd that will have come to say "good-bye" to my mom. My younger brother and I counted our family members yesterday and, including cousins and second cousins, there are roughly around eighty of us. Many of 'em are loud...REALLY LOUD! They're not bad people, really. Like many people, they're misguided. In the myth of my family that plays in a constant loop in my head, however, their kids are well-behaved, everyone is clean, and the phrases (or pseudo-phrases, or, in some cases, sounds) "ehneh?" which is derived from "i'nnit?" [which come from "ain't it?", which comes from "isn't it?"], "dis," "dat," "dere", "hurted," and, again, "ain't" are never used.
The reality is that I come from a blue-collar family in a blue-collar neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. There are many things I need to come to terms with, and those are some of them.
I look forward to seeing my friends. I'm sure they'll help me get through this.
