Entry 43--AKA: "It's just too soon."

I went a funeral. No bid deal; some distant great-aunt I have never met. I went because my dad asked me to and I am a good daughter who wants to be there when her dad needs her to be. Funerals: never easy, but how had can it be if you don't know the person?

My grandmother's youngest sister is the deceased; my dad's side. We walk in and there is this huge group of people who share my blood. I look around recognizing faces I have never seen and it's the strangest feeling. It's like meeting people you've known you whole life for the first time. My grandmother had thirteen siblings and all but two of them are there with their children and their grandchildren. Generations upon generations of people unknown to me because of one argument no one seems to remember. Even my dad does not know what happened, or my aunt who makes a point to refer to her "crazy mother," for she cannot understand why my grandmother would turn her back on this family.

My dad introduces my mom, me and my boyfriend, Jason--"we're trying to get them married!" my aunt feigns to whisper--and my grandmother's many siblings take turns hugging us and look at me with wonder: "the last time I saw you was twenty-five years ago!" You were in a diaper!" They shake our hands, hug us and it is hard not to feel like I missed out on something. My dad makes a point to tell them that my brother was sorry he could notmake it, he had to work. "You have a son, Willy? I didn't know you had another baby!" an uncle declares. My dad pulls out his phone, proudly showing them pictures of my twenty-five year old brother as if they require proof of his existence. "He looks just like your father!" they each exclaim in turn as they pass the phone around. "He's an engineer. An electrical engineer at Honeywell--and he drives a Corvette!" my dad cannot hide his pride as he talks about his son.

My mom, Jason and I sit down in the pew as my dad and his sister rush from one group of people after another re-introducing themselves to cousins they haven't seen since they were in their youth. Before marriages. Before children. Promises of phone calls and emails, picture exchanges and holiday dinners are circulated without hesitation. My grandmother's oldest sister turns around to me, clasps my hand and says "I am so glad you could make it; it's so great to see you all again."

I don't want to let go of her hand. She looks like my grandmother and her hand feels like my grandmother's did: that soft, cool touch of someone who has seen more and touched more than I can imagine. I never knew the bad things about my grandparents; I never saw the arguments, the fights, and the split in this family. My parents never told me and my brother what were were missing, and we didn't know to ask. I see my grandmother everywhere.

I can feel my face flush and become warm remembering her funeral only a few months before. Meeting these lost relatives for the first time. I can still hear my dad, through sobs, making a point to ask forgiveness on behalf of my grandmother. Of those people my grandmother had cut off over the years in anger, in turn isolating her children and grandchildren: those mysterious people who showed up at the funeral, reaching out to this family that had grown apart from their own.

"Why are you crying?" my mom asks me. It is odd; I don't know anyone there and I have never met the sister who died.

"It's...it's too soon. It's just too soon."

My mom's eyes well up too and we stare straight ahead toward the coffin.