#1024 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Monday November 11)
Good morning,
VISITING RELATIVES—REUNION MEMORY #4
My parents are buried in a lovely cemetery in Newport Beach. Their remains lie next to my sister. I rarely visit, partially because it’s far away, partially because it brings back some unpleasant memories, and mostly because I know they aren’t there. I know there are people who believe that, on visiting the grave of a loved one, they are enveloped in warmth or feel a presence or a force. I am not among them. To me, the moment a person dies, they cease to exist in the corporeal world and they forever thereafter reside in the hearts and minds of those they left behind. Whether there is some future afterlife that provides hope or comfort that our lives do not end—but merely change their context—I will leave to the judgments of others.
In any event, Notwithstanding my disinclination to visit graves, I woke up on Saturday morning of our reunion feeling I was so close that I should pay a visit. My friend Glenn had the same inclination. The morning dissolved into lots of stories (we each knew the other’s parents) and reflections on their lives and our own. There was something meaningful about, having visited the old haunts of our youth the day before, we then visited the resting place of those who shared and shaped many of the experiences of our youth.
As for my reticence for visiting graves of those who were critical to my youth, I have even less inclination to visit the graves of relatives I hardly knew. That said, right off the freeway on the way home is another cemetery, containing my grandmother Lottie’s grave. I knew her only a little, as she developed premature senility when I was in elementary school. She visited us a couple of times and we visited her in Alabama, where she was in an assisted livlng home. I visited Lottie’s grave in large measure so that I could let relatives know that I cared enough to make that pilgrimage.
GRANDMA LOTTIE
Lottie’s story has been, for my generation of the family, largely an adjunct to the story of the larger-than-life Grandpa Eddie. I recall very little about her, beyond visiting her in Alabama, after her mind was gone, and a couple of incidents from when she and Eddie visited when I was in second grade. She already was in steep decline.
My elementary school for grades K-3 was at the end of the block and across a public park that opened onto the back of the school’s playfield. It was a short walk and is one of my earliest memories of independence. Leaving the house and walking all that distance (or so it seemed) was to venture out from the comfort of home to the structure of school, along the way meeting other kids on similar journeys. When Lottie visited, I was surprised to find her at the end of our block, where the park began, standing silently. It was an incongruous picture, this older woman (who at the time could only have been in her late 50s!), all dressed up and silently standing watch. When I walked up, she grabbed my hand and walked me home. I’m not sure she knew who I was or why she was doing it, but it apparently was important to her.
The other story was when our extended family was gathered tightly in the family room, watching films. In those days, films came back in small four-inch rolls. It was incumbent upon someone to splice these films together into a longer, more practical, roll for viewing. The typical “movie watching night” involved loading the reels on a projector, pulling down the screen supported by a tripod and collectively narrating the events. We were watching a film of my grandparents’ trip to India. They arrived via a freighter, as my grandfather knew the Pakistani captain and loved reliving his days as a seaman. In the middle of the film, seeing the ship and her quarters on the ship, she stood at her seat and proclaimed, “India stinks!” She then sat down quietly, never to my knowledge ever uttering another word.
IT'S A DOG’S LIFE
From David Rochkind:
“Please do a musing on service animals and not just dogs. There are myriad stories from the past five years of people bringing livestock, reptiles, birds and rodents on flights as emotional support animals. Airlines have since cracked down a bit but what the frick is going on here? [On another note,] not a day goes by where I don’t see dogs in restaurants, supermarkets, retail stores, doctor’s offices and more despite regulations prohibiting it. Besides it being unhygienic, what if I had a severe allergy to dogs?”
I’m with David on this. Service dogs should be allowed for the blind and those suffering from other handicaps. Emotional support dogs are appropriate for those who simply can’t function with the anxiety that a pet otherwise can reduce. But the whole idea of emotional support animals has become ridiculous and makes a mockery of the importance of allowing this exception. Just go on line and you can obtain the necessary paperwork and leashes that announce your dog’s “special” status. Never mind that when someone uses a support animal that isn’t trained that it is interfering with the important work of seeing eye dogs and other dogs that are truly performing services for the handicapped.
I can sum this up, and the privilege that it takes to take a dog along by abusing the rules, by quoting the tongue-in-cheek comment of a fellow passenger waiting at the Aspen airport: “Poor Aspenites! They are so much less healthy and so much more anxious than the rest of the world. It’s an epidemic!”
I think our hyperactive, needy dog uses me as a human support animal and that’s just fine with me…
Have a great day,
Glenn