Yup, I was right. By Catherine on 1/10/2008 12:40:00 PM
I fail at New Year's resolutions. BUT the good news is that Virginia and I are really starting, really really, tomorrow. I know Friday seems like a weird time to start gymming, but this was a particularly busy week at work and a particularly sad week personally, so what better time to start than when you already feel like crap? I used to feel great after working out, very refreshed and surprisingly energized, and looking really good didn't hurt either. I'm ready, it just took awhile.That being said, we went to Katie's wake on Tuesday. It took two hours to make it through the line, and the whole thing was too heartbreaking to put into words. Add in the fact that the family was Catholic (translate: open casket) and I was sufficiently freaking out.
I was never exposed to enough Catholicism to understand it well, or to get anything spiritual out of it-- no, what I got out of being Catholic was a lot of guilt feelings and a healthy dose of repressed sexuality. Oh, right, and a TERROR of death and dead bodies. My granddad died when I was 6, and I think I knew enough about the mystery of death not to question what it meant. But what remains with me, to this day, the moment I relive at every wake and funeral and Catholic church service, is when I saw my precious Bup, the nicest and gentlest man I knew, who doted on me like I was Queen of the Nile, laying in his casket, cold. Cold, cold. I touched him, not expecting him to feel like that-- it was shocking, and I couldn't even cry. The whole time, I just sat there, with my eyes on fire... But I couldn't cry.
The big man who grew up next door to him in Southie, the priest, gave the services and then gave me a rose. I brought it home and put it next to the one my Bup gave me, encased in clear fiberglass and with a short string of pearls wrapped about the stem. I still have that rose sitting on the bookshelf in my living room. I still think about my Bup all the time. I wonder, is he proud of me? Would he like who I've chosen to be my mate? Would he love me like he did when I was 6 or would he be disappointed that I didn't go to law school like he wanted and that I don't have more discipline in my daily life? I'd give just about anything for one more day with him, as long as it didn't end with an open casket.
Labels: bad mood, death, unfunny