My youngest brother Pete will be accompanying my Mom on a week-long visit to New England this week, the principal purpose will be to bury Dad in Mom's family plot Monday morning. (I'm not sure about Dad's side of the family, except I know the remains of my beloved Aunt Grace, a former religious sister and educator, are stored in a mausoleum: presumably any family plot was full.)
I was not happy about my futile attempts to contact my cousins (all on Dad's side, since my Mom's only sibling is a priest). Brothers #1 and #3 and Dad's other sister had children. Family communication has been challenging; I was particularly close to Jackie (she later changed it to a more Franco variation of Jacquie) in terms of correspondence. I was experimenting with my poetry and had written verses in an apple-like profile; I had solicited her opinion. She had lost her own dad by her teens and her mom (and our grandmother who lived with them) by my early twenties when my maternal grandfather passed. I had gone to visit Grandfather over the holidays while my Dad was stationed in Germany and my aunt used to come and pick me up for the evenings to visit with her daughters. Jackie was the vocalist of a trio (two male friends) which did covers of soft rock hits like the Carpenters; they mostly played at special events like wedding receptions and the like. Jackie and her younger sister earned teaching degrees at Providence College; ironically I made a campus visit to Providence College and was willing to teach at a bargain basement salary, but they ended up hiring a more local candidate. The sad thing is that teacher market was saturated, and the last I heard my younger cousin was working civil service. I don't think my cousins ever got past losing their parents at a young age; Jackie cut off communication when I was not supportive of the cousins getting involved with a Pentecostal group.
(Ironically I lost my first college girlfriend to a Pentecostal group; our first fight was when she got me to come to a Pentecostal service. I didn't have a car, so one of the college's religious sisters escorted us. One of the congregation started "speaking in tongues", which sounded like "Ja-ma-ba-ka-fa...."; I rolled my eyes and told my girl, "Oh, give me a break!" I could tell that she was pissed at me, and I was mortified when she stood up next and started speaking in gibberish; there was no place to hide. The ride back was uncomfortably silent as we sat as physically apart as possible in the car. We eventually got over that; she later got an invitation to join a religious commune and basically tried to use it to pressure me into making a commitment to our relationship. I told her that it was her decision whether to stay in San Antonio; she left for Dallas and I never heard from her again.)
So my Mom wrote to me last night and told me Jackie had passed; they only heard about it when they visited my surviving uncle/aunt last year in Connecticut. The latter couple actually met at my folks' wedding. It's odd that my uncle, roughly 2 years older than my Dad, is the survivor of the family, because he has been dealing with chronic medical issues for years. There's a family kerfuffle over my uncle because somehow my grandparents didn't catch an anglicized version of our surname ("Guilmette") (my Dad would often write it as "Gillmet" at restaurants, because most people will butcher the pronunciation, e.g., "gwill-E-mettee", or worse. I've learned to respond to "Ronald?") We've always called him "Uncle Ray", but more recently, he's gone with "Emile". I do not know why my uncle never corrected the errors, but it would tick me off when my cousins would address mail to me using the misspelled variation.
I heard a rumor one of my cousins might drive her dad to Monday's graveside service. I suspect besides Mom and Pete, my maternal uncle and a close cousin of Mom's will be there. I was conflicted on whether to attend; I would have gone if Mom had asked or if Pete wasn't able to go. Among other things, either TSA or American Airlines fractured my hardside suitcase last Sunday (American changed my arrangements 2 or 3 times Sunday, the last one with just a half hour and I had to traverse different concourses. The gate agent rebooked me through Delta, but I had to recheck my baggage and go through security again. Delta had to heavily tape up the end of the suitcase. Incidentally, TSA wasn't too bad, but they had an obsession with scanning my hands. I was worried, because I didn't know how long I would be in San Antonio, given Dad's critical health status, so I booked one-ways.) I also have to drive to Pittsburgh for flights, and there were budget and travel scheduling constraints, not to mention professional work considerations. (I had to postpone a key interview, originally scheduled the day Dad died.)
It's funny how many times Dad has been popping up in my dreams and consciousness lately. There are some physical characteristics I have from each side of the family. I inherited my double-jointed thumbs from Dad (my thumbs bend back at near right angles), the barrel chest is from my Dad's side, and my Mom once told me I got my high cheekbones from a Cherokee great-grandmother on my Dad's side. I think my looks favor Mom's side, although I think my complexion favors Dad's side.
I think Dad probably found me somewhat enigmatic; I did not share his mechanical interest or aptitude. Some of the toys he bought me over the years went barely used (but I did like this toy bazooka that shot plastic missiles, which probably drove Dad nuts when I shot it off in the family vehicle on our drive down to Florida). I had a moment not unlike that of John-Boy Walton, as aspiring writer, in "The Homecoming" when his hardscrabble dad brought him a supply of writing tablets for Christmas; on occasion during my early childhood the folks would leave us at a day care facility for an evening--and forget all the toys, I thought the coolest thing was when I got a clean sheet of copy paper--the things one could do with a blank sheet of paper staggers the imagination. My middle brother laughs at that and said that my folks should have gotten me a ream of copy paper for Christmas. Everyday when I start my daily political blog post, I feel the same surge of excitement. I'm constantly tweaking my signature format.
There are some things I edited out of my eulogy. One incident that sticks out involves a high school student's dad who involved in Scouts and in baseball. In one game, being a lefty, I was playing off the bag at first base; his son hit a soft liner towards the gap into right field on a hit-and-run. I speared the ball and raced to first for the unassisted double play. I could hear the dad repeatedly screaming, "That was NOT a double-play ball!" For whatever reason, he disliked me and sabotaged the first time in Boy Scouts I went up for Star Scout. (I passed the second time, but left short of my goal of Eagle Scout. My brother and I had worked hard on a trip fundraiser; one of the options was to see our first MLB game at the Astrodome. Our side won the vote, but the troop leaders refused to ratify the result and pulled Tom DeLay armtwisting tactics on a few swing Scouts; I think they were pushing a camping trip alternative (Big Bend?), and they won the revote. Nothing wrong with camping, but as Scouts, we had been on several camping trips. I felt they should never have offered the Astros option if they had no intention of ratifying it. At that point, I was done with Scouts, and I think my brother followed me.)
In any event, there was some interim kerfuffle where this leader was upset at me and he sent a car after me on the way home; my Dad decided to drive me back (we passed the car chasing after me) and have a conversation with the said leader. My folks were a couple of inches shorter than average, but don't let his stature deceive you. (My 6'4" brother-in-law admits that my Dad intimidated him when he first started dating my sister.) My Dad basically told the leader not to mess with his kids or he would have to deal with him. From what I could tell, my Dad did all the talking and left the sheepish leader staring blankly at the ground.
My Dad hadn't been in a position to help me financially through my first 2 degrees, but the family's financial situation had improved in the 1980's; my Mom started working at a local base exchange, and Dad got a stable position with the USPS. It had been a culture shock on my trips home from Houston to see my youngest siblings at will pluck a can of soda or a carton of Blue Bell ice cream from the refrigerator/freezer. When I left home at 16, these were special occasion treats, like for birthdays. I used to deliver around 90 papers a day under the broiling south Texas sun and used to finish up with a swing through the bachelor quarters, which had vending machines (including beer). I would sometimes sacrifice one of my hard-earned quarters (I cleared maybe a dollar a day on my route) to buy a can of Sprite. In Houston, I faced a double whammy; I was working in the dying APL timesharing industry, whose business model had been undermined by cheap commodity computing, e.g., minicomputers and microcomputing, plus the economy and oil business had been in a recession, in part because of Fed high interest policies to deal with inflation. I had started working on an MBA part-time but I didn't have much cash to ride out the layoffs. I think the worst time was just around the time I was admitted to the PhD program and had won a small stipend position as a teaching fellow. I had worked registration one semester to pick up extra cash. I thought I had about $100 in my checking account, but I must have been hit with service charges I didn't know about, and I was not aware my registration check was available. A couple I had befriended through Catholic Newman got married and had invited me to the wedding; I had enclosed a $15 check, only to discover, to my horror, the check bounced (and I think the NSF charge was twice the amount of the check). So, for the most part I had a tight budget through graduate school.
The reason I'm explaining this is to provide context for the following. During all this period I never asked the folks for money. I think the one time I had asked for help is when I needed about $500 to have my math thesis typed and bound. My mom suggested going to my Grandfather; there was a trivial incident in sixth grade where my Grandfather swore I would never see a cent from him for college--and kept the grudge. I was wary--I knew he would give Mom the money, no questions asked. At the least I thought she had cleared it. I was wrong. I was about as eager asking for a loan as someone else might approach a root canal. My Grandfather went ballistic when he got my request; my uncle smoothed things over. Ironically a courtesy copy of my thesis was in transit to him when we got word he passed.
At any rate, when I left home back to UH during that period, as I was leaving and saying my goodbyes, he would often slip a $10 or $20 bill to me.
In later years, we would have different moments. I remember accompanying him to some eye or medical appointment; he had me drive his new truck back home--I was nervous because I had never driven it before, and the last thing I wanted was to have an accident with his truck.
But we had a ritual of sorts with his seeing me off at San Antonio airport. He would buy me breakfast tacos and then see me off through security. I'm usually quite stoic on these occasions; except for brief visits home since 16, I had lived on my own and paid my own bills. But on this one occasion I'll always remember, it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks that I was leaving my home, my own support system, the only people who love me unconditionally. I teared up, stealing one last look at my Dad.
No longer will he be there to tell me almost invariably that I need a haircut and drive me to his trusted barber. No longer will he there to brag to his VFW or American Legion buddies about his son with the PhD. We had very different styles (I'm more blunt and direct, but I've never heard someone say anything negative about my Dad, and his children and grandchildren adored him) but the same values. I knew Dad had back and knee problems and there are risks with surgery. But his oldest brother just passed earlier this year, and I thought we had years. I was wrong. I miss you, Dad.
