She grew up outside of Richmond, the only child of a pastor in Dinwiddie county. She was married twice. The first marriage brought about my oldest uncle and aunt, Helen, Larry Sr., and Penny. The first husband and her first child, Helen, died in a house fire in the greater Richmond area. The second marriage brought about another 7 children, including my dad and the aunts and uncles I grew up around the most.
From her youth she was a very religious, kind person. I don't think I ever heard her use a swear word or say a bad word about anyone. She was a straight talker, but a not a loud talker. I don't remember her ever being taller than me or without gray hair. Also, she never drove. Not once in her life, by choice. Most of the time, when I was a kid, I would spend time with her during the day when I was with my dad while he worked.. She always had sweet tea and gossip magazines around. Both were garbage, but fun garbage. She always laughed at those stories of the bat boy in the Weekly World News and loved reading about Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson's divorce. She would watch over me with love and care and I always knew I'd be OK when she was there. She would dote on us, cooking and tending to all of her grandchildren. Some of my favorite meals were held in that house in Yorktown, Virginia. I'll tell you, if you never had a piece of her German chocolate cake, well, you missed out.
She and my grandfather, Thurman, were married 10 years until he died of a heart attack in his early 40s. Then she had to raise 9 children on her own. She had support from her neighbors and the members of her church, which was fortunate. She raised them with love and care, and they were all proud to be siblings from her womb. She had 9 children, 15 grandchildren, and 13 great grand children. We were all there. People came from all over. People my dad said he hadn't seen for 20 years. People he said, "huh, I thought he passed away, long before her. I'm glad to see him here"
I got into town Thursday night and knew I had to be there for my dad. He lost his dad when he was 7. That left his mom as the rock in his life and all of her children's lives. I've lost relatives, but I'm fortunate to not know what it's like to lose a parent. I can't and don't compare it. I just wanted to help make it easier by asking, "what do you need? Where do you need to go? What can I do? How can I help? Who needs what?" I can't imagine that pain. When I do, I would imagine it being like a piece of your soul being ripped out.
My aunt Sharon, her husband Anthony, my aunt Adrienne, my dad, and my step-mom, Wendy, were the people who made sure she was well taken care of in her later years. We would always meet at Sharon's house where Anthony would come around asking who was hungry. He would fry up something delicious, usually whiting or crab cakes and everyone would make sure my grandmother didn't have to lift a finger. I'd always give her a hug whenever I could because she always liked when I'd lift her off the ground, but she was so old that she'd tell me not to hug her too tight because she was getting up there in years.
The service itself was beautiful. We all went over in those town car limousines and I held my dad's hand because he seemed stressed and exhausted from it all. The lot was full. I mean *full*. There was music, remembrance, and celebration of her homecoming. It was an open casket, but I can never look at the shell in a casket because it's not that person. It never looks like the person I knew. Instead, I looked at her hands. They were in her favorite white gloves, with her initials on the cuffs, folded over her lap like I always knew them. The stories they told were great. They brought back memories that I hadn't thought of for years. My dad told stories from his childhood. Some that I knew about and some that I never heard. We got a chance to celebrate a person we all love and be their for each other in a difficult time.
I left Sharon's house at 11:30 and went to my mother's house to sleep. She bought me a little bottle of bourbon and I had a few drinks to settle my nerves. She couldn't go because it struck too close to home. We talked about my recently deceased grandmother, the relatives on her side that she lost, and we watched Boogie Nights intermittently and talked while I tried to calm down after a long few days. It helped. I woke up at 7 AM to get in my cousin Larry Jr.'s SUV with his wife and kids and slept part of the way back to DC while their kids crawled all over me. They're adorable, but thought I was a mountain to scale. It was fun but left me exhausted. We hugged and parted ways in Old Town, then they went back to their home in DC.
It felt good to be in the company of so many people who love each other so much. We were there for each other. I'm glad I could be there with my family and for my dad. I'm glad I was able to be with my cousin Larry Jr. and his family. I'm glad I got to see the other cousins I rarely get to see because we're all so busy building our lives in different corners of the world. I'm glad I was able to spend some time in my normal life with my friends on Sunday afternoon. I spoke from the heart, but I had to write down a specific piece so I wouldn't mess it up. Part of when I spoke, I used the following passage to address the attendees:
"A rich man asked a Zen master to write something down that could encourage the prosperity of his family for years to come. It would be something that the family could cherish for generations. On a large piece of paper, the master wrote, 'Father dies, son dies, grandson dies.'
The rich man became angry when he saw the master's work. 'I asked you to write something down that could bring happiness and prosperity to my family. Why do you give me something depressing like this?'
'If your son should die before you,' the master answered, 'this would bring unbearable grief to your family. If your grandson should die before your son, this also would bring great sorrow. If your family, generation after generation, disappears in the order I have described, it will be the natural course of life. This is true happiness and prosperity.' "
All of this was for a great person. The ceremony is over, but the real work is coming. Now it's the family helping each other: brothers, sisters, sons, daughter, cousins, aunts, and uncles helping to grieve and remember. We all agreed that everything was beautiful. That I would be coming down in the summer for time to spend with family that's getting older. That we all love one another. That we'll always be there for one another. In this life and in the next, I'm glad that I have everyone in my life that I do.
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