Physically, I have a high metabolism. emotionally, then, I’m just going to charge through some impressions to get them out of my immediate mental space. I have to work on a deadline. Having missed voting in a local election due to being in southern mo all day, I’m seeing my lone vote might not have helped.
Lesson: people will allow their lives to be legislated to the nth degree in the small things, but will miss the bigger picture of where that malleability may lead them.
Mon night I stayed with my sis so we could be on the road early Tuesday to meet my mom and head to Versailles Mo. I stayed up later than I should’ve watching electric horseman which was some of Redford’s best acting; the film would make a good Americana double feature with Urban Cowboy.
Versailles Mo is pronounced with a long “a,” which is another aspect of Americana: our giving European names to small American towns where Dairy Queen is still the main hangout. Until the kids are old enough to drive, anyway.
On the way, town names passed – Pittsville, Columbus, Sedalia, Warrensburg, Oak Grove, Holden and the Whitman AFB – proved not all Missouri townships saw the allure of the court of louis xvi.
My grandmother lived in Versailles; her first daughter who died as a baby of typhoid fever is buried there.
We got to the funeral home a half-hour before the visitation. my mom spoke to the funeral home director and my sis took the girls to the restroom to freshen up. My brother-in-law, likewise, went to the restroom. I looked down the aisle of the room where the ceremony was to take place. It looked like there was a small plastic doll at the head of the open casket; I walked in to look closer.
It had been a long time since I’ve seen my grandmother’s hair done. she’d given up on anything but rudimentary brushing. It was more silver than I remembered from the harsh gray it had appeared without her usual care of it. Her thin lips had the lightest rose red, which had been her shade since I was a kid. She was dressed in the khaki beige spring suit my mom had chosen for her.
The only detail that surprised me: the perfect manicure in a shade to match her suit; she deserved to have hands that pretty.
I took it all in, holding back an urge to cry. the director appeared at my side suddenly; I went to touch up my lipstick after looking at the cards on the flowers.
Visitations last way too long but probably shouldn’t be any shorter. the muzak versions of songs by Jjohn Denver, Jim Croce and Cat Stevens only make you realize you’re sitting in a funeral parlor.
Every time a new arrival came in, I watched them look in, raise their shoulders, pull out a kleenex. cousins who I never saw anymore were there, looking like respectable adults. It would have been a treat, but i wouldn’t have had anything in common with them other than the reason for which we were all there.
The preacher was running late, which was weird for a mid-day funeral. He got there five minutes after one, and read a beautiful eulogy my mom had written, then segued between pre-recorded hymns during which he sat. Afterwards, he’d did some soft sell to get new members.
That last was ungracious, forgive me, but it stays. jesus’ perfection while living is debatable; his proximity to a god who permits suffering on scale large and small just seems like a grifter’s detail.
Essential truths are ones that don’t change. Decency, like that of my great-aunt’s family who invited us to their home after the burial, doesn’t belong to a denomination.
On the way home, my sis put it on a talk radio station; it was dark and the noise of the chatter kept us focused, even if we didn't agree with or take seriously the words of the wannabe Limbaugh on his late-night shift. Like people allowing themselves to be called sinners, but a lot scarier, are the people who listen to conservative talk radio and think they’re getting news.
My grandmother would have voted for obama; she was wary of clinton. And she was never a republican.
The political system in this country being more concerned with super delegates than hard-working constituents, will anyone miss the ballot of a 90-year old Versailles, mo native?
They should; she could have told them a thing or two.
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