I had a great day yesterday. Absolutely awesome! 1. The sun was shining. 2. I saw Owl while brushing my teeth and had a happy staring contest with him/her. 3. My boob squish was just that, a squished boob. According to the doc, nothing to worry about. Phew. 4. I had a FANTASTIC lunch with a friend with lots of chatting about the meaning of life and love and art and family. 5. And then, she took me to an antique store where I found this guy: Isn’t he pretty? This guy looks like my father. Or what I remember my father looking like. The funny-cool-spooky thing is that at lunch, I’d told my friend my whole Jerry Springer-esq life story and how I thought that my father looked like the rhinos from Babar the Elephant. The King Rataxes rhino to be specific. And then we found him, my new favorite thing, and my day just got more awesome. My relationship with my father is confusing and icky. When my parents split, I was eight. When I next saw him again, I was twenty-eight. There was little or no conversation between us in the interim years. When we met again, I was an unmarried woman with no children, a shaved head and no interest or prospects in getting married and having children. He could not relate to me. I could not relate to him. We had one very weird day wandering around Washington DC trying to connect. We didn’t. Our very weird day was followed by an even weirder night were I got to eat with the men while the women ate in the kitchen and the men they tried to set me up with the only single – and very gay – man in the room and convince me that I should have babies. It was the last time I saw him. And the last time I spoke with him. A bizarre final goodbye. When he died a few years later, despite the lack of connection, I’d somehow still thought that we’d someday have that moment where world would suddenly start to move in slow motion, the music would swell and we would have that touching father daughter moment worthy of a hallmark movie. Even though I knew it would never happen, those stupid movies led me to believe it might. My father's death meant we never would. It was a heartbreaking reality check that took me ages to get over. But I did. Phew. RANDOM SIDE NOTE: Did you know when someone dies in Kenya, some funeral traditions including taking a picture with the coffin? The dead person IN the coffin and people/family/random friends next to the coffin with what looks like a passport photo of the dead guy on top of the coffin. It’s creepy weird. I have pictures from my father’s funeral. It’s sad and weird and odd and yet, I just can’t get enough of looking at them all standing there awkwardly next to the dead guy - who happens to be my father - in a coffin and his passport photo on top of said coffin for all eternity. Don't believe me? Here is a picture of The Old Woman – who might be my grandmother. My father had two mothers so not totally sure – anyway, a picture of maybe-grandma and dead father’s coffin with dead father IN coffin and picture of dead father on top. And a picture of all the folks from hanging out behind dead father's coffin with picture of dead father on top. Just odd.
ANYWAY - To sum up: 1. Yesterday good, great lunch with friend, 2. Talk about my dad etc 3. Show and tell pic of dead dad etc 4. Shopping with friend and finally, 5. AWESOME rhino art named Henry. Good - nay - GREAT day!
1 Comment
allie
2/14/2014 03:11:03 am
some cultures have very weird funerary traditions. wait, is funerary a word? too lazy to look that one up. anyway, we have all these photos in a trunk that was my granfather's. they're all rolled up and look like scrolls. they're pics that were taken to show peeps back in japan (or ones taken in japan to show us californians) that someone had died and peeps were real sad about it. stoic faces and OPEN CASKET!!?!?!? but my mom says we have to keep these creepy ass pics. so there they sit in my grandfather's trunk. *shudder*
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AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
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