ANYBODY WANNA KNOW


I did most of my crying for Gloria while she
was alive. She is now with God and if she is
with God and He is with me, we are not
apart. Those are the words I spoke for her at
the funeral before Janet, Tina, and I sang a
song that I wrote for her. When we were
finished, my aunt gave me a nod of
approval.

Most of her so called-friends weren't even
there. All of the people she knew, her x-
boss, her road buddies, where were they?
And where was my dad? Is he really not
coming? I was resigned to the notion that he
was going to come. Despite that, the service
was a nice one and had the support of her
church family. It was snowing pretty hard
by the time it let out. Those who were going
to the cemetery piled into the limo and other
available cars. The pallbearers were having
a difficult time carrying the casket through
the slippery cemetery to the burial site.
They slid and slipped until it almost looked
like the casket was holding them up.

They got to the plot and set the casket down.
We did all of the usual things that they do at
the gravesite service, and after we all placed
our flowers on the casket lid, we headed up
towards our cars. One of the kids looked
back and spotted my dad sitting in his car on
a side road off of the cemetery and called to
him, "Grandpop!" All of his grandkids ran
over to him in his car.

They turned back to my sister, niece, and me
and tried to persuade us to go over to the car
with them, but we refused and they went on
their own. Dad got out of his car and went
over to the casket with the kids for a brief
moment and got back into his car. When the
kids came back to us they were upset
particularly my son Ron.

He wanted to know why we hadn't gone
over to my dad and acknowledge him. Why
were we disrespecting their grandpop? They
didn't understand. They had no idea what
went on between the time her illness was
revealed and the time she died. They didn't
know of the turmoil and agony, the
shouting, and hard-to-keep promises. Even
at the repast he cursed and demanded
answers. Answers that couldn't be explained
in the time span of a meal.