There will be a funeral for my Aunt tomorrow. A “social distancing” funeral where no more than 10 people at a time are allowed graveside, including clergy. All others are to remain in their cars. It’s a 2 hour drive for me.
I will be inconspicuously absent.
I have an excuse, I have dialysis. As far as the attendees are concerned I made every effort to change my appointment but couldn’t make it happen. Call it my little secret, but I didn’t even try. Why do I care? Most of the people in attendance don’t want to see me. And I couldn’t give less of a shit if I had to.
Riverside Cemetery is in my hometown. An enormous, sprawling landscape of rolling hills and old, massive oak trees providing abundant shade for the eternally resting, Riverside is full of stones with familiar names. The amount of stones with my last name is staggering.
Ellie bought a plot near my grandparents on my father’s side. It’s that section of Riverside cemetery that I don’t want to visit. A place of meditation and introspection for most of my family, to me section C is representative of a house divided. Many of the stones are dedicated to good, honest people with a solid legacy in town. Many others turn my stomach.
Tomorrow, Ellie will be laid to rest next to her abusive brother in law who raped her nieces and beat the nephews. Only when he wasn’t shitfaced and beating her sister. On the other side of her will be the brother that died in prison, a career criminal known in town as a pedophile with three known child rapes and voluntary manslaughter under his belt. I could go on but I won’t.
There is no way that I can tell this story in this blog. I may tell it later. The only thing I can say in order for this to make sense is that many of the people buried in Section C of Riverdale in my lifetime, and many attendees tomorrow, colossally disrespected the most honest man I have ever met. My father.
I thank God every time I visit that he is buried in a different section.
Tomorrow’s attendees may have no problem at all with the shameful past of Section C. I do and always will.
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The Tao of Bill 