Friday, August 17, 2012

About the sweet taste of modern normal, and cemeteries.

I met my grand parents for the first time today. It was at the "new" cemetery in my dad's home town (village I should say. Miniscule gathering of homes in the middle of nowhere I should say). Somehow I felt I was a disappointment to them, because of the 80s punk band hair-do I was rockin. Like, had they been alive they would've frowned upon my poor choices in life.

You know there's a hair-dresser-fudged-up-my-bangs-story here, but I'm not going to tell it. Not now!!

As me and my dear father looked down at the graves of his family I suddenly realized most of them were alive during both world wars, and felt the need to express how weird that was. To me.
My father nodded and looked somewhat somber. I then came to a second realization, which was that he had been alive during the second one. This was even weirder.

"I got to experience the after-math, especially. I was... Nine or ten when I ate my first orange."

I didn't understand, really.

"Oh, but that was nothing compared to my first banana. It was so sweet, you know? Heaven."

---

I could've nodded here and taken in the information. Pondered about the changes in society and my own luck. But, at the mention of bananas my mind went stiff in discomfort and spelled out "c.a.r.b.s" with pure horror in the back of my head.
I then hated myself and pretended to listen to the continuing story.

Basically, I spent the day watching my father reminisce in secret sadness, while I felt lost and bewildered on roads filled with gravel instead of concrete. We entered the church where he was baptised, and the first thing I managed to do was cuss.
Good thing my dad's deaf in one ear.
Not that he would've minded. He looked so peaceful.

I'm sad that so much if my father's life has passed him by. But I'm glad I have him to teach me about the sweetness of bananas, and the calm quiet of a simpler Friday.

The end.


2 comments:

  1. This was very sweet and poignant. You shouldn't be so hard on yourself. Everyone was young once and it's hard sometimes to feel like your worth anything of value. But you are and I'm sure your grandparents would have loved how kind and intelligent and interesting you are. You've accomplished a lot of great things.

    And I'm sure that it was a great comfort to your father to have you along with him. Even though it might have been sad, it was probably nice for him to share his stories with you and to bring you to him homeplace.

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    1. HAHA! Yes, thank you Ands. (I keep trying out new nicknames for you. Ands is my least favourite so far)
      I did notice that he enjoyed guiding me around, which was why the experience was so sweet. "Here's my first school. It's a shed now. Oh, and there's the house where I met my first love. We were twelve. Her house is a shed now."

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