Snow and funerals

Posted March 7th, 2003 by Sean Williams

First of all, when exactly is the winter going to stop? What the frickin’ fuck? After the funeral yesterday we went to the actual plot and put the actual body in the ground, and snow was blowing sideways, up under the umbrellas, trying to Mary Poppins our asses out of there.

Jordana and her aunt Cheryl spoke at the funeral. Cheryl was actually lovely, she had a list of notes but tried to stay extemporaneous. She had been the president or, I don’t know, Chief or something, of her temple at one point, and her ability to keep an audience engaged was wonderful. Throughout the service everyone talked about Eleanor’s love of words and love of the written word, so when Jordana got up and read a very succinct lovely three paragraph thing that she had written, it was doubly powerful. Jordana’s innate shyness combined with her majestic presence gives her a regal countenance when she is speaking publicly, something that is so potent and yet so fragile, like Princess Di with an even bigger nose.

In any case, the weather yesterday was absurd, seriously. It was supposed to snow until maybe noon or one, and at six I looked out the window and it was still shitting down. I said, ‘It’s still snowing’ and Jordana’s dad looked out the window and said, ‘No, not really. That’s just a flurry.’ Which gave me some insight into his political views.

They mentioned me a couple of times during the funeral as a member of the family, and, I mean, I can’t really talk about how amazing that is. I spent some time shooting the shit with Jordi’s grandfather, probably because I was the only one also too uncomfortable to talk about Eleanor at all. The entire funeral was not only a celebration of her, but a recognition of the incredible devotion he had to her. When he was telling me about one of his trips to Australia, he said ‘I went with your grandmother and she wanted to tag an extra week on and do New Zealand. So I said sure…’ It was nice that he just figures she was my grandmother.

When they were mentioning all the couples (Jordana’s two male cousins got engaged within a few weeks of each other, and within a month or so of Ian’s engagement, so, y’know, I can’t get married for another ten years or I’ll look like a joiner), they mentioned Sabrina’s name, and Cheryl even decided it wouldn’t be humiliating to announce to the hundred or so people there that she was trying to find Sabrina a boyfriend.

I have this to say about that. The grass aint all that greener. Obviously, I don’t need to defend my feelings for J, but any of you single people out there? Just fucking enjoy it. The minute you enter into a long term relationship, the amount of thought you can put in to your own life is quartered, the number of relatives is doubled (or more), and the scheduled maintenance is not every 3 thousand miles, it’s every single foot. I wanted to take Sabrina aside and say ‘Um, dude, you are 23, gorgeous, and a girl. You could spend the rest of your life getting everything you want always, or you could find a guy who will treat you marginally, who won’t mature until he’s fifty, who will want to have sex with other girls and is only capable of love for about an hour at a stretch. I’m a guy, believe me’. But I didn’t.

I might say that to my sister, though.