Well, my Tender Lumplings, I, your humble narrator, had some bad business to deal with. My uncle passed away after being ill for quite some time. I hadn't seen him in a long long time. He was quite a character and the family and many many other will miss him.
No, generally, I don't do funerals. I just send a card and flowers and that's that. But in this case I attempted to make an exception. There were several cousins and 2nd cousins and old family friends I had not seen for even longer than it had been since I saw my uncle. Some of his kids had moved north years ago. So I went to see them and be seen. I was nice, but strange.
I was standing there talking to someone I hadn't seen since she was about 10 or 11. She is now the mother of two young boys. And I realized that I didn't really know any of these people. They are family and I love them immensely but I just don't know who they are. And I know for a fact that they have no clue as to who I am.
I didn't really grow up with them. They lived in another town and we saw each other a few times a year but back then it wasn't a big deal. But so much has happened in the last couple of decades. I am not the person I was back then. There really is no reason for me to think they have changed as much as I have but I can't know they haven't.
Take my cousin I mentioned above. Last time I saw her she was about 10 years old and, as far as i know, just a regular kid. Now she is 28 with two kids and a few tattoos. I don't know what happened in those 18 years. Does she like country music? Did she watch the Olympics? I don't know. And the same thing goes for all of them. It's just a strange feeling to love someone because they are family but otherwise have very little emotion toward them because you don't know them. How does that work? It's not like they are strangers, I've known them for forty years. But then again they are. How can you love someone that you don't even know if you like?
I would like to know them. Under different circumstances I would have loved to talk to them and find out about their lives now. But that is hard to do in the depressing air of a wake. Maybe now that a certain amount of contact has been established I can start learning. The beauty of email and the Internet and things like Facebook is how they make miles disappear.
So, I left before the actual funeral service. I just couldn't be there for that. The only other person there that I felt I still knew, other than my Mom and Dad and Brother, was my uncle. And I couldn't stand the thought of watching him be put in the ground. I hate that. I never want that done with me someday. I left and came home to ponder all this and my changing views of how I relate to others. How I effect them and how I am affected. Is it bad that I'm growing more and more detached from just about every other human? There are maybe 5 people I care anything about and of those only about 3 I want to be around.
Of course you, my Tender Lumplings, are the exception. I love you all with a boundless emotion that knows no bounds. Well, it wouldn't be boundless otherwise now would it?
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