Skin Deep

So here I sit, alone, drinking whiskey. Now some would call this a problem saying that drinking alone isn't healthy and made more so by drinking to drown a memory...but I must disagree. I didn't need a drink, I simply wanted it. It won't be followed by another and actually is the only one I've had in a couple weeks. I would call it more a dulling of the senses...

I'm working on my grandmother's flowers for her headstone. They were sun bleached and seemed sad to me, so she needs new ones. It's depressing really when you get to the point that you think of and do things for people who are gone, and as if being late for a scheduled event with someone still living, you feel the need to apologize to them for what kept you. I wish I didn't have so many people to do that with, especially lately. I've lost nine family members in the last 18 months or so...well nine that were second cousins that I grew up with or closer. The last was my aunt, who was close enough to feel like a part-time mother to my sister and me.

It's funny, everytime I see a military funeral the gun salute always seemed as if it would be so harsh, gunfire when already in so delicate a state. The opposite was true. I cried but not from anguish in the reminder of death at the gunfire...I cried at the honor that my aunt was being shown for her dedicated service to this country. I cried that those men drove 2 hours from their station and told us that they were honored to be able to perform this show of respect for her. Then I cried that it had not been done for my grandfather.

My grandfather was a Korean War vet...air force pilot actually. He missed seeing his fourth child, his only son, come into this world and the first several years of his life. I can't count the number of times as a child he scolded me if i didn't eat every scrap of bread crust. Then he would talk about the war and how men would sit around and desperately long for even so much as bread...or even the crust. He ment it too, and I knew that, even at the age of six and seven, I knew.

I have lost so many family members that I honestly can't count them all without sitting down with family from both sides to help. The beauty of a large family is that there is always somebody around...the pitfall is that somebody else is always dying. So here I sit, drinking alone, scolding myself for not having grandma's flowers done for mother's day, even though my health simply wouldn't allow it. I have tiny cuts on some of my fingers from taking the old one apart...the weather left them rusted stubbornly in place. I'm actually happy for the tiny cuts, twisted as it may be, because every time something hits one and I look down at it, every time that something make one pop back open and burn...I will think of grandma. Next is my aunt's flowers...hers doesn't involve the sharp metal spikes though...I feel torn about that.