Thursday, January 28, 2010

A Perfect Life

Eve stood on a verdant precipice looking over the immaculate garden, her big toe tracing the edge where spongy grass met solid rock. The breeze wisped past her, raising goosebumps on her exposed flesh, reminding her of an unusual feeling that she couldn't exactly define - vulnerability it would eventually be called in a language she could not imagine. She didn't feel cold, exactly, because cold did not exist yet. Still, she folded her arms across her breast for comfort as she allowed herself to float into reflection.

Her memory of that first awakening went something like this:

"Eve, you're in paradise," he told her, and her eyes brightly scanned the arc of his gesture. She remembered feeling incredibly lucky and humble that she had the opportunity to exist in such beauty. That was when things were good, inspirational actually. The colors alone lifted her into a blissful oblivion, and of course, he - with his gorgeously curious features, his amazement at her graceful movements, the way he looked at her, as if she were the most beautiful, most amazing addition to the garden.. Yes. His being there was certainly a positive. Then.

"And now?" she thought. She still loved him. Absolutely. She loved him even though he was her master. She loved him, even though he had loved another before her. She still loved the garden, and her soul felt warm as she looked across the horizon. "It's not him," she whispered. "It's not the garden. It's not anything except that I want more." She silently numbered her desires on her fingers: ".. to know what God knows, to understand why things are as they are, to truly experience the full range of emotions that my soul knows exists - the ones that come from a place I don't understand.." Paradise was brilliant, but the humanness of her body, its yearnings, made it nearly impossible to enjoy fully.

"I have to leave here," she thought, and then blanched at the audacity of the thought. "I want to leave here," she thought again, more willfully, "even though the consequence will be loss of this place. I want to go and explore, to know and attempt to understand what it means to be human, to find answers, to truly live! Isn't this why God made me this way? Different from the angels?" Eve tried to imagine what the world would be like in that instance. She felt an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach - uncertainty, it would be called.

The sky darkened, and the first drops of rain brought her out of her contemplation. "Not today," she whispered.

This post was inspired by the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a small and feisty(!) global community. We write weekly on a common topic (A Perfect Life, this week) and post responses - all of us together, simultaneously, from all over the world. (Lovely!) Please visit Anu, Conrad, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana for other wonderful posts.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Regret

We are not old until our regrets outnumber our dreams.. or something like that. It's a Yiddish proverb that I read when I began to research "regret." What I found was pretty much the usual, grandiose statements such as: We shouldn't have regrets, we should live without them! or Regrets hold us down. To truly live, let go of regrets.

I decided I do not like grandiose statements, nor do I like the idea that regrets should be so easily dismissed, as if we can wave the backs of our hands at them the same way we flippantly dismiss a teenager who is feeding us a line of bull.

Regrets do afford us the opportunity for forgiveness and for learning. And I understand that to keep regret too near can eat at a person. However, regrets are also necessary. Maybe if we held onto regrets a little bit longer, we wouldn't be so easy to dismiss our collective irrational, selfish, and/or bad behaviors. Then, perhaps, our collective dreams - eradicating hunger, peace for all nations, human rights for all - could actually reside within within the scope of reality.


This post was inspired by the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a small and feisty(!) global community. We write weekly on a common topic (Regret, this week) and post responses - all of us together, simultaneously, from all over the world. (Lovely!) Please visit Anu, Conrad, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana for other wonderful posts.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Faith

There was a horrible car accident on the street right outside of our school this morning, as the students were arriving for the day. The tell-tale signs were the varying pitches of wailing sirens -the low honking of the punctual fire trucks, the persistent two-toned police car whine, followed by the sing-song savior/bearer of bad news ambulance - and eventually the nosey news helicopters that whirred overhead. For an hour or more I listened to the horror outside.

The kids who were milling about in the halls ambled their ways to class, a little more quiet than usual, feigning nonchalance. After all, high school kids can't appear to be bothered by much, including by whatever obvious apocalypse that may or may not be occurring on their doorsteps. I could see that their eyes were a little wider than usual.

The PA system announced that we were to let our students in our classes without tardy paperwork. There was, "a horrible accident" in front of the school and traffic was stopped in all directions.

I feigned nonchalance for a different reason - the one that dictates that if the leader is calm, the crowd will follow. I silently took inventory of which students I saw in the halls, those who made it to class, those who didn't make it to class (my breath caught), and of those who weren't in class, those who were rumored to be the "bad" drivers (holding my breath). In the halls I took a silent teacher roll call and cautiously sighed in relief when I recognized that my department - the English folks - were present and accounted for. Not that any of that truly mattered. We all know that there is no reasoning when it comes to "horrible accidents." Without knowing any details about the chaos outside, and while being completely aware that for someone, somewhere - probably too close to home for it to ever be ok - the world was crumbling into irreparable pieces, I steeled myself, trembling, and began the routine assigned for the day: roll call, warm-up activity, instruction, assignment.
_______________________________________________
Perhaps this is the definition of faith -the place where the world in shambles meets standard procedure or expectation.

I once had the fortune of hearing Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak at a local university, and though I drive his message into the ground on this blog, it has become sort of a mantra for me on difficult days. "The world," he explained, "is good. How do we know it's good? Because the atrocities are still horrific to us. That's how." The horrific things- the murders, the scandals, the things that leave black scorches on the face of the earth - are newsworthy because we can't believe things like that can happen. The lovely things, in contrast - mothers caring for their babies, people checking in on one another, people praising each other for accomplishments and surviving the shit - that's what is normal. And here is where we find proof (and comfort in knowing) that the world is good.

I suppose in a way this is the concrete faith for which we are desperately searching. It's easy to dismiss people, to say, "You can't trust people to do the right thing or to make the right choices,"or "We're just going to ruin the planet" or the economy or the country or other people or whatever it is we feel like we've got a stake in or control over. For the collective, perhaps these are worthy accusations. But for the individual... Think about the folks around you - friends, family, teachers, grocery store clerks, neighbors, etc. and then weigh your findings.

If you ask me about my specific faith, I land somewhere amid the God inspired, majestic mountains and man-made chasms of the Abrahamic faiths and serene valley of Buddhism. I'm not sure how, exactly, to classify myself. What I do know is that whatever faith people in my school building proclaim (we are a very diverse campus) we were all hoping for, praying for the same things - that our loved ones were accounted for, and that whatever was happening outside would be bearable for whomever it was happening to. Understanding that commonality is a type of faith for me - a faith in people, more specifically, in the good in people.
_________________________________________________
It turns out that a school bus carrying 11 kids (aged 14 and under) hit a motorcycle cop who had just made a routine traffic stop. The gas tank on the bike exploded, killing the officer on contact and creating pandemonium. All of the people on the school bus were physically unharmed. The counselors from my high school rushed to the scene amid all of the wailing sirens, boarded the bus, and ushered the little ones out. They acted as immediate trauma counselors for them at our school, even though the kids were from other schools. Emails were exchanged all day about how our faculty was so thankful for the counselors and for the officer on our campus, that all of the police department was wholly appreciated for the constant vigilance and protection.

Individuals taking care of other individuals.. I, thank God, have faith in that.

This post was inspired by the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a small and feisty(!) global community. We write weekly on a common topic (Faith, this week) and post responses - all of us together, simultaneously, from all over the world. (Lovely!) Please visit Anu, Conrad, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana for other wonderful posts.

Friday, January 8, 2010


Yo Contra Ellos

Quest

So you've got your basics:

King Arthur searches for the holy grail. Er. He sends his knights to search for the grail. Galahad the pious finds it, depending on the version you read, and immediately is taken to heaven. Camelot, unfortunately, is already poisioned by the sinful nature of (wo)man and the ideal kingdom is set to fall, depite the victorious (for Galahad, we assume) quest.

Dante goes on a perilous quest through hell (literally!) in search of a new path, one that leads away from the "dark wood of error." Fortunately for Dante, he is able to ascend out of Inferno into Purgatorio, and then he vacations in Paradiso, lucky man.

Tolkien wrote about the overlooked (wink), undervalued hobbit whose quest is to destroy that which will bring ultimate destruction to the earth. He's successful in his quest, but is unable to endure this mortal coil, thus he sails to the Undying Lands in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

I could go on, for there are a billion, trillion (give or take) examples. Suffice it to say that research proves a recurring progression:

Desire --> Quest -->Success for the "worthy" --> immediate ascension into heaven, commonly known to most people as death. Immediate death. Unable to enjoy the success of the quest on this earth because you are dead.. which, on one hand, is good because you're in paradise. I guess. Oh, and there's the perk of minstrels writing songs about your battles, astronomers assigning you a permanent constellation, and poets writing you into legend, etc. But really, you could care less because you are, as I've mentioned before, dead.

So, why the hell are we - the common folk - always questing?

My life has been a series of little "questia minima" in the form of agenda items with tick boxes next to them.

college
husband
career
house
baby

And if life continues as is, the following:
retirement
grandkids
winnebago

Or something like that.

That's not enough for me. I am ready for a "Questius Maximus".

I understand, first of all, that I'm not "worthy" - neither pure, nor strong, nor (very) focused - and that negates the optimal climax and paradisic conclusion for me. There are no Ginger constellations in my future. I'm Ok with that. I also understand that quests can be life changing and can lead to disappointment, as do most earthy desires. But I would like to veer off course, away from the agenda and those little tick boxes that we love to check.

Isn't a journey worth anything?

"The play's the thing..."

This post was inspired by the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a small and feisty(!) global community. We write weekly on a common topic (Quest, this week) and post responses - all of us together, simultaneously, from all over the world. (Lovely!) Please visit Anu, Ashok, Conrad, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana for other wonderful posts.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Dogma in a Nutshell

artist: anonymous student in my class
medium: pencil and marker on scrap paper
message: metaphorical, in my opinion, but open to personal interpretation. Art is, after all, a relationship, isn't it..
Tag. you're it.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Cartwheels

The picture of my grandfather projected above his casket was one I didn’t recognize outright. It was certainly my grandfather standing in his blue jeans and red suspenders on a golf course, an ornery gleam in his eye. I recognized him, just not that specific photo.

The ceremony was typically Southern Baptist. Turn or burn was the general message, and following that was a semi-reverent alter call: “Close your eyes and pray. Tell Jesus that you know you are a sinner and lay your transgressions at his feet, for your judgment day is imminent. E.D., rest his soul, is currently standing in front of Saint Peter. We don’t know whether or not he’ll make it through The Pearly Gates, for only God knows a man’s heart, but I assure you that if you’re not a believer, then you will not be allowed in. Judgment day is near. Amen.”

This was not meant to be funny, though there was something very amusing about the whole thing. My grandfather was a very spiritual man, it’s true, but he was never one to take things too seriously. On his 80th birthday he was introduced as the guest preacher. On his way down the aisle to the pulpit, he turned a cartwheel. He was the sort of man who would jingle the change in his pocket right before a man tried to make a crucial putt on the golf course. That’s the sense of humor he had.

Since I can remember, the entire family was told to “Gather around Gramps. This is probably his last Christmas and we must take the last Christmas photo together.”

“What are they not telling us?” we asked each other in hushed, wide-eyed tones. The Christmas photos, as viewed today, reveal our concerns. While the adults are all winks and smiles, the children are deer in headlights, lost in thought, attempting to make sense of the fact that once again, Gramps had survived another year. There, of course, we no captions under photos then, except for the ones we wrote on our yellowing Polaroids. If there had been, the parents might have written:”Look! We got ‘em again! Boy, are those kids gullible!” while ours might have read, “Gramps’s last Christmas – Staying strong for him.” Instead we read Christmas ’78 (or ‘88 or ‘92 or any year in between ’75 and ’94, the year we were old enough to know better or to recognize the game).

That’s why the funeral seemed a bit too dramatic. I suppose I was waiting in vain for something amusing to happen, as it always did with things that were somber or serious.

As the service continued, I lifted my gaze away from the speaker, away from my family, away from the open casket, and up to the projected picture. It was Gramps alright... And that’s when I noticed it. I blinked and took a double take. Oh my gosh, it was really true! I nudged my cousin, Kristi, on the right of me. She looked at me, confused. I tried to stifle a giggle.

“What?” she hissed, her voice teetering on the fine line between horrified and amused. We were, after all, at our grandfather’s funeral.

“Gramps,” I said, barely able to speak over my brewing laughter. I pointed discreetly at the picture. “Look, Kris! His pants are unzipped.”

Another cartwheel.
This post was inspired by the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a small and feisty(!) global community. We write weekly on a common topic ("Humor" this week) and post responses - all of us together, simultaneously, from all over the world. (Lovely!) Please visit Anu, Ashok, Conrad, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana for other wonderful posts.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

A Perfect Life

Eve stood on a verdant precipice looking over the immaculate garden, her big toe tracing the edge where spongy grass met solid rock. The breeze wisped past her, raising goosebumps on her exposed flesh, reminding her of an unusual feeling that she couldn't exactly define - vulnerability it would eventually be called in a language she could not imagine. She didn't feel cold, exactly, because cold did not exist yet. Still, she folded her arms across her breast for comfort as she allowed herself to float into reflection.

Her memory of that first awakening went something like this:

"Eve, you're in paradise," he told her, and her eyes brightly scanned the arc of his gesture. She remembered feeling incredibly lucky and humble that she had the opportunity to exist in such beauty. That was when things were good, inspirational actually. The colors alone lifted her into a blissful oblivion, and of course, he - with his gorgeously curious features, his amazement at her graceful movements, the way he looked at her, as if she were the most beautiful, most amazing addition to the garden.. Yes. His being there was certainly a positive. Then.

"And now?" she thought. She still loved him. Absolutely. She loved him even though he was her master. She loved him, even though he had loved another before her. She still loved the garden, and her soul felt warm as she looked across the horizon. "It's not him," she whispered. "It's not the garden. It's not anything except that I want more." She silently numbered her desires on her fingers: ".. to know what God knows, to understand why things are as they are, to truly experience the full range of emotions that my soul knows exists - the ones that come from a place I don't understand.." Paradise was brilliant, but the humanness of her body, its yearnings, made it nearly impossible to enjoy fully.

"I have to leave here," she thought, and then blanched at the audacity of the thought. "I want to leave here," she thought again, more willfully, "even though the consequence will be loss of this place. I want to go and explore, to know and attempt to understand what it means to be human, to find answers, to truly live! Isn't this why God made me this way? Different from the angels?" Eve tried to imagine what the world would be like in that instance. She felt an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach - uncertainty, it would be called.

The sky darkened, and the first drops of rain brought her out of her contemplation. "Not today," she whispered.

This post was inspired by the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a small and feisty(!) global community. We write weekly on a common topic (A Perfect Life, this week) and post responses - all of us together, simultaneously, from all over the world. (Lovely!) Please visit Anu, Conrad, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana for other wonderful posts.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Regret

We are not old until our regrets outnumber our dreams.. or something like that. It's a Yiddish proverb that I read when I began to research "regret." What I found was pretty much the usual, grandiose statements such as: We shouldn't have regrets, we should live without them! or Regrets hold us down. To truly live, let go of regrets.

I decided I do not like grandiose statements, nor do I like the idea that regrets should be so easily dismissed, as if we can wave the backs of our hands at them the same way we flippantly dismiss a teenager who is feeding us a line of bull.

Regrets do afford us the opportunity for forgiveness and for learning. And I understand that to keep regret too near can eat at a person. However, regrets are also necessary. Maybe if we held onto regrets a little bit longer, we wouldn't be so easy to dismiss our collective irrational, selfish, and/or bad behaviors. Then, perhaps, our collective dreams - eradicating hunger, peace for all nations, human rights for all - could actually reside within within the scope of reality.


This post was inspired by the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a small and feisty(!) global community. We write weekly on a common topic (Regret, this week) and post responses - all of us together, simultaneously, from all over the world. (Lovely!) Please visit Anu, Conrad, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana for other wonderful posts.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Faith

There was a horrible car accident on the street right outside of our school this morning, as the students were arriving for the day. The tell-tale signs were the varying pitches of wailing sirens -the low honking of the punctual fire trucks, the persistent two-toned police car whine, followed by the sing-song savior/bearer of bad news ambulance - and eventually the nosey news helicopters that whirred overhead. For an hour or more I listened to the horror outside.

The kids who were milling about in the halls ambled their ways to class, a little more quiet than usual, feigning nonchalance. After all, high school kids can't appear to be bothered by much, including by whatever obvious apocalypse that may or may not be occurring on their doorsteps. I could see that their eyes were a little wider than usual.

The PA system announced that we were to let our students in our classes without tardy paperwork. There was, "a horrible accident" in front of the school and traffic was stopped in all directions.

I feigned nonchalance for a different reason - the one that dictates that if the leader is calm, the crowd will follow. I silently took inventory of which students I saw in the halls, those who made it to class, those who didn't make it to class (my breath caught), and of those who weren't in class, those who were rumored to be the "bad" drivers (holding my breath). In the halls I took a silent teacher roll call and cautiously sighed in relief when I recognized that my department - the English folks - were present and accounted for. Not that any of that truly mattered. We all know that there is no reasoning when it comes to "horrible accidents." Without knowing any details about the chaos outside, and while being completely aware that for someone, somewhere - probably too close to home for it to ever be ok - the world was crumbling into irreparable pieces, I steeled myself, trembling, and began the routine assigned for the day: roll call, warm-up activity, instruction, assignment.
_______________________________________________
Perhaps this is the definition of faith -the place where the world in shambles meets standard procedure or expectation.

I once had the fortune of hearing Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak at a local university, and though I drive his message into the ground on this blog, it has become sort of a mantra for me on difficult days. "The world," he explained, "is good. How do we know it's good? Because the atrocities are still horrific to us. That's how." The horrific things- the murders, the scandals, the things that leave black scorches on the face of the earth - are newsworthy because we can't believe things like that can happen. The lovely things, in contrast - mothers caring for their babies, people checking in on one another, people praising each other for accomplishments and surviving the shit - that's what is normal. And here is where we find proof (and comfort in knowing) that the world is good.

I suppose in a way this is the concrete faith for which we are desperately searching. It's easy to dismiss people, to say, "You can't trust people to do the right thing or to make the right choices,"or "We're just going to ruin the planet" or the economy or the country or other people or whatever it is we feel like we've got a stake in or control over. For the collective, perhaps these are worthy accusations. But for the individual... Think about the folks around you - friends, family, teachers, grocery store clerks, neighbors, etc. and then weigh your findings.

If you ask me about my specific faith, I land somewhere amid the God inspired, majestic mountains and man-made chasms of the Abrahamic faiths and serene valley of Buddhism. I'm not sure how, exactly, to classify myself. What I do know is that whatever faith people in my school building proclaim (we are a very diverse campus) we were all hoping for, praying for the same things - that our loved ones were accounted for, and that whatever was happening outside would be bearable for whomever it was happening to. Understanding that commonality is a type of faith for me - a faith in people, more specifically, in the good in people.
_________________________________________________
It turns out that a school bus carrying 11 kids (aged 14 and under) hit a motorcycle cop who had just made a routine traffic stop. The gas tank on the bike exploded, killing the officer on contact and creating pandemonium. All of the people on the school bus were physically unharmed. The counselors from my high school rushed to the scene amid all of the wailing sirens, boarded the bus, and ushered the little ones out. They acted as immediate trauma counselors for them at our school, even though the kids were from other schools. Emails were exchanged all day about how our faculty was so thankful for the counselors and for the officer on our campus, that all of the police department was wholly appreciated for the constant vigilance and protection.

Individuals taking care of other individuals.. I, thank God, have faith in that.

This post was inspired by the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a small and feisty(!) global community. We write weekly on a common topic (Faith, this week) and post responses - all of us together, simultaneously, from all over the world. (Lovely!) Please visit Anu, Conrad, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana for other wonderful posts.

Friday, January 8, 2010


Yo Contra Ellos

Quest

So you've got your basics:

King Arthur searches for the holy grail. Er. He sends his knights to search for the grail. Galahad the pious finds it, depending on the version you read, and immediately is taken to heaven. Camelot, unfortunately, is already poisioned by the sinful nature of (wo)man and the ideal kingdom is set to fall, depite the victorious (for Galahad, we assume) quest.

Dante goes on a perilous quest through hell (literally!) in search of a new path, one that leads away from the "dark wood of error." Fortunately for Dante, he is able to ascend out of Inferno into Purgatorio, and then he vacations in Paradiso, lucky man.

Tolkien wrote about the overlooked (wink), undervalued hobbit whose quest is to destroy that which will bring ultimate destruction to the earth. He's successful in his quest, but is unable to endure this mortal coil, thus he sails to the Undying Lands in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

I could go on, for there are a billion, trillion (give or take) examples. Suffice it to say that research proves a recurring progression:

Desire --> Quest -->Success for the "worthy" --> immediate ascension into heaven, commonly known to most people as death. Immediate death. Unable to enjoy the success of the quest on this earth because you are dead.. which, on one hand, is good because you're in paradise. I guess. Oh, and there's the perk of minstrels writing songs about your battles, astronomers assigning you a permanent constellation, and poets writing you into legend, etc. But really, you could care less because you are, as I've mentioned before, dead.

So, why the hell are we - the common folk - always questing?

My life has been a series of little "questia minima" in the form of agenda items with tick boxes next to them.

college
husband
career
house
baby

And if life continues as is, the following:
retirement
grandkids
winnebago

Or something like that.

That's not enough for me. I am ready for a "Questius Maximus".

I understand, first of all, that I'm not "worthy" - neither pure, nor strong, nor (very) focused - and that negates the optimal climax and paradisic conclusion for me. There are no Ginger constellations in my future. I'm Ok with that. I also understand that quests can be life changing and can lead to disappointment, as do most earthy desires. But I would like to veer off course, away from the agenda and those little tick boxes that we love to check.

Isn't a journey worth anything?

"The play's the thing..."

This post was inspired by the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a small and feisty(!) global community. We write weekly on a common topic (Quest, this week) and post responses - all of us together, simultaneously, from all over the world. (Lovely!) Please visit Anu, Ashok, Conrad, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana for other wonderful posts.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Dogma in a Nutshell

artist: anonymous student in my class
medium: pencil and marker on scrap paper
message: metaphorical, in my opinion, but open to personal interpretation. Art is, after all, a relationship, isn't it..
Tag. you're it.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Cartwheels

The picture of my grandfather projected above his casket was one I didn’t recognize outright. It was certainly my grandfather standing in his blue jeans and red suspenders on a golf course, an ornery gleam in his eye. I recognized him, just not that specific photo.

The ceremony was typically Southern Baptist. Turn or burn was the general message, and following that was a semi-reverent alter call: “Close your eyes and pray. Tell Jesus that you know you are a sinner and lay your transgressions at his feet, for your judgment day is imminent. E.D., rest his soul, is currently standing in front of Saint Peter. We don’t know whether or not he’ll make it through The Pearly Gates, for only God knows a man’s heart, but I assure you that if you’re not a believer, then you will not be allowed in. Judgment day is near. Amen.”

This was not meant to be funny, though there was something very amusing about the whole thing. My grandfather was a very spiritual man, it’s true, but he was never one to take things too seriously. On his 80th birthday he was introduced as the guest preacher. On his way down the aisle to the pulpit, he turned a cartwheel. He was the sort of man who would jingle the change in his pocket right before a man tried to make a crucial putt on the golf course. That’s the sense of humor he had.

Since I can remember, the entire family was told to “Gather around Gramps. This is probably his last Christmas and we must take the last Christmas photo together.”

“What are they not telling us?” we asked each other in hushed, wide-eyed tones. The Christmas photos, as viewed today, reveal our concerns. While the adults are all winks and smiles, the children are deer in headlights, lost in thought, attempting to make sense of the fact that once again, Gramps had survived another year. There, of course, we no captions under photos then, except for the ones we wrote on our yellowing Polaroids. If there had been, the parents might have written:”Look! We got ‘em again! Boy, are those kids gullible!” while ours might have read, “Gramps’s last Christmas – Staying strong for him.” Instead we read Christmas ’78 (or ‘88 or ‘92 or any year in between ’75 and ’94, the year we were old enough to know better or to recognize the game).

That’s why the funeral seemed a bit too dramatic. I suppose I was waiting in vain for something amusing to happen, as it always did with things that were somber or serious.

As the service continued, I lifted my gaze away from the speaker, away from my family, away from the open casket, and up to the projected picture. It was Gramps alright... And that’s when I noticed it. I blinked and took a double take. Oh my gosh, it was really true! I nudged my cousin, Kristi, on the right of me. She looked at me, confused. I tried to stifle a giggle.

“What?” she hissed, her voice teetering on the fine line between horrified and amused. We were, after all, at our grandfather’s funeral.

“Gramps,” I said, barely able to speak over my brewing laughter. I pointed discreetly at the picture. “Look, Kris! His pants are unzipped.”

Another cartwheel.
This post was inspired by the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a small and feisty(!) global community. We write weekly on a common topic ("Humor" this week) and post responses - all of us together, simultaneously, from all over the world. (Lovely!) Please visit Anu, Ashok, Conrad, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana for other wonderful posts.