December 8, 2009
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oh god i have not written here in a long time. quick entry and then BACK TO WORK!
workworkwrowkrworkworkwork
so anyway, zach went to his grandma's in pennsylvania for thanksgiving and she woke up one morning and said, "i had a dream that someone came up to me and said 'you are going to die' and it scared me and i couldn't get back to sleep". you and i both know this means bad news bears because not that i really believe in that kind of stuff, but it does happen that when you are older (90) and you have dreams like that, it typically means not-so-good things are coming.
she died wednesday.
so he headed out thursday and i went out friday and spent time with the family and now i understand why jarrod acted the way he did at our mom's funeral, because when you have met someone twice and don't really know the family and don't feel like going through the receiving line because...why? you really don't know what to do and just stand around for lack of a better idea. so i did that. it was also the first time i had seen a casket lowered into the ground (as i remember it, when my dad's dad died, melania and i were playing hopscotch on gravestones because we were but tiny lasses at the time) and that was ...about what you would think it would be.
but for the rest of the time, i met zach's family and ate fantastic food and heard some great stories about makeshift bombs made in a tide box exploding looney tunes style in his dad's face and general 12-year-old debauchery in a quiet pennsylvania town.
i met a guy named maher from twinsburg who is related to zach. he and i talked about roundabouts and traffic circles and he has been to dublin before. i talked to zach's aunt frances about consignment shopping and project runway and z's mom and i had a series of lovely chats about entourage, snots, socks and facebook.
the two parts that really stood out to me, and then oh god i really have to go, were when zach's uncle dean was doing a muslim blessing over the casket - first, fourteen-some guys and three women in hijabs came into the funeral home room three-quarters of the way through the funeral and stood in the back, and when dean motioned for them to come up and bless the body, he wanted them spread out so everyone could see in front of them, but the ringleader of the group said, "no, this will help her" when he insisted they all be concentrated in one group in front of everyone. very sweet and i have no idea why.
the second was when twinsburg guy (maher, not to be confused with zach's uncle maher who makes movies) was translating arabic writing on the backs of all of these pictures collected from zach's grandma's house would tell us what the hell was written on the back of each photo. there were a few in particular of this guy who zach's aunt had affectionately nicknamed "slick willy" because he had slicked back hair and looked like a real "hey, how you doin'" type of guy and it turns out that his writing completely reflected that - writing "i wish the moon and stars for you" and "may the memories wash ashore from the boat of happiness" or something. later, maher looking through the pictures and said "this is my father!" and everyone went AHHHHHHHH and gasped and it was fantastic.
so despite the horrible situation and losing a treasure in the family, it was kind of a great time sitting around, hearing stories and meeting everyone.
fin
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