"...the song woke his heart into the darkness and sadness of joy..."

There's a quote that seems to originate from a number of sources, which isn't surprising since it's not terribly original. But it is terribly true."You may be done with the past, but the past isn't done with you."I returned to West Texas this week for that most compelling of homecoming reasons, a funeral. My Aunt Kay died last week. She was married to my father's brother, but she was also my mother's childhood friend. The four of them were the closest of friends, and that closeness applied to all of the cousins as well. We functioned like an immediate family; all of my childhood memories include my cousin/best friend, as well as her cooler-than-cool dad and her impossibly kind and good-hearted mom. When Uncle Tommy died in 1979 and our families drifted apart, something cracked in my family. When my father died eleven years later, that something shattered altogether. I don't think we ever entirely recovered.Going home this week was about saying goodbye to someone who existed as a central fixture in my childhood, but it also served to try to place that childhood family experience in a larger context. Schuyler went back with me, partly because I thought it was important for her to begin trying to understand the whole end of life process but also because selfishly, I didn't want to go alone. Five and a half hours in the car from Plano to Odessa leaves a lot of time for conversation. When Schuyler asked if she had ever met Kay, I realized with sadness and shame that they had actua...
Source: Schuyler's Monster: The Blog - Category: Disability Authors: Source Type: blogs