Today we are
driving traveling up to Bathysphere or wherever it is again, to bury my father. But not starting out until 1:00 or 1:30, on account of how Numbah One Son wanted to work a half day at his new internship with the NC Department of Transportation, this is his first week on the job and he didn't want to take a whole day off.
Which means we won't get to Bathysphere or wherever it is until late, and I will have to deal with a plethora of traffic (Crap'n Karlism). Ah, well, such is the life.
When my mom died, we were florists, so I brought flowers. This time I'm bringing photos on a black poster board and a tripod ... and a eulogy. And my eulogy is gonna be lit.
When my mom died, my dad and one of my sisters wrote eulogies, but they didn't personally read them, they got ministers to do the reading, because they were afraid they'd burst into tears and mess it up. But I didn't recognize the lady who was the subject of those speeches. Apparently, my mom was instantly converted, at the moment of her death, into a saint and a perfect, perfect woman. Nobody mentioned that she was a violent and mean alcoholic who started fights every night of her life and beat her children to the point of injuries (I still have a scar from the time she put out her cigarette on my hand when I wasn't looking).
I didn't rat her out, but I did tell the crowd in the church that she was an athlete who loved to play tennis and water ski. My dad and sister must have forgotten about that, since she lost a leg a few years before she died, and wasn't much of an athlete then.
Anyway, I wrote and delivered a eulogy about the actual woman who was my mom, not some mythical saintly woman that wasn't her, and you could actually recognize her from my speech. I did a good enough job with it that my dad asked me to frame it, and he kept it on the wall in his bedroom, to remind him who my mom really was.
So I will have a good eulogy to send off my dad.
Anybody within hearing: "Well, well, well!"
My dad: "Three wells make a river."
Wow, I haven't heard that one in 40 years, but it was one of his favorite dad jokes.