When did Miami get so Beautiful?

I went to Tennessee over the weekend to bury my dad’s older sister. I’m not sure she was actually buried, though. The funeral home screwed up and failed to have her cremated on time, and I don’t know whether they got the situation fixed. It’s amazing that they would do that, but there you are.

She was 84; two years older than my dad. I didn’t know her terribly well. I saw her a few times during my life, but there were no Christmas gifts or birthday cards, and until this weekend, I couldn’t name all of her kids.

When I was a child, my mother told me that during the early years of her marriage, she had been shocked at how distant my dad’s people were. She claimed my dad’s mother–I don’t think of her as my grandmother–told her that relations with my dad were so unpleasant, they didn’t want to stay very close.

This weekend I reunited with a cousin I last saw–I am fairly sure–in about 1968. I know I saw one other one not long after 1970, because I remember him mentioning the movie M*A*S*H as a recent thing, and it came out in that year.

I also saw my dad’s other sister this weekend. I believe I last saw her in around 1990.

Sad.

Sadder still, my dad and I were the odd ones out. His sisters stayed in touch, and their kids knew each other well. They have a lot of shared memories. Trips. Gatherings. We don’t know much about it. They talked about holidays and vacations past, when they did this and said that. My dad was able to keep up with them about the distant past, as in 1931-1956, but that was about it.

She died from a stroke, if I understand things correctly. She started having them some time back. She became forgetful. She said things over and over. She became demented. In February, she had to go to a home, and then she started speaking gibberish.

Like my dad, she was very overweight. I think that probably caused the strokes and dementia, but I’m no doctor.

My aunt was married to a Mormon, and when they married he had several kids of his own. I only connected with one member of the flock, back during the Vietnam War. She was a little older than I was, and we were not related by blood. My aunt could be a challenging person to get along with, and she and her husband were very hard on the kids, making them work constantly and maintaining harsh discipline. My cousin was quiet and gentle. I think we got along well because we were easygoing people with parents who were could be unpleasant.

I did not want to go to Tennessee this weekend. I was not needed. When my mother died, only two of these people showed up, and that was more than I had expected. I would not have made this trip but for my dad, who is not really up to the task of planning and executing a long trip alone. I truly dreaded going. I was worried about my house being robbed, and I had to move mountains to get the burglar alarm fixed. Then a garage side door turned out to be rusted out, and I had to take a grinder to the hinges. I had to have locks changed. Lots of aggravation and no reward.

My dad wanted to go from Tennessee to Kentucky, to see the town where he grew up. I have no connection to this place at all, except that it reminds me of the appalling and unnecessary deficiencies of my childhood. To make him happy, I agreed to go with him. We would be at the service in Tennessee on Saturday and then drive to Kentucky on Sunday. On Monday, back to Atlanta to catch our flight. If you add up the road hours, you will see why I was not pleased.

My aunt’s funeral was in Oak Ridge, and we got into town after 9 p.m. I had driven us up from Atlanta. I was beyond exhausted. The trip was tiring, and God had awakened me to pray in the morning, which cost me two hours of sleep. After some argument, I agreed to go to my uncle’s house and see the family. I would not get to bed until 12:30, and I knew everyone would be agitating to get started early the next day.

My dad was startled to see how his other sister and her husband looked. She was using a walker, and her hands shook. Her husband just looked old, and at his age, he had a right to.

I was as cheerful as humanly possible, and I waited for them to start giving us hints to leave. My cousin came over and talked to me, and she gave me information about my aunt.

When her issues started, they were just like the problems my dad has now. Asking the same question several times. Forgetting recent events. Confusion. And she would not go to a doctor. She and my uncle were in denial. Maybe a doctor would have put her on a diet or done bariatric surgery. We will never know. But when I talked to my cousin, I realized I was getting close to the beginning of a rocky road.

To keep from going crazy, I went outside and called the Holiday Inn and got a separate room, and I went to sleep in peace. God awoke me again, and I did what I was supposed to do and did not complain. I prayed. I blessed. I cursed. I decreed. Then peace returned, and I slept. I moved the alarm clock back an hour and a half. If they had to wait a little longer for me, they would get over it.

Breakfast was revolting. They had those weird scrambled eggs that have no variation in color, plus turkey sausage. I got a piece, thinking it couldn’t be that bad. I was wrong. It was that bad and then some. I can’t believe people eat that garbage.

While I was choking it down, my dad announced that he didn’t want to go to Kentucky any more. I got on the cell phone and moved our flight. God be praised. I felt like a runaway slave. I can’t remember ever being that happy.

At the funeral, my dad spoke, and then people related funny stories about my aunt. I had one or two, but they would not have flattered certain people.

Looking at the plastic beer-coolerish container which may or may not have contained her ashes, I thought about my aunt’s final destination. I have no illusions about it. She went to a Mormon church, but she didn’t buy into it, and even if she did, Mormons don’t receive salvation because they believe it comes by works. She and my uncle told the preacher or priest or whatever that they didn’t believe, and he suggested the keep going, just for the social life.

While we were at my uncle’s house, somehow the subject of American Indians came up, and my cousins started making sly references to their “real” origins. The Mormons believe they sailed to America from Israel. Of course, that’s a load of hogwash, and the Indians have no genetic relationship with the Jews, beyond what every human being has. When I heard them talking, I realized they were very serious about their heretical religion, their parents’ unbelief notwithstanding. Disturbing. I was looking at a poisoned field.

I don’t know why I had to go on the trip. Maybe it was God’s way of showing my dad his future. Maybe he wanted someone to pray for my cousins. All I know is, for the first time in my life, I was overjoyed to be headed for Miami.

At my uncle’s house, while I was talking to the clerk at the Holiday Inn, I heard myself say, “I’m never going to see these people again.”

My mother’s people are my family. When my dad talks about my mother’s father, he slips and calls him “your father.” My dad’s relatives seem nice, but I couldn’t pick most of them out of a lineup. His mother never called when I was a kid. We didn’t hear from his older sister much unless she wanted something. When his mother died, the other relatives cleaned out her house and gave us two items they selected, and my dad got the funeral bill. I didn’t attend. Nobody expected me to.

A while back, my dad tried to get me to go to a family reunion, and I refused. I reminded him of my age. I said, “It’s too late,” and, “I don’t know those people.” My remaining aunt and uncles will be dead in five years. I barely know their kids. My other relatives on that side are even more distant. There aren’t enough crumbs in the bottom of the bag to make shaking it worth the effort. I felt that I was being asked to go and put on a show of false love for strangers. To pretend that we hadn’t screwed up, back in the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties.

We screwed up. Some people would lie to themselves about it, but I won’t. We flushed whatever chance we had to be part of that family, and that was fine by them.

I’m glad the trip is behind me. I don’t expect to see anyone in my dad’s family again, except possibly when he dies. He isn’t leaving them anything, so they won’t be involved in his estate. I’m glad I know them, but there isn’t much there to build on.

My life is so different from the ones it intersected with this weekend. God is showing me joy and power. He is teaching me things, and other people are learning them from me, and they are starting to put these things to use and come back with startling testimonies. I don’t consider the earthly obstacles in my path the way I used to. These days, they fall. But my relatives keep grinding away, pushing the same rock up the same hill every day and expecting very little for the effort.

I understand what Jesus meant when he said that believers were his family. People who can’t see the light are tuned to a different channel.

I am going to look for a strategy to deal with my dad’s upcoming challenges, and I am going to work to get myself out of this city. I can’t save everyone, but I can help a few people, and I can look after myself. I hope I never fly into Miami again. I have seen as much of it as I need. This has been a pivotal month. For me, it’s a sharp upward turn. For others, it’s the crystallization of a course that leads nowhere.