LOST AND FOUND
On the morning of Chris’s parents’ memorial service, I threw on my favorite summer dress that just happens to be black and noticed that there was something in one of the pockets. I reached into my left pocket and pulled out a sock. One sock from one of my favorite pairs of Bombas socks had gone missing right around the time I’d last gone to Oklahoma to see Sangwon. I had been questioning my choice to make the drive for this service and whether or not I truly needed to be there. But when the Universe hides a sock while you are seeing someone for the last time and then makes that sock reappear on the day of that person’s memorial service, you make the four and half hour drive to be there.
The family interned both parents in this service and it included the full military treatment with the gun salute and Taps on a trumpet. The first time I had ever experienced a full military service was when J died. A lot of that day remains cloudy and hazy in my memories from all the cold and sinus medicine I had been taking at the time. The one thing I clearly remember is my physical reaction to the gun salute. I can only describe the experience as out of body and painful. I felt myself rip into two pieces with my actual body remaining standing and my soul floating up above the crowd. I felt Chris and my cousin Tammy both place hands on my shoulder and just as quickly as I split into two, my soul rushed back into place. This is now my standard reaction to gun salutes at any military funeral. My body splits in two and slams back together with every crack of shot. I physically react as if I have been hit and wounded by each bullet. As a result, I am riddled with wounds. Some of them are scabbed and healed, but there are more than a few that still ooze with grief. I sat alone at this service, taking in every bullet and listening to my nephew and niece tell stories about their grandparents.
My brain buzzed with how and what I would end up writing about this experience. I couldn’t really name my feelings. Was I sad? Of course, but not in an overwhelming way that made me want to crawl into bed and sleep through the depression kind of way. Our niece said something about being surprised by Sangwon’s passing only because she though her grandma was indestructible. I couldn’t help but laugh because Sangwon really did seem to be made of steel. She passed out once after mowing the yard and when she came too, she drove herself to the emergency room. She ended up needing a pacemaker. She was practically headed into surgery before she bothered to call anyone. I was almost surprised to hear that she didn’t perform the surgery on herself. Maybe I don’t know how to feel because I too thought she was indestructible.
The last thing I said to my niece as I was saying goodbyes was how I couldn’t believe she was a grownup now and how I wasn’t sure I liked this. She replied that she didn’t like being a grownup either. I had a thousand things to tell her about the good parts of being a grownup. I could have told her that it’s not all hard things. The only difference between childhood and grownup is that you now have to think about things like bills and showing up to your job. Occasionally you’re the one making the end of life decisions for someone you love. Some of us had to be grownups when we were still children. Those people probably cherish the childlike moments of adulthood and have a love affair with whimsy, more so than those who just grew into adulthood by societal norms. It is possible to remain a child and do grownup things. Just the other day, I said to Michael that I was going to ride my bike over to my friend Jenn’s house to go swimming and that I’d be back before dinner. It was just like something I’d say to my parents except Michael didn’t ask me if I’d finished my chores, which I had not. I left a laundry basket of clean bedding sitting in my room unfolded.
But I didn’t tell my niece any of those things. I just said goodbye and walked away.
It was an ending, a sad, somewhat abrupt ending with promises to stay in touch with who is left in Chris’s family. I went out of obligation to a dead man. I went because I found that stupid sock in my pocket. I went because it was the right thing to do and everyone knows I always do the right thing even if I don’t really want to. I went because I’m a child who does grownup things.