I had long suspected that my grandmother and I were the only people on my mom's side of the family who hadn't completely lost their lids. The funeral this weekend proved that to be very true.

First of all, the funeral. It was nice, the pastor was kind, but the frustrating thing is that the service reflected very strongly the people who planned it, namely my mom and her sister, but not my grandmother. Maw Maw would have preferred much more silence and reflection that what occured. After the pastor gave the opening remarks, he sat down, and the CD player started blaring out drum beats.... pow, pow pow pow, pow..... and I seriously look back to the control room because I think they've made a mistake and switched the music. But I looked over at my mom, who had the biggest smile on her face, so I knew it wasn't a fuck up on behalf of the funeral home people. It was what my mom wanted. After a few bars of the drum beats, we hear the beautiful, melodic voice of the great Canadian singing sensation Anne Murray belting out "I can see clearly now the rain is gone..... I can see all obstacles in my way... blah blah blah..... It's going to be a bright (BRIGHT!), bright (BRIGHT!), sun shiney day." Oh well, so much for the silence and sensibility that my grandmother exhibited. I guess it's ok, though. She wasn't the person who needed to be comforted during that time, but my mom was. And she was.

But the funniest, and I do mean funniest (I was laughing about it even during the funeral,) part of the whole time came about fifteen minutes before the service. Many of us grandchildren, and other assorted relatives, casually congregated in this little lounge area of the funeral home where they have coffee and drinks. Now, before I tell you what happens, let me let you in on a little secret that I let you in on at the first part of this blog. My family has completely, totally, utterly, and every other exhaustive term you can use, lost their fucking minds.

So we're all sitting around waiting on the service, and one of my cousins blurts out "I'm bipolar. I was diagnosed two years ago." Now, in any other group of people this would cause great discomfort... someone, without provaction, letting you know they have a serious menal illness. But not my family. Nooooo. What comes next? Another cousin (not really a cousin, but someone we call a cousin), "Really!? Me too!) My sister (who is really my sister) "Yeah, me too. I was diagnosed a few years back." Another cousin (of the not real variety) "Wow, me too!" Another cousin (again of the not real variety--- there's a lot of familial confusion in east texas) "I'm not bipolar.... I'm just crazy!!!" So here we are, fifteen minutes before my grandmother's funeral, and we have a group of highly sedated thirty somethings comparing their Meds. "I'm on Zanzadil." "Oh, I tried Zanzadil, but it made me break out." "Oh, then you must be allergic to Zanzadil, you have to balance it out with Kryptonite." "No, I tried the Zanzodil and Kryptonite mixture.... didn't work. What you need to try is a coctail of Tryphoid and Kakal in the morning, balanced out with Zanzadil in the evening, and a nice shot of prozac before you go to bed." ***

When my grandmother was alive, and people were being total idiots, she would always look over at me, furl her eyebrows and roll her eyes, and say "Sheee- ut" (east texas for shit.) And the reason I laughed during the funeral is because I can imagine that's exactly what my grandmother was doing. Looking over at me and saying "Shee-ut. These fucking people have lost their goddamned minds. They're minutes away from putting my body in the ground, and all they can talk about are the pills they're swallowing."

It's great to have a relationship with people in which you instinctively understand each other. I think it's very rare. Such was the case with my grandmother and me.
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*** All medications are made up, except for prozac. I can't pronounce, much less spell, the stuff they were saying.