Family and Funerals

Here's why last weekend I flew to Pittsburgh on a Friday and back to L.A. the next day. Hint: it ain't because I love the good people with the TSA so damn much.

The story requires a boatload of exposition. My dad and my step-mother have for the last several years taken care of my step-mother's mother, Marian (universally known, even by her children, as "Grandma"). She was a very sweet, very gentle, very quiet woman who, since her husband died more than 25 years ago, always seemed to be one of those people left behind in a different era. Never really adjusted to the modern world, but it didn't much matter: she had a lot of family, she did some traveling, and she was, it turns out, tougher than she looked--on a skiing trip she was riding behind Dad on a snowmobile that he flipped, and she popped right up, laughing. So it was agonizing when, a couple years ago, she developed Alzheimer's. Her hearing went, too, so that even when she knew where she was, she couldn't hear anything you said and communication became nearly impossible. Eventually she became a walking ghost in her daughter's house, needing constant care. On October 5, in what can only be considered a relief to everyone, herself included, she passed on.

The world being what it is, there are odd coincidences. Dad, at an age when most men would be retiring, has just sold the house because his job needs to move him to Dallas. My brother and sister have moved into their own places, and everyone else was about to pick up and move to Dallas--but the night before the move, Grandma died. You can't tell me that people don't know when the right moment comes.

Now, Dad is one of the world's great stoics. When something happens, he becomes a no-muss no-fuss get-things-done sort of guy, which makes him a great guy to have around in a crisis. For something like this, though, it's not necessarily an ideal approach. His initial take on the whole situation was that he and my step-mother and her brothers would fly to Pittsburgh for the funeral, but that no one else should stop their lives to attend. He was considering all sorts of factors, like my siblings' new financial constraints now that they're living on their own, and figured it made eminent fiscal sense for them not to go. Which of course it did. But the kids were born late enough that they only ever had one living grandparent, and Grandma was it. I knew after ten seconds of talking to them that they needed to go, and the way to make sure that happened was for me to go myself. (And it didn't take long for Dad to figure all of this out as well, at which point he swung into action, arranging hotel rooms and rental cars.)

Hence four airports in two days. Because of course nothing was flying direct from L.A. to Pittsburgh, so I had to go through Detroit on the outbound leg, and Minneapolis on the way back. (Wondering, the whole time I was that particular airport, "I wonder which bathroom it was?" A friend joked "Keep your feet inside the stall at all times!")

Our planes got in last, so by the time we reached the Comfort Inn in Penn Hills, the rest of the family had a good loud wake going on in the hotel lounge. Tears and tales as the liquor flowed, and we were up till 3:00 a.m. with a 6:30 wakeup call.

Now 3:00 a.m. wasn't a big deal--it was only midnight, L.A. time. But that 6:30 wakeup, that one was a killer. Particularly because (a) our non-smoking room had just had a smoker in it, so everything reeked of cigarette, and (b) my brother, with whom I shared the room, loves cold weather even more than I do, so on a cold night he opened the sliding glass door, and by the time 6:30 rolled around I could barely move what with being near frozen to death. Hands shaking, I immediately started a very hot shower and stood under it for a long long time.

And when my brother woke up? He was frozen too. And we still hadn't managed to clear out the cigarette stench.

The service was quiet and small. And the funeral home was running things at peak efficiency, so that once we reached the cemetery, we didn't have a graveside ceremony at all, we simply filed into a covered room with a nice view for a few words; and as soon as we were done, another family swooped in for their own ceremony. I very nearly served as a pallbearer, but one of Marian's sons appeared at the last moment and I happily gave my space to him.

We ended up graveside anyway. Marian was to be buried next to her husband Walter, and we found the space just as the backhoe arrived. So a slightly macabre scene followed as some family members did (and others decidedly did not) stand around, watching, as Marian was in fact laid to rest. Gorgeous view, right at the top of a hill, with trees and a great big sky all around.

And then back again. The kids and I went into Pittsburgh, which we discovered is one of those cities that rolls up the sidewalks on weekends, then we found ourselves a bar at the airport, watched a college football game, and spent just a little bit of time with each other before getting on planes and planes and going our separate ways again.