My brother Dick is probably the next in my family to die. How soon? It’ll be a while, nothing is imminent, and the doctors have no estimate, but with the litany of things going wrong with him one after the next, it’s hard to think in terms of ‘years’.
We’ve never been close, but I’m not close with anyone. Actually, Dick gets on my nerves. I don’t see him very often, even now that we live only thirty miles from each other.We text a lot, though, and I enjoy those conversations with good old Dick. I want to continue hearing his bad puns, and stories of playing his trumpet and being a Republican, believing in God but also making an occasional dirty joke.When he’s not there any more, his death will be bad enough. Worse, will be his funeral. Cripes, I hate funerals. Everyone wears black and someone plays an organ and someone else sings a song. The stories told about the dead are often lies, you have to pretend to like people you don’t, and people you don’t know or can’t stand want a hug and then they don’t want to let go. Everything is religious and fake, and it’s in a church, or at a funeral parlor selling $16,000 caskets. Death is awful, and funerals only make death even worse.Often I’ve announced to family that I’m never going to another funeral, but luck has made that easy. When my father died, I was a long ways away, out of touch, and didn’t even know he was dead until much later. When my brother Ralph died, I knew about it right away, but I was poor and several states distant — a great excuse not to come. Same with Grandma’s funeral, and my other grandma’s funeral.When Dick dies, it’ll be the first death in the immediate family while I’m around and in touch. There’ll be a funeral, and will I be there?I would much, much, a thousand times much rather that friends and family gather at a restaurant or in someone’s living room and spend an afternoon talking about Dick and his life. I’d be there for that.But I’m the lowest-ranking member of the family. If I suggest a restaurant instead of a church or a frickin’ funeral parlor, I’d be the only one accepting my invitation. Realistically, either I go to a bullshit funeral, or say no and mourn alone, and get rebuked for my absence until I’m dead and the bullshit funeral is my own.Weirdest aspect of all this is, I’m more bothered by maybe having to endure Dick’s funeral, than by his soon-to-be death.Analyzing that feeling, I think it’s this: Dick’s going to die regardless of anything I say or do, so while it saddens me, it’s not on my shoulders and I have no say in the matter.Going to his damned funeral, though, or not going — that’ll be my choice. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of another outrageous funeral, or to stay home and remember my brother better from a few miles away? That is the question.No answers today, though, luckily, since he’s not dead.5/11/2023
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