Inside you the time moves

Archiving old photos on Saturday was an unsettling experience for this Boy named Stu. That whole, I wish I didn't know now, the things I didn't know then, kind of a vibe, as I looked at the time and date of the various photos I archived and/or added to Flickr. Many of these photos brought tears to my eyes. Made my heart heavy in a Monday morning quarterbacking sort of a way.

The next day, Sunday morning came down hard for me, at 6am. "Daddy..." The Elder Boy called from his room. "Daddy..."

Although the Boy is often up by 6am (if not before) I knew the reason he was up so early this Sunday. He wanted to go get donuts. Just me and him. I had done a Dad and donut thing with The Little Warrior earlier in the week, before I took him to school. Not only did Wy get this alone time with yours truly, he also got the kind of donut that E normally gets --- which was the kind of donut I got as a kid. Sibling rivalry and equal time was at play at Casa Tinsley.

"Daddy..."

After we quickly and quietly dressed, the Elder Boy and I stepped out into an alien environment. Fog. It was crazy thick, and visibility had to be at a quarter mile at best.

"Wow," I said. "Check out the fog. Isn't it amazing?"

Nothing.

"Ok Boy, do you want to ride in Mom's car," I asked. "Or ride in Daddy's?" I hoped he'd pick My Lovely Bride's ride, which is easier to get the Boy(s) in and out of, plus it would warm up a lot faster than my old SUV.

"Your car."

I guess he wanted the full Daddy experience.

"Ok. Why don't you ride up front with me," I said, because I'm lazy and didn't want to have to deal with the old car seats in my back seat.

Silence, although the look he gave me was answer enough. I figured he was afraid that we'd be breaking the law if he rode up front, so I said, "Boy, it's not that much farther than your school, and you ride up front there...you'll have your seat belt on, and it's early, who's up at 6am on Sunday morning? Except the paper man!"

"I don't want to ride up front," He said, and then climbed into my front seat, placing his muddy foot where I would soon sit, and climbed into the back.

"Do you need for me to strap you in or can you get it?" I asked.

"I can do it. Let's go."

Go we did. Through a thick fog that made our neighborhood look like another world.

After donuts, as we walked to the car I asked, "Do you want to ride up front on the way back. It's still really early and as you can see, there's not much traffic. Daddy can go the back streets too, if you want?"

"Ok Daddy," He answered, then quickly added, "We won't get in trouble?"

"No son, we won't get into trouble. You'll be wearing your seat belt, I'll go the back roads, and it isn't that far."

Up front, the Boy had a much better vantage point of the outside world, and how dramatic the fog was that morning. After numerous questions about the fog, what causes it, and why, he finally settled back and simply enjoyed it.

It was during this silence that we passed Heights Park. Large open space, thick fog, strong park lights, Heights looked like an alien world, and was quite impressive.

"Look Boy, at the park, and the lights, that halo effect around them, and then how they seem to glow," I said, then quickly trying to preempt twenty questions, "which I think is caused because the light refracts off the moisture in the air. The park looks..." I stopped myself from saying spooky, not wanting the Boy to equate fog with anything scary..."different, doesn't it?"

Since the park was on the passenger side of our car, and the Boy was in the passenger seat, I saw him nodding his head slowly in answer to my questions. Then, suddenly he turned and looked at me, with those big brown eyes which reflected the dash board lights and said, I shit you not, "It looks like ghosts."

"Yes," I said, "it does."

Until I BLOG again...and she don't fade.

I'm in the sky tonight

My Dad's Grandpa and Grandma were married twice. Their first marriage produced one child, Dad's Dad. Later, after they divorced, my Great Grandmother remarried and had children with her second husband. After he died, my Great Grandparents hooked up again, and lived the rest of their lives together.

When my Great Grandmother died, her children from the second marriage made sure that she was buried next to their father. My Dad's Grandpa ended up in his plot alone. Ménage à trois interments aren't an option in Oklahoma.

The fact that his Grandpa, ended up alone, disturbed my Dad, bad. So much so, that when his Mom died (ironically of cancer in her mid sixties,) my Dad told his Dad that he was fine with whatever he did in the future, romantically. Even if that meant remarriage. As long as his Dad, was buried next to his Mom.

My Mom didn't want to be buried. She didn't want to end up lying in state at some funeral home. Or worse, lying in an open casket at her funeral in the front of some church she never attended. She wanted to be, and was, cremated. After that, well, best I can tell, she didn't really give a shit. That was up to me and my Dad, who has strong feelings about that. He wanted my Mom with him. Her remains that is, which are in a fancy wooden box we picked out of a catalog when we arranged her cremation. That box, with Mom's remains, has sat, for the past year, in an old cabinet that housed our hi-fi stereo when I was a kid.

That's not entirely true.

Mom's not really in that fancy box. She's inside a hermetically sealed black box that sits within the wooden one. That black box has an affidavit sticker on it. Perhaps that sticker is required by state law? Or, simply there to make us feel better. Reassure us that we got the right remains. That they aren't chimney sweepings. Which would be funny, in a sick, kick in the nuts sort of way, considering how much time I've spent worrying about where Mom's remains should remain.

You see Dear Reader, Pops struck round number gold this January, by moving back to Oklahoma, exactly twenty years since him and Mom moved away. They did not leave their home state on good terms. In fact, Mom nursed a grudge the rest of her life, and vowed that she would never move back. That is why my monkey brain had been worrying about Mom's remains, and whether I should ask Dad to leave them with me instead of taking her back to Oklahoma.

Fuck me. What a thing to worry about.

Still, I did, worry, so I finally worked up the nerve a few weeks prior to the move and asked my Dad, "Do you think this is what Mom would have wanted?"

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"I don't know Dad," I said, "Mom had a hard on about Sand Springs and the way it all went down, when you guys had to move. She hated that place and said she'd never go back. I know you are moving to Broken Arrow, and it's not really the same thing, if it even matters since she's...but, still, would she want to end up in Oklahoma?"

"That's up to you." He said.

What? Up to me. That's why I'm bringing it up, I thought.

"Dad, that's why I'm asking you, I'm thinking that it might not be right." I said.

"I think she'd be ok in Oklahoma, and I know I would, but that's up to you son, you can do what you want with us." He said.

Us.

He was referring to what I'd do with Mom and him, after he died. He's said all along that he wanted to be with Mom. Retold the story of his Grandparents, in case I'd forgotten. He wants Mom, or the box, to be buried with him, in his coffin, if we bury him. If he's cremated, he wants his remains to remain with her, or for them to be scattered together. I get to decide that. A real life Billy Wyatt if ever there were, only I already found my necklace.

"No Dad, I didn't mean it like that," I said, "I meant, well, do you think it would be better for you to leave her with me." Fuck me, where would I put that box, in my closet, like some half ass Norman Bates.

"We talked about that, son," He said. "About me moving back, maybe, someday."

"Ok." I said. "You don't think, based on her feelings, that she'd rather stay in Texas, with me?" I asked.

"No." He said, firmly. "She'd want to be with me."

Two weeks later, on the night of the big moving day, I asked My Lovely Bride, "Do you think Dad has Mom with him, in his car, or do you think she's on the mover's truck?"

"Stuart..." was her reply.

I spent the first eight years of my life, living near death. Literally. Our house backed up against a cemetery. In fact, that graveyard, in many ways, was an annex to my backyard. If I wasn't playing in the cemetery, I was looking out at all the tombstones from my backyard or house.

Even after we moved, up the hill, if I wanted to see a tombstone I only had to walk into our den. It belonged to my Dad's sister. She died at the tender age of 2, accidentally hit in the head by a softball. It turned into blood poisoning and this being a real life Grapes of Wrath type of scene, well, my Grandparents couldn't afford a doctor. Later, they couldn't afford a tombstone. My Grandpa, who was a brick mason, like his father, the one who ended up buried by himself, carved a marker out of Oklahoma sand stone for the grave. My Dad always told me, "There were a lot of tears shed over that stone." Years later, when times got better, the family replaced the marker with a tombstone. Dad decided to keep the original marker.

Today, my Dad is again, a card carrying Okie. Mom is there too. Where? I don't know. I haven't seen the new apartment. Don't know if he even kept the old cabinet which housed Mom in the Houston home in which she died. Dad sold or gave away a lot of things before he moved. Some I'm sure, were pieces from my youth, long gone, except in memory. Like Mom.

After Dad told me firmly, that Mom would want to be with him, in Oklahoma, there was an awkward silence, caused by him crying. As we were on the phone, there wasn't anyway for me to comfort my Dad. Except with words. But, as usual, words failed me, in real time, and all I had to offer was a joke.

I didn't say it then though. But I'll share it with you now.

'Dad,' I thought, 'I would think having your dead wife in a fancy box on the mantel would be a mood killer with the ladies.'

I don't think my Dad would find that bad joke funny. Alas, the parent that would, sits on the mantel in that fucking box.

Until I BLOG again...Next year.