I'm back from burying my Nana. I'm not a fan of funerals -- who is, right? But this one was nice. My family is wacko but the funeral was really nice. Nana lived in Los Angeles for the last twenty-something years but she grew up and lived in Atlantic City for the majority of her life and the service was in Jersey. Nana had three sons: my father and my two uncles. By the way, ya'll out on the west coast must have better water than we do here on the east because my two 70'ish gray haired uncles are FINE in comparison to my broke down lookin' 69 year old father. They are all over six feet tall, but my uncles are in shape, have beautiful teeth and just as suave as they wanna be . My father is not. Anyway ...
My father, who is a pastor officiated the funeral and my mother (his ex-wife) agreed to play the piano for the service because he didn't have anyone else. My mother, is remarried to my step-father and has been since I was three years old. My step-father raised me and I am fiercely loyal to him. Needless to say, I was getting a little heated whenever my father (pastor) would make slick comments to my mother about 'when you get divorced I'm going to marry you again'. I wanted to slap him in the mouth! During the funeral he referred to my mother as his high school sweetheart and that he still loved her! I wonder how his girlfriend (who was at the funeral) felt about that! I'm sorry ... he is a straight up dog. My mother is polite but when we got in the parking lot she told me that she couldn't wait to get out of there because he was irritating.
I have a cousin who is probably my age and I haven't seen since I don't know when. We'll call him Twan. Why did he come into the funeral with his hair relaxed and combed down straight looking like a reject from the Five Heartbeats? Is that what brothas do in Los Angeles in 2006? Relax their hair? Good Lord. And why, when he stood to make a tribute to Nana did he have a mini-tape recorder and record himself? Very weird.
Anyway, I'm back home and the one thing that I walked away with was that my Nana was loved. And even though I didn't know most of the people in attendance, because we were family I felt loved. Does that make sense? It also made me look at my own familial and other personal relationships. And I walked away with this revelation: everybody does not have my best interest at heart. There are folks who actually mean to do me harm. I'm not being paranoid I'm just saying that in an effort for some folks to get what they want sometimes what they do will hurt you. I can't be specific right now but my point is I have so many people in my life that really do love me, to hold onto toxic relationships is sort of disrespectful to the ones that really care.
Toxic relationships are relationships that poison you. Relationships that give you more pain than pleasure. The poison slowly enters your system and before you know it you're not the same as you were when the relationship started. One of the (good) things that my father said during the funeral was that we have to number our days. Figure out what is really important in our lives and nurture those things. Stop putting those things off. I have four brothers: (1) the oldest whose whereabouts are unknown (2) another older brother in Texas (3) a younger brother in Michigan and (4) the baby in Washington state. I can't stand the thought of not seeing them until one of my parents dies. This year I am making a plan to see each one of them. I can make the time and I have the money so no more excuses. I'll be in San Antonio in May for business so that's one trip ... now to plan the others.
My mother sang a song yesterday at the funeral that just brought tears to my eyes:
Though the load gets heavy
You're never left alone to bear it all
For He knows
Yes He knows
Just how much we can bear
I have heard and sung that song at least a million times in my lifetime but for some reason yesterday the words just gave me such joy.
After Nana was buried everyone came back to the church to eat. I took pictures with my sisters (on my father's side) that I don't get to see that often ... hell I just met one of them over the summer. She is his "love" child. Go 'head, Rev ... walking around with your pastor's robe and illegimate daughter ... Ooops. I was talking to my fine uncle who lives in LA and he scolded me for not sending Nana my book. He asked me what it was about and I told him. He asked me if I thought it would make a good film. Of course, I said yes but I have no experience writing screenplays. He said he knows plenty of screenwriters and to send him the book. He could just be blowing smoke up my ass, but I'll send him the book and keep my fingers crossed. I was going to bring a few copies with me but I thought it would be trifling to promote my book at my Nana's funeral.
Speaking of promotion, will ya'll please visit Serenity23's blog today (link is to the right). She is doing a Sunday Spotlight on ME. She interviewed me and is posting the interview on her blog today. Thanks!
I was so happy to get home last night I didn't know what to do. I slept on the couch last night just because it's new and I felt like I hadn't spent enough time with it over the past few weeks. Also, I didn't want to hibernate in my room and isolate myself from the kids. So what did they do? Isolated themselves in their rooms ... every now and then they came downstairs ... my daughter laid down on the loveseat and spent about five minutes with me before she went back upstairs and my son (who is over six feet) laid down on the couch with me and said "I missed you Mom" and kissed me on the forehead. He hadn't brushed his teeth and it was nasty but I endured it because I missed him too.
So today is all about me. I'm going to take a long hot bubble bath. Afterwards I'm going to do my hair and nails and maybe watch Lady Sings the Blues again. I love that movie. Later on I'm going to smother some pork chops and just chill.
What is meant to be will be
