Post One Hundred and Forty Seven: Nostalgicalidocious.

My Nan died. She was in that box, with me at her side. She faced the alter and I to her right, both of us with forced smiles and an inability to move adequately. I had a task to perform, and that was to arrive at the pulpit for the eulogy without vomiting or shrieking. It was a shitty deal, and my racing heart made up for her complete lack of beat.

During the service I couldn't stop looking at that box. I work with coffins every day. I fix the satin sheeting in them, I bang the nails into them, and I screw the lids down onto them. None of my experience truly prepared me for what it was going to be like, on the day, with her cold and very dead corpse packed into that small, shitty box. I wasn't unnerved about her cadaverous body (I'd prepared it the day before), but it was more the coffin in all it's gloomy jurisdiction that overwhelmed me. It was a symbol of containment, of barrier from us, that alarmed my sense of assurance.

It was in those moments that I realized that I could never wrap my arms around Nan again. Unless, of course, I was prepared to get on the ground in front of the congregation and wrap myself around the coffin like an activist around a tree.

I understand now, even more than before, how fucking weird death is. It's just so strange. You can be going along in your business and then BAM, you're denied of breath. It's uncanny and magical and downright intriguing.

So, with this first foray into burying my own blood, I feel nostalgic. I undertook the writing of my Grandmothers Eulogy as if I was Magnum, PI. I interviewed daily and wrote by night. This task was given the utmost importance, and I knew that if I could piece together her life with the right mix of colour, candor and integrity I would feel like I did a bloody good job. And I did.

Now I'm left to think about how I'm plodding along. Nan was a bit of a free spirit, and she didn't marry until she was 28. Free spirit may or may not suggest that she was a little bit of a coquette. Is it fair to place my timeline against hers, and see what she achieved and aim to do that plus a whole lot more? Am I a bit of a coquette? Awesome, if I indeed am.

I have technology, I have accessibility to the world, I have (relative) peace, I have an education. Let's go. I'm in. Death shows the benefit of life.

Through my Nan I can comprehend football, but fundamentally and most importantly through her I appreciate family and through her I perceive a most perfect love. Rest in peace Dorothy, you crazy amazing old bat.

 Peace. x
P.S. That's me (on the right) with my Mama and my sister Deb. They go alright.