Monday, June 18, 2007

FATHER'S DAY

My friend's father died on Thursday and his funeral was yesterday. That is shit timing but I suppose when it comes to matters like these there is no such thing as good timing. Another lesson on the theory of relativity! In any case I love my friend and so I went to her father's funeral to do what friends do at funerals, and what they do is mostly be comforting and kind and quiet and also what they do is go back to the house to set up the food and prepare the coffee and pick up creamer so that after the burial when everyone comes back to the house hungry and exhausted there will be food and coffee and creamer.

It is the best kind of work to do, and I was so happy to be asked, along with a couple of other close friends, to do it. I was grateful to have an activity, a place to put my hands and my energy and also I am pretty good at laying out catered platters of bagels, lox, and cream cheese. There was also a homemade noodle kugel, which the other girls and I heated up and then plated. We plated cookies and rugelach, set up cans of Coke, Diet Coke, and Nestea, and lined up bottles of water. Everything looked so nice. People came and ate and ate and ate, grateful to have an activity, a place to put their hands.

After visiting for a bit I met my own father and mother at our house and then we drove into the city to celebrate Father's Day. It's really sad, this whole thing. I got to eat a big Italian dinner with my dad and it's really sad how he took my suggestion of what to order and ordered it and loved it, and it's really sad that after dinner we went to the movies and I bought him a popcorn and soda because even though he was full from dinner it is impossible for my father to sit through a movie without eating popcorn and drinking a soda, and it's really sad how I listened to my father sit next to me and laugh throughout the movie, and next to him my mother actually awake and laughing at the movie, and on my other side my oldest brother leaning into me laughing at the movie, it's really sad, it's just so really sad to eat one way in a room and feel so empty and then to eat another way, in another room, and feel so full, so full to overflowing and it's sad it's really sad that one day I will envy myself and all the things I have now.