Death and Old Age

[Rain Man]

I just got back from my cousin's funeral.

He was eight years older than me, and the first person in my generation of family to die. I didn't know him extremely well, because we generally saw each other only on holidays, and even then only during my childhood. But he nonetheless had a notable impact on me.

Whenever we would visit his house, I had two things on my agenda. The first was to go to the bathroom and rinse the vomit out of my mouth, because they lived along some winding country roads that had the perfect harmonic pattern to make me carsick. But the second was to go check out my cousin's bolo tie collection. He was a big collector of bolo ties and always had interesting ones to look at.

The coolest bolo tie to an eight year old was one that had a small dead scorpion encased in lucite or some such thing. I'd see that, and I'd think, "Daayyyummmm, how cool are you when you're wearing a bolo tie with a scorpion in it?"

When I was 8 he was driving, and when I was 10 he was married, so we were always in a different life stage. In that way, he wasn't part of the pack, but it was good to have an older cousin because he was the leader of our generation. My parents and aunts and uncles were all adults, and I knew I'd never be an adult, but this guy was one of us. He was a cousin, and yet he had it all put together. He had a car. He had a girl. He wore cool bolo ties with scorpions. If he could do it, maybe the little dweebie kids like me could do it.

So I went to his funeral this weekend. It was a catholic funeral and I had forgotten that he was raised a catholic. Whether it was tradition or a compromise of physical space, they caught me by surprise with the his coffin. I walked in, signed the guest register, turned, and "Whoa! Dead person right behind me!" Are catholics big on funeral practical jokes?

Anyway, I'd never been to a catholic funeral, and it was good exercise. I stood and I sat and I stood and I sat. It went on a while, and at some point the priest even stopped and had a snack. Then he invited the other catholics to come up for a snack but he didn't invite the non-Catholics, and I understood a little better why northern Ireland has had those hostilities. Rather than fomenting armed conflict, I used that opportunity to head to the bathroom and then came back the next time everyone sat down and stood up.

I haven't been to a funeral in years, and remembered that I don't enjoy them. You've got family crying and friends crying and cousins trying not to cry, and the whole process seems like it's designed to make you cry. I don't like crying in public, and it generally only happens during funerals and playoff losses. That's not my gig.

My cousin's father is still alive, and he seems pretty sharp mentally though he's in a wheelchair now and he looks really old. We went to the grave service after the funeral and I saw him sitting there, and I thought, "Wow. That's a bad day for you when you're burying your only son." The guy also buried his wife three months ago after more than 60 years of marriage, and now he's got to move to an assisted living facility since he lost most of his family this year and can't really take care of himself at this point.

Then we went to the post-funeral dinner, and I have to say that the catholics shined here. The church members whip up a dinner, and while the vegetables were pretty sparse and overcooked they sure had a lot of desserts.

My elderly diabetic parents loaded up on the desserts, insisting that they're "usually pretty good about watching their sugars". They had six types of cookies on the kitchen counter when I went to their house to spend the weekend, but they're usually pretty good about watching their sugars. They ate dessert at every meal and made cinnamon rolls in the morning, so the smart bet is on diabetes to win in the long term.

So I'm sitting there, and my uncle is in his wheelchair thinking about his move and my cousin is gone. My elderly parents are gnoshing on cheesecake and my other aunt and uncle are talking about selling their rural house because they need better access to healthcare. And about this point I realize that Time is about to swing a very large scythe through my personal history. The next ten years is going to be a rough ride.

I've always declared that I will be the world's oldest human being. I love this little blue planet and I love my life. But man, I'm looking around and there's not a good end game. You either go out like my cousin and get cheated out of twenty or twenty-five years, or you go out like my uncle where you're in a room with four walls and no one knows you exist other than the Social Security Office. And I see once-omnipotent relatives getting more hunched and more forgetful and counting every penny because retirement is hard, or hobbling to work because retirement is not possible, and I'm just not seeing what I want to see. And when I don't shave my beard stubble looks really silver.

I don't know about this whole thing. Those financial ads show retired people on yachts with nautical captain hats and powder blue sweaters tied around their necks. But I don't know anybody with a yacht and I don't know that many people with powder blue sweaters, and I don't think that's really how it ends, anyway.

I'm in conflict. I absolutely don't want to go early like my cousin did, because he got cheated. But I'm not really liking how it ends for the older ones, too. We all got put onto this ride and right now we're laughing and screaming and holding our hands up in the air, but I don't think we're going to be collecting our belongings and exiting to the right when it's over. And I don't really like that. Maybe I'll start looking more into the Walt Disney disembodied head option.

There needs to be a rewind button or something.