funerals and afterparties

i went to my childhood home on sunday; partly for the superbowl, and partly because my dads funeral service was on the following monday and i was riding with my family there instead of bussing.

when i got to the house, i was surprised to see my cousin there. i knew my aunts and uncle and brothers were gonna be there, but he lives an entire timezone away. the last time i'd seen him was when i still worked at the restaurant as a host when he visited. i was worried it would be awkward and i'd have to put all my effort into small talk, but we pretty much immediately got over it. especially when the superbowl started and i started shit-talking the patriots.

after all of the family had gone to bed, we talked for a minute. mostly about my dad and his death. and i cant express enough how refreshing it was to talk to someone who a. was my age, b. wasn't spiritual, and c. just fucking listened.

i don't want to talk about anything he said for privacy, but i can talk about the things i said. i talked about how overwhelming interacting with people was, the sort of Grieving Performance™ you're expected to put on. the issues i was having with individual family, etc etc.

my cousin is very offline, and at a certain point i introduced him to the concept of the "cousin walk," and he asked if i wanted to go on one now. so we left the house around 2(?) AM and walked to a nearby park. i think i mentioned wanting to smoke so he gave me an extra vape. it was a running joke that he was being a "bad influence" and whenever he mentioned it i told him "if it wasn't this, it would've been cigarettes or drinking," which is true.

we got to the park and talked (and vaped) more at the top of the new fancy rope jungle gym they'd recently built. mostly about our lives at the moment, and what we had planned in our futures. i think we were out there for an hour or so before heading back.

after talking more at home on the couch, we turned in for the night; me on the tiny couch and him on the floor (even though i offered him the big couch). it was freezing in the living room and i slept in my hoodie and jeans with no blanket, so i got nothing in terms of rest. i drank like 3 cups of coffee that morning, moreso to have something to do than anything.

i rode in the car with my cousin and aunt and uncle, which made me feel a lot better. we got there kinda early, so me and him walked to the spot our grandfather was buried. i felt like such an asshole vaping in a cemetery, but thankfully no one was around.

i expected a lot of people, but the number of people that actually showed was insane. seeing the casket was almost too much for me. i remember my aunt asking if i was going to help carry it, but i told her i couldn't. i think it would've broke me. the idea that he was lying in their, dead, really fucked with my head.

the actual service was about what you'd expect for a military funeral. they fired guns, talked about god, and promoted americanism. it was almost funny, considering my dad was agnostic. i went around to the different talking circles and made sure to say hi to everyone. me and my cousin had opposite problems— i knew everyone there, he barely knew anyone. i think in that way we were each others conversational crutch. 

there was a (for lack of a better word) "after party" at the house. i made my way around to people just to make myself known, but then me and my cousin went for another walk again. thru the forest and around the block. it was supposed to be a lot shorter, but he asked if i wanted to go around one more time, and of course i did. i think we were gone for a half hour? maybe longer. we generally just talked (and laughed) about a lot. that's a lot of how the second day went, just us talking with each other. whether around others or not, walking outside or sat inside.

my favorite convo started on the couch after all the young kids had finally left, and we somehow went from shoplifting to high school lunch skipping to old teachers from high school to teachers we found hot to the many older men i fascinate myself with. it was so fucking funny watching that devolve into terrible sex jokes and talking about encounters we've had (not going into too much detail obvi). and my favorite part was when my cousin, kind of exacerbated said "i came here to go to my uncle's funeral..." and i nearly lost it.

he went back to his home state on tuesday, my brothers went back to their moms, my aunt went back out-of-state, and i went back to my apartment. i thought having this funeral and a proper Grieving Place would help me accept it. but i think this is the worse i've felt in this whole journey. and im not sure what i'm supposed to do now.