The summer after I graduated college, my grandfather committed suicide. He and I were never close. Technically, he wasn't my grandfather, but my step-grandfather. He loved his children and their children very much. They were his legacy and carried on his Native American heritage where as I was just a reminder of his wife's previous marriage.
I have a clear memory of my grandfather introducing my cousin and I to his neighbor one afternoon. Calling over the fence, the neighbor said, "Who you got with you today DA?"
My grandfather lifted my cousin off the ground raising him so he could see over the fence. "This is my grandson Shawn," he beamed. He lowered my cousin slowly until his feet touched the ground. Then he grabbed me, hoisted me in the air and said, "This is Dean's boy," and let go so I fell to the ground with a loud thud.
That's what it was always like or at least what it always felt like growing up in my family. I had nothing in common with them except for a some DNA. They bonded over OU Football and I read comic books by myself. They went hunting and fishing while I dreamt of running away with The Captain and Tennille. Hell, I didn't even look like them. They with their Native American heritage and dark features and I with my blue eyes and Wonder Bread blandness. They were the rocking cool Partridge Family and I was Danny who looked like my last name should be Kincaid instead of Partridge.
Their only contact with me is through my mother and shit...who knows what she's telling them, although I'm starting to get an idea since my uncle's wife asked me if I was "still dating that one girl." But that's a whole other post or two for a future date.
My brief time in Oklahoma to attend my grandmother's funeral was filled with standard chit-chat. Mind-numbing, soul-deadening, stomach-churning chit-chat. They know very little about me, except I live in Arizona. So most of the chit-chat is centered around two minute topics: work and the weather. Each time I'm asked what I do for a living, I explain in a few words what I do. Immediately there is a misunderstanding because the next thing said is "Oh! You can build me a website!" I then politely explain that I'm not a web designer and don't build websites per se (which is of course a big fat lie), but rather I just manage the content on websites for my company. Once they recover from their blank stare, they then switch to the weather where I continually have to affirm, "yes...it does get hot there."
I'm continuously introduced to people with "Brian, you remember ______, doncha?" After about four of these, I just stop lying and say apologetically "No, I don't." Meeting all of these spouses and their children was a little overwhelming after a while. I kept thinking "I barely know the person you are married to and now I'm expected to remember YOUR name!?"
I don't want to give the impression that I hate my family. I don't. I just don't really know them. Even when I was living in the same state as them, I rarely visited them. There really didn't seem to be a reason to. Back then, the chit-chat focused on college. "How's school?" "It's fine." End of subject.
The reception after the funeral was at my uncle's house. Tons of nameless faces shuffled from room to room. Every now and then, someone would pause to ask me a question. "Yes. The summers can be very brutal in Phoenix," I'd answer while doing the mental addition of how many hours left in this town.
Back in Phoenix, Deek picks me up at the airport. "How was it?"
"I had a constant headache from all the cigarette smoke and there are seven Wal-Marts within a five-mile radius of my uncle's house."
"Sounds dreadful. Do you want to get lunch?"
We go to the cafe were we are recognized as regulars, sit at the counter and make small talk with the staff. It is here where I feel comfortable. Here where I feel a part of something.
I smile and think to myself, "It's good to be home."
