Crossings

Anyone who's seen my favorite movie, The Shawshank Redemption, knows that Andy and Red crossed the border into Mexico at Fort Hancock, Texas. The characters actually crossed the border. I merely drove by a sign for Fort Hancock, but never got off I-10, yet I had to stop for a Border Patrol checkpoint. Weird, right? According to a few people I told this to, if those coming across the border illegally make it in and think they're safe, they are then nabbed at this stop on the freeway. I think it had more to do with drugs, since a drug-sniffing dog circled each and every car. And, being in Texas not Arizona, I didn't see anyone being asked for their papers.

 

Some people in some vehicles were questioned at length. When I pulled up, after refusing to move my car for a moment because the dog was so close I thought I'd drive over his paw, the agent said, "You're a US citizen?" I said, "Yup." He said, "Have a nice day." Didn't even check to see if I'd come here illegally from Ireland.

 

I forget where I was, but I think it was also in Texas, when I stayed at a Red Roof Inn for the night. It touted itself as being "newly renovated." My main concern is checking for bedbugs at any and all motels, but I did notice it was a nicer room, with a big, flat screen TV. The bathroom was new and modern, too. I didn't pay attention to the shower until the next morning. It was bathtub size, though just a shower. Across half of it was a glass panel. No door, just the panel on the side where the showerhead was located, and an opening on the side where the water controls were located. I suppose this makes it easier to clean, and cuts down on the laundry you'd do if you hung a curtain.

 

What they got wrong was the placement of the showerhead. It was mounted in the ceiling. And the ceilings in these newly renovated rooms were about 9 feet. So by the time the water reached the top of my head, at five feet five inches, it didn't have a lot of oomph. I don't know what bald giant designed the thing, but he didn't think it through.

 

Here's something I never would've thought of: people write fake obituaries. Now that I know it happens, I can imagine why, but it's the sort of thing that wouldn't have entered my mind on its own. The day I left my aunt's house in Florida, I first stopped in Gainesville, about 3 hours up the road, to visit my friends Frank and Gayle. We had lunch together and a nice, long visit. Then, sitting in the parking lot of the restaurant, I called the newspaper in New Jersey to inquire about emailing the obit I'd written and paying over the phone with my trusty Mastercard. The woman said I'd have to fax the death certificates (I wrote a double obit, since both my parents' ashes were being interred) before they could run it. 

 

It was hot, I was now about four hours "late" as far as driving for the day was concerned, and I had to find a place to fax from. "What kind of people write fake obituaries?!" actually came out of my mouth, rather than being screamed inside my head. "Sickos," said the nice woman. I called Frank and Gayle and they told me where to find an Office Depot. The nice guy who worked there didn't charge me as much as he should have -- on purpose. It was as if the universe felt my frustration and wanted to say, "See? There are plenty of nice people in the world, too."

 

However, those nice people are not, generally, Japanese. Oh, go ahead, call me a racist. But Japanese tourists are some of the most annoying people on the planet. Why yes, I have a story to back that claim up. The night I got to New Jersey (after checking into the Best Western, walking to the Red Lobster, watching a small hurricane blow in and begging a ride back to my room from two strangers), I went to bed early. Then I woke to the sound of a loud engine. It sounded loud enough to be a fire engine, so I got up to look out the window. It was a tour bus. I couldn't think what there was to see in East Brunswick, and went back to bed.

 

The next day I needed to buy a few things at the store. When I got to the check out line there was a group of Japanese people ahead of me. Their mission in life seemed to be to drive the cashier stark, raving mad. They all had something to buy, and all wanted to pay for each item separately, handing him hundred dollar bills each time so that he ran out of change and had to call for more. Just when he thought he was done, another item would be thrust at his face. All the while, they were crowding me. I tried to keep back, but they had no sense of personal space or boundaries. I was patient. I know what you're thinking, but it is possible for me to at least pretend to be patient at times.

 

Finally the cashier had had enough and he told this one woman to go get in line behind me, that she should've paid for the latest item when she paid for the one before that, and it was my turn. She looked at one member of the group who apparently translated for her, and she very huffily got behind me. Then pressed up against my back. My elbow desperately wanted to sink into her gut, but I told myself I was a representative of my country and to just put up with it for a little while longer. Am I good or what? Then she charged ahead of me again, shouting something in Japanese, and waving the hairbrush or whatever it was in the cashier's face. 

 

I said, "Maybe it's the last thing and they'll just leave," in a quiet voice. He took it and rung it up, and accepted another hundred. When he got done with my order I handed him my money and said, "Do you have any change left?" He said, "Where did they come from? Why are they here?" I should have put two and two together at that point, but I was preoccupied.

 

Lots of things happened that day. I had an appointment about some estate stuff, went to look at the cemetery (the church and grounds were flooded during Hurricane Irene earlier this year), met with my niece, Melissa and great-niece, Nadia, at Barnes&Noble, bought a few newspapers for the copies of the obit, and had dinner with Russ, an old friend. The tourists were the last thing on my mind.

 

Saturday morning I knew I couldn't eat, but I wanted a glass of milk before heading over to the church for the funeral. Just a glass of milk. Something in my stomach that wouldn't make me sick. When I walked into the lobby I stopped in my tracks. The Japanese tourists had taken over the breakfast area. Yes, the same ones from the store, plus many more. It was their bus engine that woke me, them that made a simple trip to the store a long, annoying experience, and now they were standing between me and my milk. "Excuse me" had no effect whatsoever. "Please" fell on deaf ears. It took a few minutes just to get a glass, and I finally went over to an employee and asked her to help. She got a carton of milk from the kitchen and poured it for me, away from the crowd. I thanked her, then said, "Why East Brunswick?" She didn't know, either.

 

When I'd talked to the priest from St. Peter's, Father Shelly, the first time, he'd told me that they have a Memorial Garden for the spreading of ashes. I said that was nice, but we had a family plot and my parents wanted to be interred there. He had to look into whether or not a vault was required by law (it wasn't) and double-check that there was room. They sell the right to be buried, not an actual plot, because the cemetery is hundreds of years old and the church retains all rights to the grounds. So, there could be someone who died in 1731 buried in your family plot, and I guess they want to make sure the bones aren't going to get in the way. He explained it with much more tact, but that's the gist.

 

As I waited to hear from him, and I spent 10 - 12 hours a day going through papers, scrubbing the house and trying to sell the wheelchairs and such, I thought about why anyone wants to be cremated, then buried. To me it's like, pick one or the other, you know? But the thing is, you have to do something with the ashes. And it's illegal to spread them just anywhere. It's an ecological hazard. And a lot of people don't want to keep an urn with their dead relative inside on the mantle. So interment became a thing to do. Still, I was wishing that my parents' wishes hadn't specified it, since I liked the idea of the Memorial Garden. Until I disposed of Molly.

 

Molly was our cat before Billie. Molly was a feisty, little calico who ruled our hearts for years. I didn't know that my mom had had her cremated when she died, and that she'd saved the remains. But the little box with a label on it stated it was her inside, and there was a small bag of white ashes. Except no one, human or animal, is actually reduced to ashes. There are bits of bone mixed in. And this is distressingly obvious when you scatter them. I had no idea what to do with Molly. I didn't want to keep her, as my mom had done. I'd never throw her away. So it seemed that breaking the law was the way to go. I took the bag out back to the garden, told Molly that it was one of Mom's favorite places, and sprinkled her among the palms and trumpet flowers. And it was slightly horrifying. I tried to picture Molly when she was alive. She liked to stand up on her hind legs and box with me. She also liked to draw blood with her claws. Good times. But those bits of bones ruined the mental image. She made me imagine the cremation process, instead. That's bad enough with a pet. No way I wanted to risk it happening with my parents. So I decided that interment of the urns was really for the best.

 

Then I saw the hole that had been dug in our family plot. It was approximately three feet by three feet by three feet. Just dirt, since no vault was required. I thought about the recent flood, and wondered if my brother Jimmy's remains were even still in the ground next to this current grave. Father Shelly apologized for the roots. There were about four good-sized roots that the grave-openers had had to cut through, and the ends were sticking out of the walls of the grave into the open area. I told him it was fitting, because my mom had called me out to the back yard lots of times to cut roots out of her way when she had a flower to plant. But, just a dirt hole, looking so raw because of the roots, not all that deep, vulnerable to the next storm that came through, had me on edge.

 

The priest performed a very nice service. For the most part I have no idea what he said, but I didn't expect to remember it since I was so stressed. I know he talked about how we say someone has passed "away" as if it's the end of them, when they're going on to an afterlife and it's really just a transition. That was comforting. But then he asked that we join him in reciting the Lord's prayer. And, dear God, I'd just seen a clip from the movie The Campaign the day before. A clip in which Will Ferrell, as a phony Christian candidate, mangles the Lord's prayer in a most hilarious way. My lips were moving, saying the words, but inside I was fighting a massive urge to laugh. There would've been no way to explain laughter at that point. I got through it, somehow.

 

Then he asked if I'd like to throw a handful of dirt onto the urns. Well, no, I didn't really want to do that, but since he asked I couldn't see a polite way out of it. I walked over, grabbed a hard handful (the mound was packed solid) and threw it in. A rock hit the top of my mom's wooden urn, with a loud thunk, then bounced off. There was an awkward moment of silence, then I said, "This is appropriate, too, since rocks are also the bane of a gardener's existence." Everyone laughed, thankfully, because I really had to at that point. I have no doubt, if my folks were watching from an otherworldly vantage point, that they approved.

 

Russ treated us to lunch, then my cousins bought me dessert from Mendoker's (world famous) Bakery, and I went to another motel, not wanting to start my journey back till the next day. No longer having "the daisies" in the car with me was as strange as transporting the urns had been. I hadn't heard a word from my sister (still haven't), and I felt that I was completely alone in the world. It's stupid, really. I have aunts and an uncle I love, cousins, a sister-in-law, nieces and nephews and greats, too. Not to mention some of the best friends ever. But having no immediate family, no longer having a parent (however strained the relationship might've been), was a foreign and very empty feeling. 

 

More than a couple of friends have suggested that I was crazy to drive from NJ to St. Louis in one day. But once I'd spoken to Mary Lou, and she said she'd really like to see me, and I was very welcome to stay overnight at her house, it was more than my macho side kicking in and saying hell yes I could do it. I craved a connection, wanted to be with a friend more than I wanted to stop and rest and take my contacts out and let my sore butt try to unflatten. Some people always know the importance of friendships, and some of us only gain a true appreciation when friends become our family.

 

All this expression of true feelings does not mean I'll be cooking Thanksgiving dinner for you all anytime soon, though. Don't get carried away.

 

I still haven't talked about nearly beating a guy up to clean the gutters, or falling asleep at the wheel. It really was a long trip.