she moves she

Five writers…

Thirty days…

Fifty Thousand words…

In a world…where imagination determines life and death…five writers journey to the edge of their minds….

“Sure we can all write a novel in a month.”

“I won’t sign that contract unless we all sign it in blood.”

“YOU CAN’T QUIT!!!! WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER!”

“If you jump, I jump!”

“It’s not suppose to end this way!”

Fingers typing, hair flying, a stranger chasing someone down a dark alley, papers flying off a downtown Chicago bridge, mysterious figure chasing a woman in the snow, a gun in a kid’s face, an el train out of control, a-jet-plane-screeching-to-a-halt-on-a-pedestrian-highway-crashingintoyourcar!!!!

A blank document in Microsoft Word.

“This is gonna be so much fun….”

I went straight from the airport to the funeral home. Papaw was laid out in a blue and black flannel shirt, his skin painted to look even colored and Sort of Alive. I felt little to nearly nothing looking down at him. I expected him at any moment to open his eyes, grab my arm and start laughing hysterically saying, “I really had you all fooled didn’t I?”

I was surprised at the amount of people who showed up. When I first learned that he had died on Monday morning (Tumor of the Liver due to half a century of Alcohol Abuse) I assumed that few people would have any respects to pay. But nearly a hundred folks wandered around his new wooden home that night. Most of whom knew nothing of the man (like me) but knew his children. Survivors like my mother. There was no sense of loss in the air. No sadness at all. And though there was a swish of emotion here or there it was not because the man lying in the next room had kicked the bucket, no no it was the jolt of five-ten-(sometimes)-twenty-year-gap reunions and long awaited introductions. It was like a cocktail party but instead of an open bar there was an open casket.

The funeral the next day was more somber but that was due more to family drama between grandmothers and mothers and aunts and uncles. There was a feeling of remorse–acknowledging that a family member had passed away–but no feeling that we had lost someone, or that life would now become Something Different.

It was a hazy dynamic. On one hand, a father, a grandfather, a husband is dead. On the other, the memory of him as an alcoholic, disagreeable, unhappy, unhealthy, ancient man who never acknowledged my presence and spent holidays out in his truck drinking Bud Weiser from a can. Throw in Mamaw’s drama–a real performance of My Husband Is Gone and a whole lot of What About Me and it was an enlightening day. Were my eyes sharper or was everyone more exposed? I saw sides of my family members I’d never seen, layers I’d never noticed–ranging from Selfless to Ruthless. Myself included. I behaved gracefully with consideration, respect, sympathy, and openness without one ounce of false or hidden emotion. My only hiccup was a brief revert into Short Fuse Lauren that only one person on this lovely planet has ever brought out in me: my brother, Tyler. Pushed beyond my tolerance of his thoughtless nature I actually shoved him. Shoved. Pushed forcefully in the arm with intent to disbalance. At my grandfather’s funeral. Then we exchanged expletives until our mother intervened.

How easily our families can bring out the best and worst in us.

I never knew my grandfather, Herbert Austin McCarty. I have no idea what he was like as a person. I’ve constructed a version of him through the pieces of stories I’ve heard over the years and from what I can tell we didn’t have a thing in common other than DNA. I feel like I have no opinion of him. I have everyone else’s opinion of him. What I know of him is this: a light hearted guy who was addicted to cheap beer and Basic 100s, a stubborn, puzzle-working, former Air Force Chef who liked little kids and gardens. That’s it. So. Papaw. I hope you find some peace, happiness, enlightenment, and fulfillment in the next life, or in life after death or in Heaven, because from what I can tell, you didn’t get any of that in this one.