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Farewell - 2006-03-15 |
2004-06-14 - 9:38 p.m. You didn't really ask for me to tell you about my summer so far, but you're getting an update anyway. Okay, so I was living with Schwang. I got a job as a breakfast waitress at the Clarion hotel which really sucked. It didn't pay hardly anything and my shift started at 6am at the latest. This meant I was going to bed around 8pm when it was still light out and a half hour after the two guys I was living with got home from work. So I wasn't getting to see any friends. At work I was even less fortunate in my companions. The only people I ever saw was my boss who is actually homeless because she can't afford to pay for all her medications to keep her calm and the biggest black man i have ever seen named Tyron who likes to talk about his wife weighs 400 lbs, how he tries to have sex with her, how he didn't want 10 kids but what is he going to do about it, and fun hypothetical questions like "Gibson, if you ever cheated on Eric and got pregnant with another man's baby would you tell Eric it was his?" He's like a walking Jerry Springer show! So, I quit that after I turned Tyron in for stealing money from the company. I decided it probably wasn't a good idea to still be working next to a guy who threatens customers if they don't tip him. I got another job at the career services office on campus, but it was only 10 hours a week. I called my parents to ask what I should do about money. They came up with an interesting proposition. They would pay me to come home. I figured this was an awesome opportunity. Come home, not pay bills, and make money. Rock on. A couple days after I said I would do this my mom calls me and says she has found a job for me (uh oh). She wants me to take care of this 100 year old lady during the mornings for $200 cash each week. ROCK ON! And better yet the 100 year old lady is almost completely self sufficient. She doesn't like making breakfast so she wants someone else to do that and do some light cleaning and someone to talk to. So, I come home. During my drive I get a phone call on my cell phone from my father. He says my grandmother (his mother) has been put into the hospital and isn't doing so well and could I hurry home. Originally I was going to spend the night with a girlfriend of mine in Cleveland, but instead I hurried home. The next day I went to see Grandma. Now, there is something you must know about my grandmother - despite the fact that she lives about 15 minutes from me. I see her MAYBE once a year. She was banned from our house when I was in the 1st grade because she nearly killed me while baby-sitting me by refusing to take me to a doctor when I had appendicitis. She's a Jehovah's Witness (sp) and thus her religion forbid her to go to a doctor. Well, despite not really knowing me (asside from the letters I wrote once every 2 weeks to her) she thinks the world of me. The following day my mother decided that she, my brother and I needed to get away for a bit and go up to Valparasio, IN to visit my godparents. I was not all too thrilled about spending another 4 hours in the car to get there and 4 hours back, but the idea of spending the weekend fishing and knee boarding seemed pretty sweet. The weekend was awesome despite the fact that I couldn't move from knee boarding and was the only one who didn't catch a bass, though I was named Queen of the Blue Gill. Whoopee! On Monday I got a call from the granddaughter of the 100 year old lady who is my mother's age. Turns out the 100 year old lady decided it would be more fun to stay in Florida for the summer. When I informed my family of this they suddenly went nuts. "You have to get a job!" "What are you going to do?" "AHHHHH!" and such. I tried to remind my mother that she had agreed to let me come home and just do odd jobs around the house for the summer. My father remembered and mentioned it. My mother replied with "Don't be silly Gordon, she lives here! You don't pay someone for living some place." Very true... very true, but I DID give up the summer class I was suppose to take to save them $3,000 even this means I will be very very very busy the next two years during the school year. *grumbles* stupid transfer crap. Anyway, the next day my grandmother dies, but not before she asks if my brother and I, along with our other cousin and her husband, will be the paul bearers. Fine, I can do that. So on Thursday we have the visitation. I spent most of my time wandering around the funeral home avoiding some 70 year old cousin I didn't know I had named Don, who kept trying to talk to be about golf and PBS. Meanwhile, my brother, who got a job in Florida, is trying to smile after 7 hours of people saying things like "Oh! Florida, I guess we'll have to come visit you." "I bet Mom and Dad will be vacationing with you from now on." "What a perfect place for you sister to come on spring break." "Sarasota, Florida! Oh we'll stop by some time." and so on and so forth. Granted I did get my share of the exact same comments mine were all in regard to "how tiny" I am. It even went so far that the funeral directors asked if I was sure I was big enough to be a paul bearer. *rolls eyes* The service on Friday was very unique as it was led by the Jehovah's Witness's minister. The first 10 minutes he talked about how we all die and we are all put into graves and forgotten about. No one will think about you often and in a generation or two no one will remember your name. Oh so comforting. And then he went on to talk about how babies die because they are filled with sin. They may only be two days old but they are completely overwhelmed with sin and that's why they die. *coughs* Yeh. I think Grandma was mentioned once or twice during the whole thing. Concluding the service I went and did my duties as a paul bearer, helping carrying the casket from the hearse to the cemetery. The minister said a few more things and when he had concluded he turned to me and said "I was so surprised to see you up there carrying that big casket. You are such a TINY thing." The entire congregation laughed. And then he did something that made my mother want to shoot him - he invited the entire congregation back to our house to "share a meal." Originally it was just suppose to be the family. Oops. He had forgotten. Silly minister. Well, I think that's it for me. I'm now sitting around trying to make work for myself wondering why God has brought me here, what am I suppose to be doing, and why couldn't God have kept me in NY? *sighs* If you have any ideas... let me know.
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