Working, Grieving, and Not Having Sex…

I have been working a lot, which is good; it keeps my mind off of things. I was glad when June called and said that she had some things she wanted done around the house. I have shampooed all of her carpets, weeded and weeded some more, planted so many different flowers I couldn’t name them if someone put a gun to my head and what else? I can’t even remember.

I have worked everyday except for Monday, which is officially my “feel guilty for not going to visit my Dad’s grave” day. Sometimes my Mom asks if I would like to go with her on what would have been his birthday or on Father’s Day, but it’s always a Memorial Day request. I would like to say that it doesn’t bother me, going up there, but I’d be lying. My Dad is buried in the Veteran’s Cemetery (he was in the ARMY during the Korean War) and on Memorial Day they put a little flag on every grave. The cemetery is hundreds of acres and I guess it might be an enjoyable, peaceful place to visit, but I don’t want to go there with my Mother ever again. The last time that we went we took my kids, and Polly wanted to buy some flowers to put on my Dad’s grave. I asked my Mom four times if we could stop somewhere to buy flowers, but she just kept driving, ignoring me. When we got to the cemetery we had a hard time finding his grave because so many new people had been buried that everything looked different to me. When we finally did find it my Mom marched over to a garbage can, pulled some dead, slimy, withered flowers out, marched back over and threw them on the grave. “There”, she said, “now he has flowers on his grave.” I truly understand her issues with the man, hell, I am the queen of holding onto anger for years, but the way that she acted in front of my kids freaked them out. When we got home Polly cried because Grampa’s flowers were “yucky and gross” and it took me forever to calm her down. Plus, our friend, the one who recently died, is buried up there, and I would like to be alone when I go. I was relieved that my Mom called me to say she was too sick to go this year, we’d go later… But I am going to take the bus by myself. Alex has no desire to go; he doesn’t understand visiting people after they’re gone. I look at it as something for those left behind, a type of closure, a place to say goodbye.

That reminds me of the time my sister Maria was flipping through my phonebook and in the front I had written DAD’S GRAVE and the plot letters and numbers so that we would never get lost trying to find it again. My sister gave me a funny look and said, “Uh, Tammy, why do you have Dad’s grave in your phonebook?” I told her that I sent him a Christmas card every year and she totally believed me.

It is so hot today. When I got home I was so happy to see that Alex had cut the grass for me. He never cuts the grass. I was all ready to offer him sexual favors but he was curled up asleep. He hates fooling around when it’s this hot anyway. I had forgotten about that. I wonder if people with central air conditioning have more sex in the summer than those who don’t.