6/10/2007

Despite my religious beliefs, or rather the lack thereof, I do believe in karma. "You reap what you sow." I don't necessarily believe that it has anything to do with a god or the universe handing out judgments to the wretched, but I have seen too many castle walls built from the bones of the betrayed crash down upon their builders. Whether it ends in revenge or mere coincidence, everyone always seems to get what they deserve in the end. I attended my paternal grandfather's funeral today. He died Saturday after a long bout with colorectal cancer. I have not seen him nor my grandmother in nearly four years, and I have not seen my father since my brother's high school graduation in 2006. Anyone that knows me knows I have an estranged relationship with that side of the family. When my other grandfather died 13 years ago, the family was trying to work out the sale of the house where my mom and all of her eight brothers and sisters were raised. The property was eventually sold to a local oil distribution company that had been progressively expanding from their original site a few lots down. My dad happened to work as a diesel mechanic for this company at the time. He did nothing to comfort my mom during the whole ordeal, much like when her mother died years earlier. At one point, he actually said to her, "I'll go over there with a fucking sledgehammer and help them tear the place down." The property is now part of a parking lot, nine sets of childhood memories flattened and subsequently hidden beneath a layer of concrete. Whiteout on the landscape. Fast forward 12 years. The doctors told my grandmother that her husband, my grandfather, had less than two weeks to live. Their only daughter had planned to go to Alaska for six months. Instead of waiting, she, her husband, and their daughter left shortly after this deadline was placed because "the plane tickets are non-refundable." Aside from my new adulteress of a step-mother, who I had never met or even seen before today, my father has no one to comfort him. I've not heard so much as a failed attempt at apology from him for anything he has done, so I am not making any efforts. After the vault was lowered into the ground and the hole was filled with red clay soil, I shook my dad's hand as a few tears rolled down his face but really had nothing to say to him. He finally knows what it feels to lose someone, except this time, he has virtually no one to lean on. If anything will change that thick-skulled brute, it will be this. If not, there is no hope for the man. As I was leaving the cemetery, I had a sudden realization that the CD currently playing in my truck was Metallica's classic opus "...And Justice For All." How wonderfully apt. Maybe everything works out in the end, after all.