When I woke up to go to work for my half-shift on Tuesday the 19th, it was just going to be one of those days. Sometimes you can't control that I've come to realize. The snow continued through most of the night, and while it wasn't that bad of a snow storm, the WIND storm was brutal. It's a little embarrassing to say but I never learned how to use the John Deer my parents own. In the summer they mow the lawn with it and in the winter it is outfitted with a huge snowblower attachment. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have tried using it right when I woke up that morning to clear the driveway. But looking outside the snow didn't seem to be more than a couple inches deep and I knew Bernice could drive right over that.
I left for work 50 minutes early and as quick as I pulled out of the garage, I was stuck in the driveway where the snow was about a foot deep. At first I tried digging it out, my ankle screaming in pain. Then I called work and said I would be late. I got into the second garage and figured out how to start the tractor, then I figured out how to work the snowblower. I plowed the driveway for about an hour until the John Deer too got stuck.
I've never considered myself a strong person. I don't think that's something I've ever actually said (written) out loud (down.) I cry pretty freely at movies and tv shows, when people do things for me that go above and beyond the call of duty, and sometimes at a good book. But up until that point I hadn't really cried about anything that had been happening to me. I'd had my eyes well up with tears over my grandfather, I'd felt my throat get tight a few times when thinking about the daunting tasks of the week (moving, the funeral service, etc,) but I hadn't cried. When I called work again to say I was still trying to free the car, I was fine. I called my parents to see if they had advice and kept it together for them too. Then when I went outside and my ankle gave out in pain and I had to crawl around the car for another 45 minutes trying to dig it out, I started breaking down.
I was screaming at the snow beneath the car as I kicked at it with my good leg. I had cuts on my hands from ice, my face was burned from blowing snow in the 50 mph wind. It was 2 o'clock when I finally got Bernice to lurch forward out of her stalled spot. I went inside, changed my clothes, and called work to say I was on my way. Any other person in that entire store would have called and said "I'm stuck, I'm not coming in," but that's not the kind of worker I am. So with a sprained ankle I managed to plow the driveway, dig my way out, and fix it. When I drove away from the house down County Road B, true to what I had said to @klreynol, it all hit me at once.
I cried. And I cried and I cried and I didn't stop crying until I was walking through the doors of the store half an hour later. And then our back room manager gave me a hug and I cried more. I didn't realize that with the things I had endured in the past, hardships and heartbreak and all that, I had become a more private person with my grief. I didn't realize how good I'd gotten at putting up that facade until I was alone and feeling it all collide with me and break said facade apart. No parents at home, moving out on my own for the first time, a huge loss in the family... I think I resorted to feeling like a little boy again that just needed a hug from his family. I think maybe I needed my mom or my dad to just sit down with me and put their arm around me and tell me that it was going to get better. I didn't have that though, and I didn't feel like it would be fair of me to ask that anyway.
I don't know.
My sister and I drove to Indianapolis on Wednesday and picked my brother up form the airport when we got there, just the three original Parker kids (sans their own children) meeting up with family for the first time in 11 years. I'll spare the details of the entire trip but I will say there was something oddly comforting about being in my grandfather's house. It had been vacant for a few years, he having gone into an assisted living situation and my grandma passing in 2009 from Alzheimer's but checking out long before then. It was the house I grew up with and the only one I had ever known them to live in. It'll be put up on the market soon and sold off, but for a couple days it was my siblings and my parents and I alone in it. It was the kind of closure I know I needed and maybe in some small way they needed as well.
The service was nice. From 3-4 it was just family and that was just the immediate ones of us and no one else. That hour was tough. Walking in the room and seeing all of the beautiful flowers that had come in from all over the country in remembrance of him, the photo collage and portraits surrounding the wood urn... it was a lot to handle. I sat on a sofa by myself for a little bit, watching my family that mostly avoided each other as they dealt with the reality of the situation in their own ways. I couldn't help but feel like I should have come down to visit more. The last time I had been to Indiana was for my grandmother's funeral, and that was also the last time I saw Grandpa Bill.
I let myself get in my own way and part of me hates that. Part of me, I guess... hates me for not trying a little bit harder to see him more frequently. I remember spending a few days alone with he and my grandma back in 1997.
We had moved to Wisconsin that year and in August they were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. My parents left me with them for a few days after for some one on one time, and I remember thinking it was great because I also got to be with my aunt uncle and cousin. The day before I left, he took me to a model store (he loved putting models of military ships together) to pick out anything I wanted. I chose a vignette of a T-Rex attacking a car from The Lost World: Jurassic Park because it had come out that summer (and hello, it's me.) He helped me to put it together and showed me a few techniques on how I should go about painting it.
The next day when I was leaving with my parents, I remember him leaning in through the window of the door and giving me a kiss and saying "I've got some advice for you, boy."
"Yeah?"
"Whatever you do, do it good."
He was a very good man that led a very long and good life. From 4-8 the funeral home was open to everyone else and that was when the laughter started. The stories about him, the memories and jokes and everything that made him the man that he was. There was a lot of love in that room and that's how he would have wanted it, people celebrating his life. And it got a little easier after that. We went to my Aunt Pat's house after for food and drinks and just to decompress. The next day my brother would be flying back to Texas and my sister and I would make the trek home, so when we got back to my grandfather's house I asked if we could all take a picture. It'd be the last time the five of us would ever be in that house at the same time and I wanted to commemorate it.
the Parker clanWhen we got back to Appleton I met landlord Jill at the apartment to get my keys and make it official. I figured afterward I would go and fill my car up with kitchen supplies from my storage unit because that was the only thing I didn't have at the house already. When I got to the storage unit it had a lot of snow piled up against it but I figured I could unlock it and just lift the gate anyway. I got it unlocked, sure, but the door was frozen to the ground and with that much snow and my ankel still being crap, I couldn't lift it. So I put the huge padlock back in place, pushed the key in to lock it, and then watched as it firmly snapped off inside the lock. I looked both ways down the row of units, calmly got in the car, and drove off.
I felt like in that moment, the forces that be were looking down on me and saying "You thought things were going to get better? Fat chance, queer bag!"
My parents came home that night as well and I brought as many of my belongings downstairs as I could with my ankle being how it was. In the morning we loaded up our three vehicles and drove to the apartment where Scout was waiting to lend his helping hand. The move went very well and for the most part I kept a stiff upper lip about it. There was nothing about this transition that was truly smooth and accounted for, it was pretty abrupt and sudden. Rough. A lot of my stuff was just carried up by armfuls rather than the box so that goes to show you how unprepared I was... how we all I were I suppose. I contacted the powers that be for my storage unit and they said they'd be able to get out there on Monday to cut off the lock and replace it.
Long story short, they got it off and I had a new lock, but there was six inches of ice sealing the door down, another two inches going up the hollow insides of the door, and another four inches inside the actual unit holding the door down. There was a lot of resistance, a broken iron pick for chipping the ice away, and a 50 pound bag of salt called into play. But eventually I did get inside and really... that was the last obstacle.
By all accounts it was a week from hell. A few things in my private life (that I don't want to bring up on here, not yet) started to take a more positive turn but for every good thing that happened, something horrible/painful/sad would happen in return. One step forward and two steps back, but not the fun way Paula Abdul sang about with that cartoon cat. I've never really experienced that before in my life and maybe I won't ever again (not like this, at least.) But maybe the purpose it serves is to test us and show us what we can get through. Somdetimes on our own and sometimes with the lending hand of a friend. Or a family member. Or a person who may turn out to be more. The point is that I survived it all and I didn't give up.
I didn't think I'd be that kind of person.
So now here I sit in the office of my apartment, content and happy. The weights are all off of my shoulders and I feel like I can take a wider step toward something greater. What that is I don't know, but it's a good feeling to have. I also crossed off #3 from my list of New Year's Resolutions: Move out on my own. That's another good feeling (accomplishing what you've set out to do.)
And finally to wrap this thing up, what else happened in March? I was in my first drinking contest ever (with Scout) and won (he lost) and then for the first time in my life threw up from drinking too much (that wasn't winning.) now I know I can handle 22 shots of whiskey and two of vodka after a day of margaritas at Solea. I made a carrot poke cake, pulled up my big boy panties and made a few big decisions for myself and by myself, and I also realized that anything worth fighting for might take a little bit more time than you thought but is going to be worth it in the end.
From here, I don't know where I go. I don't know what I do. But like my Grandpa Bill told me when I was 12, I'll make sure I do it good. I owe him that much at least (c:
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