Poop Shute

You Can't Take it With You

Today I had lunch with my mom. Over Subway we had a lengthy conversation about an unwelcome topic.

She is very worried that my grandparents may not be around for much longer. She talked at great length about it.

I came home from this lunch a bit shaken. I started to talk to my roommates about it and cried a little.

From there we got off onto tangents. We shared our favorite anecdotes about our respective grandparents and eventually to our families in general. Fun stories. The kinds of things that will still make you smile years after these people are long gone.

I love the people I live with. Together we managed to take what could have been a rest-of-the-day funk and turned it into a very fun and entertaining conversation.

In the course of things I remembered that in college when I was in The Farce Side Comedy Hour I had written a comedy sketch loosely based (but not too loosely) on my family thanksgiving. Farce Side was a student written and run comedy hour that went up at lunch time in the Memorial Union building.

The people in the sketch weren't exactly my family, but I was selling them that way for a laugh. I dressed it up a little bit and made my family a little quirkier than they really are for the sake of fun. For example in the sketch my mom is an alcoholic, but in real life she rarely ever has even a glass of wine. It was the show right before the turkey day break, and I wanted to do a holiday themed piece. I opened it with a little bit of narration. I don't have a copy of it anymore, but it was something like this:

ME: Thanksgivings at my house were always... interesting. My family isn't exactly what you'd call normal.

An Unscripted Voice From The Crowd: HEY!

ME: ...mom?!

A roar of laughter shook the room. Once in a while my mom would finagle long lunch breaks and come and watch the show. That day was one of those days, and I had no idea. She couldn't have picked a better day. The sketch itself was mediocre at best, but her brief interjection and even her mere presence being known had the crowd primed and ready. They ate it up. She may never know it, but she made that sketch sing.

*************

By the end of the reminiscing session I felt great. The conversation helped me to further reinforce what I have been trying to work on lately. I have been learning the buddhist idea of attachment, and how to avoid it. I recognize that I shared a great deal of joy with my grandparents over the years, and my silly human mind wants that to continue forever. It cannot. Nothing can. It is what it is, and I must let go. They may be around for years to come, or maybe only weeks more. Either way, I will still always have the good times that I shared with them. Their passing cannot undo that. Nothing can. And more importantly, they did not bring me the joy I felt, that came from within me, and will stay within me if I chose to let it.

(takes a deep breath in, and lets it out with a little laugh)

Life is good.