At your funeral.

The earliest memory I can recall is of my great-grandmother’s funeral. I actually remember it so vividly that a few years ago, when my Aunt Linda died of lung cancer, I was able to locate my great-grandmother’s grave just by looking at the trees.

I was a very little boy. I remember staring at my father’s legs and I remember believing in god. It was the fall and it was cool. There were plenty of leaves on the ground, and they were wet, but it wasn’t raining. My family formed a semi-circle around the grave, and I was near the far left of the circle, in-between my cousins and my parents.

My great-grandmother was very old, close to 100 I believe, so there weren’t many people at her funeral; just my parents, my little brother Zach, my cousins Adam and Jaime, my Uncle Morty and my Aunt Linda, my grandparents Phil and Molly, the Rabbi and maybe one or two other people. The Rabbi was pretty brief with the service. Before I even had a chance to really grasp what was going on, it was my turn to shovel some dirt into her grave. And that was it.

I wasn’t raised in an organized religion. My father is Jewish and my mother is Christian, and they decided to let me figure out what I wanted to believe in as I grew up, so long as I treated everyone the way I would want to be treated. This didn’t really have any adverse effect on me, although it did become confusing at times.

            My grandmother, Molly, died when I was in the fifth grade. That was the only time I had ever seen my grandfather ,Phil, cry. She was my father’s mother, and she was Jewish. Her funeral wasn’t all that different from my great-grandmothers. The same groups of people gathered around her grave, listened to the Rabbi speak briefly, and shovel dirt into her grave. The days that followed were spent sitting Shiva in my grandparent’s house. My family all sat in the living room and I spent my time alone in my grandparent’s bedroom, watching “Speed” and eating bread. For some reason, I didn’t take my grandmother’s death as bad as everyone else did. I was more or less indifferent.

            When I finally returned to school, my teacher Mr. Golding, had me explain to the class where I had been and why I was out from school. I was the first kid in my class to have a family member die. Shortly after I was finished explaining to my class why I was absent for a few days, I received a note. It was from Veronica. The note read:

“I’m sorry to tell you that your grandmother is going to hell for being Jewish.”

At first, I didn’t know how to handle it. This was the first time in my life that I was met with extreme prejudice. I didn’t tell anyone about the note except for my friends Matt and David.