[Sparrow]

cool story about my Papaw dying:

the church i was raised in had a lot of old people in it, so i started attending funerals early and often. it is why florist flower smell super freaks me out. as an adult, the ritual and process of death is kind of old hat and i'm getting access to more and more intimate parts of it. Papaw died in his own bed; it was a good day, a good night, and a good death. my parents and brother and uncle and cousin gathered in the morning with my Mamaw to wait for the coroner.

now, it's awful dangerous for me to get bored. all the initial things, the crying, the singing, the acknowledgement of weight in the moment had passed and it kind of dropped into chillin' mode. /that's/ when the coroner showed up. i imagine they train them in proper demeanor when picking up a body b/c when i hopped up on Papaw's death bed right after they pulled him off it and started asking questions about what he had in his bag, his eyebrow went up. i knew he wanted me to shut up and get in line with how this usually goes,…but then he opened the back of his dead body mobile and i got real curious...

it's important to note my Daddy was an EMT just before the AIDS crisis hit full swing--i think he left b/c he was scared, he would have made a fine nurse--and i grew up using his old medical encyclopedias as a picture book. i was the youngest and everybody thought it was very cute. so, my parents and brother and uncle and cousin watching me assault this elected official like a tourist at Buckingham Palace thought it was very funny, my little game of mischief and disapproval. when we talk about that day we usually end up in fits of laughter over it still. that guy was a real bummer.