My father always said the worst thing about getting old was watching
your friends die. Second worst was diminished distance off the tee.
Now that I’m over sixty, I can attest he was right on both counts.
Nonetheless, even death and the rituals that accompany it, somehow
never fail to offer up a little comic relief. On the other hand,
there’s nothing funny about losing yardage.
Of course, the memorial services for friends in show business
are always filled with laughter because on those occasions you have
talented, funny people telling stories about other talented, funny
people. However, non-pro deaths offer their own moments of black
comedy. As cases in point, I offer the following two examples.
After my mother died, my father, my sister, her ten-year-old son and I
went en masse to buy her tombstone at a place called Swink Monument. I
have no recollection exactly why we picked them, but price may have
been involved. Their office was in a mobile home surrounded by a
concrete slab, on which various markers were displayed. (In case you
haven’t guessed, this is in North Carolina). My father, following
through on his philosophy to the end, picked neither the grandest stone
nor the plainest. Then, we went inside to fill out the paperwork,
except for my nephew who remained out doors, skateboarding through the
monuments.
Dotsie Swink, the heavy-set woman who was assisting us, took down the basic information, then asked a question I’ve never heard before or since: You want slick on top?
Daddy was everything to us. He was a lot to many and my mother's
whole world. He moved from Los Angeles to a small southern town in
Georgia when he was 16 years old and met my mother shortly after. Mom
was 15 and the rest is history. He left us, very unexpectedly on an
early Spring night. Nothing could have prepared me for it. He was the
pied piper, the epitome of a fine man, the definition of love, all the
reason I turned out to be me. He was kind and gentle, inspired me every
day to see the good in people. He inspired the adventure in me. It's
why I grew up in a small southern town on a cotton and pecan farm and
have seen so much of the world that most folks will never see.
My idea of a good time is dragging my sorry ass up the stairs after a long day, plopping down on the bed, snuggling with my husband and watching re-runs of Law and Order or, if God REALLY loves me, a NEW episode of Real Time With Bill Maher. This 4 star vacation is earned after a day of schlepping kids, policing homework and of course the dance of death known as feeding everyone.
I am not certain, but I fear we foodies of Martha’s Vineyard don’t measure up to the truly high standards of obnoxious and perfectionist self-importance that other summer colony foodies get to display. (The Hamptons and the state of Maine come to mind.) I am embarrassed that there are only so many uppity remarks available to us if the lobster roll wasn’t toasted in butter, and what can you say other than “more please” when devouring freshly shucked Katama oysters or 
Two weeks before Thanksgiving, my five-year-old son began making paper hearts. He had discovered how to make a perfectly balanced heart by carefully folding the paper first. There seems to be a metaphor here, but for what I’m not certain: maybe for love, maybe for the way my son approaches every task, perhaps for both of these things. Years later, as an adult, he will design and make models of water treatment plants, bridges, glass windows that are a full story high; he will marry a woman who sometimes wears a hardhat as she performs bridge inspections.