phases

unfortunately i've been to a few funerals this year. i'm hoping the latest was the last of it for a bit, but we'll just have to see what the future has in store. what amazes me about funerals for people who pass in their old age is how possible it is to know so much of someone for almost 25 years of their life, but not really know anything about them. two of my grandparents have died this year. i knew a fair amount about my grandfather's past as an ad man - probably most because it became my chosen profession and that my mom's side likes to tell stories. we used to spend a week or two every summer with him and my grandmother when i was little, and there he would tell me little bits of his past life. since i started working in media, we would exchange stories of how things have changed since his day in the industry. to me, it always seemed like he was talking of a different person. in my life he was a retiree who loved his faith, and spent a decade as a crossing guard at the local elementary school. he volunteered with knights of columbus, and read at least a book a week. it wasn't until his funeral that i was able to connect his two lives together. the one of the man in minneapolis who worked at the local TV station to the crossing guard. then it came into focus how tiny the frame of time my 24 years on the planet has been compared to the 80+ years he had here. the same is true of my grandmother - my dad's mom.

grandma baird was a consummate hostess in my existence. she had a giant pool with a diving board in her backyard where i would show off my moves from the swim team and lounge on pink pool furniture while blowing out my birthday candles. she spent the winters of my childhood at her house in ft. myers, and her time was spent volunteering for various charitable organizations. up until i started in the working world, she was the only person on the planet who called me jennifer without me correcting her. grandma drove around town in a white cadillac with a maroon felt top. she owned a mobile phone in the mid-80's - back when you had to drive from cell to cell to have reception. in the past year, i had forgotten much about her hospitality. the trips to florida. the cadillac. she still wore her mink coat when i took her to chemo, and would only let me see her with her wig on, but her illness started to cloud her memory of who she had been, and mine as well. and i realized at her funeral that my memory of her didn't even begin to touch the surface of who she was as a person. i found out she was a pinup model for a magazine given to troops about to ship out for war. i saw photos of her and her husband having lavish nights out in costume. her as a socialite. her with her siblings. it made me realize how much your adulthood can be compartmentalized into different phases. and how easily it is to be part of someone's life for only a phase.

as a child i found it fascinating that adults would reference 'my oldest friend' or buddies 'from high school' and didn't understand the distinction of the titles. in elementary school your friends are selected for you by the class roster or bus schedule. that's not to say its any different once adulthood has begun when making friends - the easiest places to find are usually still through parties (but this time there's booze) or where you live - but keeping them is an entirely different obstacle. once everyone's old enough to vote, there's effort involved. i came to realize a few years ago that also means that you can be selective about your friends. adulthood equates to having choices and one of those includes spending the free time you have with those you truly value. that doesn't mean i have the opportunity to hang out with everyone i want to, or that just because i hang out with someone sporadically is a sign that i don't like them. it just means that there were friends i had in specific phases of my life that were meant to be friends for only that phase. i'm not belittling our friendship or the meaning behind it - just that friends sometimes grow out of each other. there may come a time sometime the road where we rekindle a friendship, but i don't need facebook to tell me i should reconnect with someone.