Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Ok, I’ll be honest: there were no actual trains. But I figured trains of thought could count.

My Grandpa Pollack died over the weekend, and so I flew back to WV for the funeral this week. The plan was to fly into Pittsburgh and rent a car to drive to Fairmont on Monday. Attend the funeral on Tuesday, and then fly back out on Wednesday. I had wrestled with whether or not I should go: leaving work means setbacks, and flying and renting a car is a financial setback too. But I decided I needed to be there. I knew that I would always regret not going, at the very least.

So off I flew on Monday, hopped into my red hot rental car, and drove a surreal journey through the hills of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. I mean, c’mon, earlier that day I was in the Wisconsin flatlands working in lab, and suddenly I was home.

I could tell you all about the funeral, all about what happened and who I saw, but I know it can’t do it justice. Let’s just say it ended up being a beautiful spring day, and we sang old-time songs at Grandpa’s grave while my dad played the banjo and my aunt played the guitar. Things like “I’ll Fly Away” and “May the Circle Be Unbroken.”

I want to tell you how odd it all felt to have him REALLY gone. He’s been declining mentally for years, and when we visited at Christmas he couldn’t say much. I have been so happy for him to be free of that sort of life. But while we knew he’d never get better, we still kept up his house and all his photos. At the end of Tuesday, relatives were taking down photos off the wall, and I felt how real it was. I’d visited that house for two decades of Christmases and Easters, and stared up at all those photos of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. And now the only photo left up there was Grandpa and Grandma. And I think that one will be gone soon as well.

Back in Wheeling at my house, mom let me play with all her jewelry—I’m trying to decide what to wear for the wedding. At least, that was a reasonable excuse. I’ve always loved going through mom’s jewelry; she always trusted me with it. We decided on a multi-strand pearl necklace that was her grandmother’s. So now I’ve got mom’s veil and a great-grandma’s necklace. Trying them on together was just plain weird, though. It’s like we’re getting ready for a play and I’ve got most of my costume on, and I can see the character I’m playing. It’s just odd.

Anyway, I lay awake in my old bed that night, trying to soak in as much of the “I’m at home” feeling as I could. Part of me wanted to hop in my car and drive around town just to assure myself Wheeling, Sherrard, Glen Dale were all still there. The longer you are away from a place, the more it seems like an imaginary universe you made up. You start to forget where things are and they crumble a bit in your mind. Heck, sometimes you drive by a place now and it’s changed or gone altogether. My bed, in my house, felt like a pocket dimension I was visiting in my sleep. These days, I feel like I borrow time as a part of that house. I pretend to be just a kid again, going through mom’s necklaces and eating eggs that dad has cooked for me. But that’s getting harder and harder to do.