Memorial Drive

I took a road trip this weekend from Austin to Dallas to attend Pete’s memorial service. It’s three to four hours each way, depending on how bad traffic is. I usually hate driving, but something about nice weather, missing Texas, a couple of gorgeous sunsets, lots of good music, and not having driven in so long really made this a soul-nurturing trip. I also just needed the hours and hours to think about old friends and really reflect on what the hell I’m doing. Plus, Pete and I made this trip a couple of times to see his family way back, so it made him seem really present even in the silence.

I feel like I’m always crying in my car these days, which people always say not to do while driving, but they can go to hell. Your car is just about the most private sanctuary you have when you don’t have a garden, and it’s got that comforting white noise and rhythmic ambience to get you back on track. I guess I needed a good cry, because before I even left Travis County, I went through a half box of Kleenex. On the way out of town, after an hour of driving in rush-hour traffic I realized I had left my wallet at my sister’s house on the other side of town. I was already tense with stress from what I was setting out to do, but now I was stuck at a gas station with no money, no ID, barely any gas, and strong feeling of panic that I was going to miss my friends’ flights. It took ten minutes of hysterical weeping before I realized that I was still in the same town as my mother. Who else can you call in the middle of the work day and ask to meet you on the highway with $400 in cash? I guess you never really stop needing parenting--you just don’t need it as often.

Thanks to Mom, I was able to meet my friends in Dallas without too much trouble. The memorial service was beautiful. Seeing all those good-looking pictures of Pete’s life and talking to his grieving friends and family really stirred up a lot. On the one hand, we all clearly knew the same guy. Nothing anybody said surprised me. If I hadn’t already heard a story from Pete’s own lips, it was something I could easily see Pete doing. I guess I had feared that he had had these compartmentalized secret lives or some major quarter-life-crisis in which he underwent a serious personality change, but no, he was basically the same guy to me that he was to everyone. Really that is comforting. On the other hand, the service seemed a bit too positive--not because memorial services should portray anything but the positive sides of a loved one--only, there is this slight feeling of emptiness when you overlook certain aspects of someone’s personality. I don’t think they should have done it differently. Only, I was glad to have the quiet pockets of close friends to cherish the real guy in secret over his favorite cheap beer and a greasy enchilada. I guess that is what you miss when someone passes away: you miss getting to experience all of them, even the bad. To get past the pain, you mistakenly try to think of only lovely things and squelch all the hard things. But really, no one is complete without the awkwardness to balance the charm, and the stinky to offset the beautiful, and the flakey to equalize the genius.

A stunning picture of Pete in Vietnam

[Image from his memorial website]