Two years after Mary died, I have not been able to wash the dress I wore to the funeral.
The problem, I suppose, is that when I emptied her remains into the Puget Sound a fine sprinkling floated back, covering me in a light dusting of dead junkie auntie.
Somehow it seems wrong to shove the garment in a charity bin – though keeping it is nowhere near as macabre as the fact that my daughter is still carrying a pill vial full of the same ashes.
Lately I have been thinking about Mary more than normal, because various events (global, economic, personal, whatever) have made me wonder why so many people fail to understand what they are looking at.
My aunt was brilliant, hilarious – and a bad mother. She was smart, observant – and a thief. I loved and hated her in equal measure, miss her desperately; but I always knew exactly who and what she was.
Nothing that has happened in the current economic crisis, or the scandals sweeping through the lives of people I know, has surprised me at all, for similar reasons. I expect institutions to fulfill stated objectives, and people to act according to their own particular nature. Good, bad, or indifferent.
I’ve never had any relative problem consorting with people who make choices I would never make. Quite the opposite – life would be dull and lonely if restricted to hanging out in comfortable places with people who share my values.
That does not mean that organizations or people do not deserve affection, attention, and management. I’ve bought and sold houses, worked in government, run a business, married unwisely, scampered all over the world, and had a great deal of fun along the way.
I’m not making a value judgment about, oh, anything. I object only to the false naivety that allows people to be shocked to find that banks are banks, real estate is real estate, thugs are thugs, and liars are liars.