Stories I Won’t Tell at Your Funeral

first off, i won’t tell people about the time i found you passed out naked in the bathroom when i was 21 and you were 46. i don’t think the crowd gathered at your memorial will be warmed up enough for that one, especially considering the majority in attendance will be your brothers and sisters and their families.

i also won’t tell the story of the time you accidentally got your words mixed up and instead of calling your first grandson a “butterbean,” you called the poor kid a “beaner.” on the sidewalk. in the middle of a busy el paso neighborhood. we laughed so hard we could barely walk home and you were so mortified you never walked that street again. for what it’s worth, i tell dom that story all the time and it always makes him laugh. but still. it’s 2021 now, not 2003, and people are sensitve.

i probably won’t have time to go far back enough in the annals of our history to the time when you, me, and gary were watching the “young and the restless” on a random weekday and you misheard the actress and from out of nowhere you say “turtle? did she just say ‘hope springs a turtle?!” that one made us laugh for a long time. it’s a good story, but not quite the one i’m looking for.

there’s that story of the time gary and i were making fun of the dessert you ordered at "trudy’s” in austin. it was a now-delicious seeming flan with a gorgeous caramel sauce, but to my 8-year-old self it looked gross, so i said it looked like “phlegm, not flan.” that got gary laughing and me laughing…but you? not so much. i think you through a napkin at him and stormed out to the car in a rage where you sat in stony silence the entire ride home. any time gary and i caught each other’s eye in the next 48 hours, it was all we could do not to laugh. but that’s one of those “you had to be there” stories that just don’t translate in a eulogy.

i’ve considered telling the story when you went to bat for me my senior year and ran that arrogant homeroom teacher up one way and down the other when she tried to embarrass me for not watching the dallas finale and failing a “current events” quiz. she started off so arrogant and ready to tell you all about your slacker daughter, but dear gawd, debra…you had that poor girl in tears before you were finished. for the rest of the year, you were a hero to me and my classmates. but i won’t. not enough context.

there’s a common thread i’m finding in these stories i won’t tell at your funeral and it’s the ability you had to laugh at yourself, at me, at the world, at life. i find myself sifting through them like old photographs, searching for the perfect ones and i’m falling short.

i keep telling myself that the perfect story to tell at your funeral is in there somewhere, but the truth of the matter is that it isn’t. it isn’t there at all.

most likely, i’ll end up telling the loved ones gathered to say goodbye that i miss you. and wish we had more time for more stories together. that the perfect one just doesn’t exist because we hadn’t lived it yet.