Two Memories

 

Two memories of this time.

First, two years ago this day was my Mom's funeral - Valentine's Day, 2022. I can smile when I think of it because I know she was so happy to go, and her funeral meant that I could think of it in terms of, "How appropriate that this is the day; the first Valentine's Day they'll be able to be together in seven years. How happy that'll make them both." 

It was, of course, right in the middle of the pandemic, so though Mom passed away in January, funerals at the National Cemetery in Riverside were so backed up that she couldn't be buried until Feb. 14, and had to spend a month in a refrigerator someplace in Colton. When we got to the cemetery the driveway where the processions assembled looked like a drive-in vaccination site at the height of the pandemic: divided into lanes with cones, with three other funerals cued up ready to roll before us. It was all... very strange and a bit surreal.

Though after two years I'm still dealing with the side-effects of grief, the memories do make me smile.

Generally after a funeral, it's customary to gather in someone's home for food, but (again) because of the pandemic, that wasn't feasible. I made reservations at Mom's favorite restaurant, which had a large shaded (and heated) patio, and again, it makes me smile to think of all fourteen of us trooping in, through all those tables of people celebrating Valentine's Day (think balloons and candy), and there we were, black-clothed and funereal. And yet, as lunch progressed I could feel the level of tension coming down as we talked and shared a meal, and shared memories, and shared each others' company.

So my memories of that day are not sad at all.

My second memory of this time is because today is Ash Wednesday, yesterday was Mardi Gras in New Orleans. During my marriage to George Alec Effinger, I spent several Mardi Grases (or, Mardis Gras) in that town (including the one that was two weeks after the Superbowl, when the place was so packed with tourists that you couldn't get a cab, you couldn't get a reservation at any restaurant, and there were people EVERYWHERE). On one of those occasions, George said, I had to go down to Bourbon Street on the Tuesday night of Mardi Gras, just to see what it was really like at the epicenter of the proceedings.

It was seriously wall-to-wall people, throwing beads from the balconies and behaving like - well - drunken tourists. But, said George, we had to see the last event of Mardi Gras. 

And at midnight, at the corner of Bourbon and Canal (Canal Street is the boundary of the Quarter), floodlights went up, illuminating what looked like the last parade of Mardi Gras. There was a line of cops with bullhorns: "Mardi Gras is Over. Everybody Go Home. Mardi Gras is Over. Everybody Go Home." Very like the marching bands of a regular parade. Behind them, in place of the riding dukes, was a line of mounted police; then, instead of floats, a line of cop-cars with floodlights glaring. And dimly in the darkness behind THEM, like the big floats, a wall-to-wall line of street sweepers. "Mardi Gras is Over. Everybody Go Home."

George told me that the City of New Orleans weighs the post-MG trash, to determine how successful Mardi Gras was. More trash = bigger success.