The kind of day you never forget.<\/p>\n
Of course we were late for the ceremony. Searching for parking when people were entering the church. Being at the door away from the family and the coffin felt so painful. I am part of this family too, I should be there. I close my eyes and try to get the anxiety away, listening to the church dude. \u201cHe\u2019s been living here for 41 years\u201d <\/em>10 years later I was a baby in his life. \u201cHe was involved in different local organizations\u201d<\/em>. I can see him play petanque, getting ready to go hunting or fishing, his perfectly organized workshop. \u201cHe was in pain, which reminds us of Jesus on the cross\u201d. <\/em><\/p>\n What the fuck is that. I forgot about that disgustingly lame behavior. Fucking church you ruined it I fucking hate you.<\/p>\n Then I am not listening anymore, so angry (and then you ask money huh? I hate you church). Before the incense thing someone from the family sees me and gets me a place with everybody in front. Bursting in tears seeing her and others, I feel so embarrassed. After all I am the only black man in this all white crowded church. But one of the closest person of the dead. It\u2019s kind of overwhelming.<\/p>\n We all follow the coffin outside. I say hello to everyone, some I had never seen again since being in my \u201ccurrent\u201d family 25 years ago. My dad is chatting a little bit with her but he\u2019s keeping it simple. After all he barely knows more than my foster parents which is a number reduced to one now.<\/p>\n We\u2019re the first at the house. She arrives, I think she looks amazingly kind and pure. Exhausted too. Quickly everybody is here in the living room, starting to put on the buffet on the table. Smiles, tears, everybody is here and it\u2019s beautiful and warm. But it\u2019s also unbearably awkward with my dad, the stranger to whom no one talks to almost. He\u2019s in the corner, sitting down with a plate I made for him and as pretty much all day, I can\u2019t look in his eyes at all. I can sense that everybody is like \u201ckeep the bad language down, there\u2019s Harold\u2019s dad listening what would he think then huh?\u201d<\/em>. I feel bad for him. I feel bad too.<\/p>\n I just try to get to chat a bit with everybody, following cigarette breaks outside, getting back for more coffee to fight the jet lag and the cold thick fog of the afternoon. As much fog outside and inside my head.<\/p>\n It\u2019s 2pm, the family leaves for the crematory later and while I would love to join, we have some road to hit before the Parisian traffic. It\u2019s like I\u2019m staying 5 minutes saying we\u2019re leaving and doing nothing, just enjoying to have them all around me. I feel so lucky and proud. They say they put a picture of me in the coffin too. Humanity at its roots. For what it\u2019s worth\u2026<\/p>\n I think the hardest part is to stretch out my mind in order to include everyone I love. So many different worlds, so many differences, so many unique connections when in some ways, I\u2019d like to be in a \u201cnormal\u201c situation with \u201cnormal\u201d connections.<\/p>\n What \u201cnormal\u201d is, what family, love, friends are. Sometimes I don\u2019t fucking know. I just freeze.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The kind of day you never forget. Of course we were late for the ceremony. Searching for parking when people were entering the church. Being at the door away from the family and the coffin felt so painful. I am part of this family too, I should be there. I close my eyes and try […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}