Table Nine
Palm Springs 5.15.4
Picture by Susan Scott
What are weddings for? Well besides the obvious, it's a reason for family to get together. And I don't mean just relatives. I mean family. The brothers and sisters that you choose in life to be your chosen family. With blood relatives you have no choice. Some chump pops out of Mom and there it is. Your sibling. Like it or not, there it is. A big cry baby eating all your food. Soon you'll learn to love them. Cause their there.
I choose most of my family. Every one, hand picked. Boy, girl, boy, girl, girl, girl. I love my relatives just fine. But I also love my chosen family. You could say that God brought them to me. I don't believe that. I believe they brought them to us. We belong together. One and all.
At my wedding last May my whole family came, minus four. They were too busy. And I forgive them because they're family, and I love them. Kellie was one of my sisters that came. It was no easy trip either. She had terminal cancer and no money to spare. But she came anyway. We danced, we drank and we told stories. Old stories. Stories that happened 27 years ago. Some good, some embarrassing. But all were hilarious.
Seven members of my family sat at table nine at my wedding. It was kind of a misfit table. Two of the funniest comedians in Los Angeles, one epic photographer, one of the best violinists in the world (used to be married to the photographer), A real estate mogul slash loyal friend, and a guy that's done everything except fuck a girl. And then there was Kelly. (She's the one in the picture that looks like a Kellie)
Kellie was the queen of table nine. All sunshine from top to bottom. She even let me grab her tits. She'd let anybody grab her tits. She was good that way. She thought James P. was cute (He's the guy kissing Marty). James P. had his own TV show about a year ago. I'm not jealous or anything. I just hate him for it. We all had a great time and that was that.
On Christmas day my sister Kellie died. She died at 8:01am. By 6:00pm I was drunk and balling my eyes out at the dinner table of my Mother and Father in law's house in Bellingham Washington. I was really drunk. The kind of drunk where you don't remember anything the next day. Of coarse I apologized the next morning for my blubbering the night before. Donald, my wife's father, is a Presbyterian minister. His wife Maureen is a Skull Jockey. They were both appalled I'm sure.
Later on I thought that maybe I shouldn't have apologized. I didn't do anything wrong. My sister died and I was hurting. When people hurt they go to the medicine cabinet to relive the pain.
I'm not drunk anymore. But I'm just as sad. I'm sad for her three kids. I'm sad for her friends, and I'm sad for myself. Now it's just memory's. Memory's of childhood dramas, ditching school, and Table Nine.
I love you Kellie. For all you're faults. You we're my sister. We all had a great time, and that was that.
Picture by Susan Scott
What are weddings for? Well besides the obvious, it's a reason for family to get together. And I don't mean just relatives. I mean family. The brothers and sisters that you choose in life to be your chosen family. With blood relatives you have no choice. Some chump pops out of Mom and there it is. Your sibling. Like it or not, there it is. A big cry baby eating all your food. Soon you'll learn to love them. Cause their there.
I choose most of my family. Every one, hand picked. Boy, girl, boy, girl, girl, girl. I love my relatives just fine. But I also love my chosen family. You could say that God brought them to me. I don't believe that. I believe they brought them to us. We belong together. One and all.
At my wedding last May my whole family came, minus four. They were too busy. And I forgive them because they're family, and I love them. Kellie was one of my sisters that came. It was no easy trip either. She had terminal cancer and no money to spare. But she came anyway. We danced, we drank and we told stories. Old stories. Stories that happened 27 years ago. Some good, some embarrassing. But all were hilarious.
Seven members of my family sat at table nine at my wedding. It was kind of a misfit table. Two of the funniest comedians in Los Angeles, one epic photographer, one of the best violinists in the world (used to be married to the photographer), A real estate mogul slash loyal friend, and a guy that's done everything except fuck a girl. And then there was Kelly. (She's the one in the picture that looks like a Kellie)
Kellie was the queen of table nine. All sunshine from top to bottom. She even let me grab her tits. She'd let anybody grab her tits. She was good that way. She thought James P. was cute (He's the guy kissing Marty). James P. had his own TV show about a year ago. I'm not jealous or anything. I just hate him for it. We all had a great time and that was that.
On Christmas day my sister Kellie died. She died at 8:01am. By 6:00pm I was drunk and balling my eyes out at the dinner table of my Mother and Father in law's house in Bellingham Washington. I was really drunk. The kind of drunk where you don't remember anything the next day. Of coarse I apologized the next morning for my blubbering the night before. Donald, my wife's father, is a Presbyterian minister. His wife Maureen is a Skull Jockey. They were both appalled I'm sure.
Later on I thought that maybe I shouldn't have apologized. I didn't do anything wrong. My sister died and I was hurting. When people hurt they go to the medicine cabinet to relive the pain.
I'm not drunk anymore. But I'm just as sad. I'm sad for her three kids. I'm sad for her friends, and I'm sad for myself. Now it's just memory's. Memory's of childhood dramas, ditching school, and Table Nine.
I love you Kellie. For all you're faults. You we're my sister. We all had a great time, and that was that.
posted by Some Guy at 12/28/2004 10:20:00 PM
1 Comments:
Nice post Jon.
I can't exactly remember now - those "oh-so-important" thing(s) I was doing that 5/15 weekend of your wedding...but I instinctively knew at the time of doing whatever I was doing, that I should have been in LA somewhere around table 9.
Today, in looking back...whatever it WAS I was doing that weekend in Portland, wasn't worth it.
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