Its been a while

I can't remember his name. He was Dina's boyfriend, I guess. He was around a lot after I learned she was sick. Tony was her son, my cousin. A third my age. A ginger. An alcoholic asshole dad and a mom dying of AIDS. All of the disease I knew then was gay men and junkies had it. I never met a gay man or a junkie. Dina got it. From some guy with a past I could not imagine. We huddled around as she faded. I was so young. It went so fast. It must have been forever for her. She was leaving her son to us. To this guy that I cannot remember his name. This guy that took care of her to the end. That came over one holiday after she was gone and it was awkward. I was 12 and felt the oddness in the air. This guy that took photos at the funeral. No one takes pictures at a funeral. Dina wanted it that way. I remember sitting between her and my dads other sister, Jennifer, one Christmas laughing at my grandma being drunk on white whine, supporting herself on a chair, sustaining, being adult. Us laughing. Dina was thin, red hair. I could tell at 10 she liked to party. Me in twenty five years. I don't remember Tony's dad. I haven't seen Tony since I left Indiana. Last I heard he was getting married and worked at a restaurant in an expressway oasis but was trying to get an HV/AC apprentice or something. I might have just made that up. I wish I could remember more about Dina. Its my dad's sister. I think she was younger than my dad but older than Chris. He was in the army and was gone for most of my adolescence. He came back and told corny jokes I was too young to get. He lived in Grandma and Nana's basement. Grandma moved in with Nana from the apartment she had by the health club. Grandma and Grandpa got divorced when I was 2 or 3. She worked at he hospital in the kitchen or dietary something or other. Chris was hit and killed at an in intersection driving around with friends. Apparently the ambulance was doing 80 through the stop sign without its lights or sirens on, because it may have disturbed the residents of the suburbs. The collision killed him instantly. I remember when the ambulance took my dad's mother away from our house when dementia finally overtook her and she could not live at our house anymore, the ambulance waited until it was off our street to hit he lights. My dad said to me that if he ever got like to to shoot him in the head. He said it twice. We didn't talk much. We bonded over musical instruments some or cars or building shelves. I went to art school. He bounced back and forth from truck driving and building houses. A man. Tough and quiet. He never sat around drinking white wine writing sad stories. Its been two years since we all left Indiana for Alabama an lived under the same roof. We watched stupid cartoons and giggled. We have the same laugh. We sit on back porches and put our feet up the same. I never told him I love him. He would do well here in Little Rock. You would like him. We could porch sit and tell dumb jokes. He would tell you stories about truck driving he never told me alone. I wished I could be a comfort to him. When Dina, or Chris or Nana or Grandma died. I hid. I hide. What could I say. The day of grandma's funeral I spent energy thinking about where I would get the proper shoes and dark socks. Doing anything the day of a funeral is odd. Pedestrians and other drivers should automatically know what I am on my way to. I'm an adult on the way to my father's mother's wake. Please give me the right of way. What do I say. What can I do to make it slightly more okay.

Sorry, I cannot edit myself. Paragraphs are for sober people.