Funeral Update: Infantile Adults

I drove four hours south from California's hot-as-hell central valley to the Los Angeles area yesterday. I saw my grandmother this morning, and she was very very upset for about 20 minutes, then she cheered up and asked me what she should wear to my grandfather's funeral. She likes having family around.

Apparently, she is expecting me to speak at my grandfather's funeral, which is mid-week. I'm happy to, except that I haven't really been close to him in over 10 years. In fact, I haven't had a conversation with him since the mid-1990's. Over the years, he became much less social and much preferred his own company to that of others. Also, none of her three children (my mom and two uncles) plan to speak at the service.

I asked her, "Why?" And she replied that they're terrible public speakers, wouldn't know what to say, and that I'm more mature so I would. Um .... okay. I find this ironic because I'm the black sheep in my family.

My mother is 58 years old, and my uncles are 56 and 48, respectively. They are ADULTS. You would think that they could get it together to reminisce about their father with their relatives and friends, people I do not know at all. I haven't seen many of these relatives since I was a kid. It's not as if my mother and uncles would be too emotional to speak, my grandmother alluded. It's just that they're too scatterbrained.