9/12/11 Finding Your Dead II: Family Secrets

Mom had enlisted Lidia to help us find my grandfather’s tomb; she knew exactly where it was.  Arriving at the cemetery we found the groundkeeper precisely where we had left him, leaning up against the gate smoking without a care in the world.  He may have been the coolest guy to walk the planet, or the laziest; it was hard to decide.  I eventually settled on “laziest” since everyone knows that Steve McQueen was the coolest.

Lidia easily found the tomb in roughly the same area that we had searched in a couple of days ago.  But it wasn’t as mom had remembered it.  Instead of dark marble, it was white with dark veins.  Mom shed tears as she paid her respects.  She was so young when her father died; the memories are few, but strong.  When my grandmother would try and discipline my mom, my grandfather would always stop her.  Mom was his precious little “papuzzella” (ladybug); the only girl in the family and the youngest of his eight children.  He saw her as a gift and he let her get away with anything.

But since my grandfather wasn't around all the time, mom still received her fair share of discipline courtesy of her mother and brothers.  My grandfather was a truck driver and spent many days on the road.  His occupation may be connected in some way to the mystery of the light at his tomb.  The small light by his photograph always stays lit.  The cemetery charges a fee for this but nobody from my immediate family has been paying the bill.  If not them, then who?  As a truck driver who spent a lot of time away from home, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that my grandfather had other relationships over the years.  With eight children to his credit, he certainly didn’t lack of virility.  Mom doesn’t dismiss the idea, and without actually admitting it she knows there may be some substance to it.



The light that fuels the mystery



The truth of the matter is that if someone wanted to find out who was paying for the light, they could.  All it would take would be some properly placed questions involving in no way shape or form the groundskeeper.  But such is the power of mystery.  Better to believe that there is some unknown person out there that loves him enough to keep the lamp lit than to believe the alternative…that it’s just a clerical error.  A clerical error that endures for fifty-five years?  Unlikely.