My Brother's Wake
My Brother’s Wake by Dave Wright I attended my brother’s funeral today…I guess it wasn’t really a funeral. After all, the whole family is agnostic—couldn’t find a preacher to officiate. Not much use for organized religion anyway—too much hypocrisy—and who needs an afterlife. “Live for today,” we always say. No. It was more like an Irish wake—boisterous and noisy—but without the whiskey. Too bad about the whiskey. I had hoped we would share funny stories about Jenks and keep the bad ones to ourselves. I had hoped to visit the relatives I adored and sidestep the ones I am supposed to like. I had hoped to give Brother Jenks a fitting sendoff. Oh well. Jenks was black as tar—blacker than me by a couple of shades. We grew up in a small, pale town—a town as pale as the holiday meals served at Christmas: lefsa, boiled potatoes, white sauce, and peas for color—all served on a white ceramic plate. Plenty of leftovers from those meals, but racoon roadkill would have been a tempting im