Graduation and Funerals

Doesn't seem like the two should mix, but that's how it was. On June 11th, I attended a funeral for LaVerne Duncan. It was heartbreaking for my grandmother and my fiance.

Apparently, my fiance had grown up with LaVerne, and my mother had watched him grow up too. I remembered the name from my mother, and found that LaVerne was only a year younger than my mother and a couple years older than my brother in law.

Interesting enough, that was my second funeral for this year, and now I'm about to attend another tomorrow.

This time, it's Charles Drinnon. He's always been a close family friend. His parents and siblings used to attend the church that my step-grandfather had by our house. I've known them since I was a child, even though they were atleast twice my age. I've always respected them, and held them near and dear in my heart.

My fiance and his siblings attended school with Charles and his siblings, and he knew them fairly well.

I'm devasted by this because Charles always appeared to be in good health and with a happy soul. I never seen him without a smile on his face. And my grandmother always baby sat Charles when he was little with his siblings, so she felt the blow of his death pretty hard.

Charles and my grandmother had a special relationship, like mother-son relationship. Whenever they would run into the store, they'd talk for minutes on end, and before he'd leave he'd slyly (though not so sly) hand my grandmother a 20 dollar bill. He'd always smile and tell her that, even though she didn't want to take, that he wanted her to take it because he was just going to buy beer with it anyway. My grandmother would laugh and he would chuckle and zoom away with his electric wheelchair.

I forgot to mention that he had lost a leg, from an injury. I do not remember where he received such an injury, but that he never let himself be constrained to the injury. He was a strong, gentle, sincere man. Someone you couldn't help but become friends with. He was only 50, (as is my father), but he's been called home.

I will forver miss them, and would like to honor them by this.

Now onto a lighter note, I'd like to congratulate my friend Baby Jay.

She's 19 years old and is (finally) a proud graduate of Clover Valley High! I know someone is out there like so? Or even thinking that my friend is dumb to be held back by a year but let me tell you this.

For as long as I've known Baby Jay, everyone has expected the worst from her. That she would never graduate or amount to anything. But this past five years have been pretty rough on her.

Just the past couple of years would have made any normal person suicidal, not to say that she wasn't but she overcame that. She does meth, weed, pills, drinks, and has done a little coke. She's been raped multiple times, once by her own uncle, and watched as he molested her cousin. Saved her cousin, had to go to court to testify in case her uncle didn't plea guilty, almost blackmailed by the DA into testifying despite what the other family might do to her if she spoke publicly about that, she's been in jail, juvenile hall, kicked out of her mother's house, been in a near death causing auto accident, and yet she still lives to tell the tale. And she's an ex-cutter.

I'm so proud of her because she's the first of her siblings to graduate from a high school with a diploma. Hopefully her younger brother will do the same. I love Baby Jay like a sister because she has helped me so much through out the years, and I was more than glad to help her out, and we celebrated when she graduated.

But I'm also proud for everyone else! Walking the stage means a lot, and you only get to do that once. Then it's time for either college or life. But whatever the choice, give it all you've got.
June 24th, 2010 at 12:18am