The Funeral and the Gold Tie

My grandfather died when I was six years old. At the funeral I cried so loud that my parents still bring it up more than twenty-five years later. Not a kid sniffling in a pew. Loud enough that the room turned around. I do not remember deciding to do it. I remember the sound being mine and having no way to stop it.

I have not been to a funeral since. Not one. I am not proud of that and I am not going to defend it. Something about that room at six years old set a limit in me, and I have never gone back and argued with it. I have skipped services for people I loved, and I have made my own peace with what that costs.

What I carried home was a gold tie. Not a watch. Not a ring. A gold tie that belonged to him, folded up and put away by a six-year-old who had no idea what he was supposed to do with it. Nobody handed it over with a speech. It just ended up mine. It has moved with me to every address I have ever had, through every version of me, the good years and the bad ones.

I could not have told you at six why I kept it, and I still cannot explain it cleanly. It is a strip of gold fabric that does not match a single thing I own or a single place I go. It is also the one object in my life I would run back into a burning building for. Some things you hold onto long before you understand them.