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Adam and (St)Eve
By Stephanie Kemp
Adam and (St)Eve
By Stephanie Kemp
Adam is my husband, the only person on the planet that I could be (or stay) married to.
Steve is the childhood nickname my Uncle Bob gave me when I was a tomboy trying to keep up with (and/or beat) my boy cousins at any/everything. My sisters were Dick (Tracy) and George (Ginny).
My real name is Stephanie.
My massive, sprawling family of origin was everything to me.
And why I moved very far away.
Uncle Bob taught me to be fun.
To live any way I wanted.
He spoke a mean Donald Duck and encouraged me to play the piano upside down.
He wasn’t like the other dads.
Maybe he didn’t belong in the suburbs either.
He died on June 1, 2021.
Impossibly but beautifully, his funeral was the day after my Mom’s, although she passed away 505 day before her funeral (pandemic). His wife, my Aunt Frannie was my mom’s big sister. Aunt Frannie taught me to be kind and how to be the boss of a family. My mom taught me to be kind and how to have fun. Their sister, Virginia (my Aunt G), taught me how to move through life with a sense of humor and then (and how) to leave that life gracefully, in strength.
They all loved me no matter how, or where, I lived.
My uncle and my mom were sent to the next stop in the:
Same Church.
Same Steeple.
Imagine the overlap of all the People.
We are a lot of people.
Uncle Bob(’s ashes) joined Aunt Frannie(’s) in this Same Church (Episcopalian), while Mom’s ashes joined her second husband (also Bob) in a separate cemetery. (Mom was a Sexy Presbyterian turned Part Time Episcopalian with a dash of Catholic by Marriage. Her husband was a Very. Good. Jesuit.)
It was a brutal and soul fueling two days.
My cousins put a golf ball in with Uncle Bob (plus some cigarettes for Aunt Frannie) and we put chocolate chip cookies and some contraband ashes of Dick Tracy’s dog, Gussy, in with Mom to keep her and (her) Bob company.
If this is hard to track, don’t worry.
It gets worse.
My dad (yet another Bob) is buried across town in the cemetery we used to play tag and, later, drink beer in. (He was a Christian Scientist meets Atheist.) My stepmom (another Stephanie Kemp - a Presbyterian who was baptized Lutheran) had to pull some tricky moves to get him into this cemetery. (He had been in a different cemetery for several years. She would do - and still does - anything for him.)
While my sisters and I were shocked (and some other things) at the thought of Dad being exhumed (our dad was exhumed!), I must admit that I like visiting him in my childhood cemetery. Plus, if I’m being honest (I am trying), I never once went to visit my Dad in his original resting place and wouldn’t have ever been able to find it - his grave or the actual cemetery.
Did I mention that this massive, sprawling family of origin also takes up a lot of space?
The deaths of all of my grown ups (I now subscribe to the Pauline Boss theory of Ambiguous Loss, having started this subscription when the rules of Kübler-Ross pissed me off) has left me unmoored and trying to reconfigure who I am.
Will be.
Want to be.
Have to be.
For my daughters.
For my husband.
For me.
And while I try (and try again) to figure out what to hold onto and what to let go of, I realize that Adam has been stuck with Steve, when he married Stephanie (this one).
He hasn’t seen her in a very long time.
I think it might be time to invite her back in.
This is important because Adam is the only person on the planet that I could (or want to) be married to.
Remember?
Plus…
I miss her too and know that she would want to be back in time to celebrate Chanukah and Passover with Adam’s (and her) family. (Jewish.)
Did I mention that I am still working on my religious identity*?
To Be Continued…………(obviously).
*This is not to be confused with my spiritual identity, in which I stand rock solidly, wearing two structurally sound, high quality, hand crafted, weather proofed, custom designed - for and by me -boots. You are welcome to borrow them anytime, although you will still - undoubtedly/sometimes - trip and/or fall.
Steve is the childhood nickname my Uncle Bob gave me when I was a tomboy trying to keep up with (and/or beat) my boy cousins at any/everything. My sisters were Dick (Tracy) and George (Ginny).
My real name is Stephanie.
My massive, sprawling family of origin was everything to me.
And why I moved very far away.
Uncle Bob taught me to be fun.
To live any way I wanted.
He spoke a mean Donald Duck and encouraged me to play the piano upside down.
He wasn’t like the other dads.
Maybe he didn’t belong in the suburbs either.
He died on June 1, 2021.
Impossibly but beautifully, his funeral was the day after my Mom’s, although she passed away 505 day before her funeral (pandemic). His wife, my Aunt Frannie was my mom’s big sister. Aunt Frannie taught me to be kind and how to be the boss of a family. My mom taught me to be kind and how to have fun. Their sister, Virginia (my Aunt G), taught me how to move through life with a sense of humor and then (and how) to leave that life gracefully, in strength.
They all loved me no matter how, or where, I lived.
My uncle and my mom were sent to the next stop in the:
Same Church.
Same Steeple.
Imagine the overlap of all the People.
We are a lot of people.
Uncle Bob(’s ashes) joined Aunt Frannie(’s) in this Same Church (Episcopalian), while Mom’s ashes joined her second husband (also Bob) in a separate cemetery. (Mom was a Sexy Presbyterian turned Part Time Episcopalian with a dash of Catholic by Marriage. Her husband was a Very. Good. Jesuit.)
It was a brutal and soul fueling two days.
My cousins put a golf ball in with Uncle Bob (plus some cigarettes for Aunt Frannie) and we put chocolate chip cookies and some contraband ashes of Dick Tracy’s dog, Gussy, in with Mom to keep her and (her) Bob company.
If this is hard to track, don’t worry.
It gets worse.
My dad (yet another Bob) is buried across town in the cemetery we used to play tag and, later, drink beer in. (He was a Christian Scientist meets Atheist.) My stepmom (another Stephanie Kemp - a Presbyterian who was baptized Lutheran) had to pull some tricky moves to get him into this cemetery. (He had been in a different cemetery for several years. She would do - and still does - anything for him.)
While my sisters and I were shocked (and some other things) at the thought of Dad being exhumed (our dad was exhumed!), I must admit that I like visiting him in my childhood cemetery. Plus, if I’m being honest (I am trying), I never once went to visit my Dad in his original resting place and wouldn’t have ever been able to find it - his grave or the actual cemetery.
Did I mention that this massive, sprawling family of origin also takes up a lot of space?
The deaths of all of my grown ups (I now subscribe to the Pauline Boss theory of Ambiguous Loss, having started this subscription when the rules of Kübler-Ross pissed me off) has left me unmoored and trying to reconfigure who I am.
Will be.
Want to be.
Have to be.
For my daughters.
For my husband.
For me.
And while I try (and try again) to figure out what to hold onto and what to let go of, I realize that Adam has been stuck with Steve, when he married Stephanie (this one).
He hasn’t seen her in a very long time.
I think it might be time to invite her back in.
This is important because Adam is the only person on the planet that I could (or want to) be married to.
Remember?
Plus…
I miss her too and know that she would want to be back in time to celebrate Chanukah and Passover with Adam’s (and her) family. (Jewish.)
Did I mention that I am still working on my religious identity*?
To Be Continued…………(obviously).
*This is not to be confused with my spiritual identity, in which I stand rock solidly, wearing two structurally sound, high quality, hand crafted, weather proofed, custom designed - for and by me -boots. You are welcome to borrow them anytime, although you will still - undoubtedly/sometimes - trip and/or fall.