Me, my late Grandmother and my brother Gary in a picture taken in 1994.
My grandmother’s passing last week brought together my very big family. How big you ask? We’re talking nine children, 26 grandchildren and 29 great grandchildren. Yeah, that big.
While sadness brought us all together, laughter could be heard throughout the events celebrating the life of my grandmother. That’s fitting, considering her knack for making all of us laugh.
The reason for much of the laughter was me, because like my family, I am also big. Actually, I should say I’m bigger, much bigger than I was the last time many of the people who were in attendance last saw me. It was many years and many pounds ago.
The newer bigger version of me, was the butt of several jokes. For reasons I’ve yet to figure out, people who knew you as a child feel like they can get away with saying things like “Wow! What have you been eating?” or “When did you get so fat?” They’re right though, they can get away with it. What can I do? Other than lose weight, of course.
I didn’t let it bother me too much. I like the sound of laughter, even if it is at my expense. In a setting like a wake or the after-funeral brunch, laughter can be a great medicine.
For me, it became sort of a social experiment to see how long it would take someone to make a comment. What I learned from this experiment is people who will make a comment, will do so immediately. The added pounds must be so shocking to people that they just can’t control themselves. They have to just spit out right away. It’s fun ice breaker, I guess.
Maybe it’s so shocking to them because I used to look like the guy you see in the picture above (that’s me in the Knicks t-shirt). I also used to be a 15 year-old kid with a full head of hair who played basketball in my driveway all day long. Things change. People get older and bigger (sometimes, much bigger). Not everyone handles seeing change the same. For some, this change is too drastic not to mention.
Now if you’ll excuse me I must go to the gym and not because a cousin of a cousin who hasn’t seen me in 20 years thinks so.
