This is a place I've never been to with people I don't recognize and have never seen in my life.
They all act like they know me, and maybe they do, but I sure don't know them.
Their faces, unfamiliar, tower over me.
They hug me and the stink of their clothes is smothering.
There are mixed memories that accompany that smell.
It reminds me of awkward weekends with grandparents I barely knew.
It makes me think of applesauce and Polaroids.
That stale stench is accompanied by their tears and tissues falling to the ground in front of my patent leather, going-to-a-fancy-place shoes.
Why are they sobbing? Ask someone else.
My mother leads me to kneel in front of a big, rectangular, wooden box and tells me to pay my respects.
How do you pay someone in respects?
The box is closed and has an ornate display of flowers on top that almost overpowers the awful smell of the oldies.
I want to know what is in the box and why the pungent flowers are so necessary.
My mother tearily tells me that I can move on.
We walk through the crowd of unknown and a little card is shoved into my hand.
It has a picture of a man.
He is young.
He is happy.
I turn the card over to read,
"May the road rise to meet you,
may the wind always be at your back,
may the sun shine warm upon your face,
the rain fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of his hand."
We keep walking,
out the door,
away from the dismal room full of strange adults crying like children with stubbed toes, and into the sunlight.
I know nothing more about that day except,
I still have that card in my desk.
It has a handsome picture of the great-uncle I never knew.