Frankie

So I have my cousin Frankie here. Which is, well, weird. He’s been dead nearly five years, and now he’s here with me, in my kitchen. In a glass jar, because my cousin Chrissy, Frank’s sister, is moving around for a bit and asked me to take care of him.

All of Frank’s siblings have some of his ashes. Chrissy said that since I don’t, I can take half of hers while I take care of him. Truth be told, I’ve never had anyone’s ashes before and this seems kind of odd.

When I get in the car to take Frankie to my house, I make sure the jar is safe. I go over a speed bump in the parking lot and instinctively reach over to make sure he’s secure. This makes me start to cry, but I settle myself. If I were my friend Julie, I would sob hysterically the whole way home in the name of some cleansing ritual and be done with it. If I were my friend Holly, I would call me and frantically tell the story with the possibility of some crying and inevitable calming down. But I am me, so I will myself not to cry and turn up the radio. This new song that I love is just starting, that says “Each days a gift, not a given right...” Frankie would love this song, for sure. I sing out loud the whole way home. When I come into the house, I tell Somewhere “This is my cousin Frankie” when she sniffs the jar. I set him by the stove, on the little white spice table.

I’m not particularly surprised this occurred. A couple months ago, Frankie starting popping up, as songs on the radio we both liked, and things that he would’ve laughed at. Then, at my cousin Chrissy’s house, I learned that Frankie was up on the grandfather clock. I never knew he was there, through all the years and times that I visited Chrissy’s house. It occurred to me how many long talks he was there for, while I sat with Chrissy and talked and listened, that he heard and knew about all my struggles. It seemed to make sense that he was right there all along.

Soon after finding him at Chrissy’s, I see a jar of him at my cousin Vicky’s house. I quietly ask the jar if he’s following me, to which the jar had nothing to say. Then a few days later, while fishing with my cousins, we ended up at Frankie’s Point, Frank’s favorite fishing spot. I’ve never been to Frankie’s point before. I stand on the point at sunset, and I tell Frankie him that I like his fishing spot. I miss him.

So I wasn’t surprised when Chrissy asked me for a favor, and the favor turned out to be Frankie.

Georgia and I were just talking about cremation on the way down to our softball tournament the previous weekend. She asked me if I wanted to be cremated or buried, and I told her that I wanted to be cremated. She asked where I wanted my ashes and I had to think about it. In my pause, she suggested either “someplace pretty” or that I get divvied up among my cousins where I can ride around in their cars with them. As it turns out, this is what a lot of my cousins do with their deceased siblings. I told Georgia that riding around with my favorite people would be fine, too.

Having Frankie here makes me wish I could ask him things. Like what to do with the girls as they grow up, and what to do about love. It makes me want to sit on his porch swing and talk and listen and laugh. I can’t believe it’s been five years since I’ve heard him laugh.

The other side of me, the logical side, tells me that this is just a jar of dust, physical remains but nothing else. That there is nothing there of the Frankie I knew, it’s just his DNA. I realize, feeling sort of foolish, that this is something Frankie and I share already. Tiny molecules that make us who we are, the ones we share as members of the same family. This means that Frankie’s always here with me, which actually makes the most sense of all.