Requiem

I met Grama and my aunt ("awnt," not "ant") Leigh at the Humphrey House yesterday afternoon for our usual cocktail, and Grama told me that I had just made it on time for the wake, and that the bar would be closing. I figured she meant that a family was celebrating someone's life, and that they needed all the bar space, as is not uncommon at the Humphrey House. I wasn't too far off the mark, however: it was a wake, and the bar was full of people there in various emotional states, grudgingly celebrating the life of the bar that had been as good a home as any for 30 years. The Humphrey House will be passing into the memories of the people that loved it on Sunday, August 5th.

I have been meeting Grama and Grampa there for the past 6 or 7 years (before I was 21, as neither she nor I found any fault with their serving me a glass of Chardonnay before my legal birthday). They've known the whole crew there a long time, and whenever I'm sitting there with Grama, I try to get names to stick in my head of the people who come up to hug her and give her a kiss on the cheek: old-schoolers wearing suspenders, construction workers who pass in an out to smoke, chefs from the kitchen who come out to get some alcohol from the bar, and long-time friends and regulars that have been sitting in the adjacent stools for years.

Paul met Grama and Grampa there for the first time - I can remember where they were sitting when we walked in, and what Grampa and Paul were watching on one of the tvs. We had a really memorable dinner in the dining room that night, and Paul quickly became an adopted grandson.

It's a family-run restaurant. The owner's neices and sisters and cousins have worked in the kitchens and at the bar and on the floor. The servers have been the same faces since I've been having dinner there. One of the servers, a neice of the owner, was also a recreational therapist at the Jewish Home, where Grampa lived for the last two years of his life. I love that there was a little bit of the Humphrey House around him there.

Usually Grama and I sit at one of the corners of the bar, and we chat about funny things that have happened or about books or family or the normal course of life. Often the money we put out for Annie (my favorite bartender) to take in exchange for our VO or chardonnay gets left on the bar because Marty or Wade or one of the other nice gentleman has bought us our drinks. Sometimes Susie (chardonnay) will join us, or Michael (maybe a beer), or Paul (coke). Grama meets Leigh (Miller Lite) there regularly after Leigh gets out of work.

When Grampa passed away this spring, we had a great party in the upstairs function room. It made so much more sense that sitting in a funeral home parlor room that none of us had ever seen before. All the regulars from the bar came up to give Grama a kiss. It could not have felt more like Grampa was with us, enjoying his own party.

There have been people going to the Humphrey House for the past 30 years. I haven't even been alive for 30 years, and most of the old guys at the bar may not know my name, but I'm Barb and Frank's granddaughter, and I belong there. I've got a big chunk of grief to deal with.