My dad wanted an Irish wake when he died<\/p>\n
A real one he said<\/p>\n
The kind where the friends and family get drunk<\/p>\n
Tell stories and laugh<\/p>\n
And perhaps cause a fight or two<\/p>\n
Fisticuffs for the deceased<\/p>\n
Something John Wayne would have done in The Quiet Man<\/em><\/p>\n No tears, no regrets, no false sympathies<\/p>\n No parades of mourners lining up for one last look<\/p>\n At the body<\/p>\n Only camaraderie, bravado, and a little bit of excess<\/p>\n His way of dying with dignity<\/p>\n But when my dad did die, after his body broke down<\/p>\n And the signs he ignored for so long<\/p>\n Came around with a balance due<\/p>\n We failed him<\/p>\n He laid in an open casket, and we all took our turns<\/p>\n His face immaculate, his hair coiffed<\/p>\n His body so carefully staged for the auction to come<\/p>\n \u201cBeautifully preserved recently deceased male, who wants to open the bidding?\u201d<\/p>\n And the mourners came<\/p>\n They came with carefully measured solemnity<\/p>\n They got their cheap thrill<\/p>\n They hugged, they cried<\/p>\n All in defiance of my dad\u2019s order<\/p>\n He must have been pissed off<\/p>\n Ready, like Wayne\u2019s character Sean Thornton<\/p>\n To start the fight when a fight was necessary<\/p>\n But not today, Dad, not today<\/p>\n I spoke, I can\u2019t recall what I said exactly<\/p>\n But I mentioned that he loved John Wayne movies<\/p>\n The swagger, the no bullshit persona<\/p>\n Which made a few people laugh<\/p>\n Because they knew it was true<\/p>\n That\u2019s who my dad wanted to be<\/p>\n The soul of an Irishman<\/p>\n Living in his Ecuadorian and Mexican body<\/p>\n He will always be that to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My dad wanted an Irish wake when he died A real one he said The kind where the friends and family get drunk Tell stories and laugh And perhaps cause a fight or two Fisticuffs for the deceased Something John Wayne would have done in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":959,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/959"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38305,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38271\/revisions\/38305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}