That isn’t to say I didn’t still throw a fit about mother’s decision to make me wear a diaper to the funeral. I was mortified at the prospects of the cousins, who saw me paraded around in a diaper four years ago during the holidays, again spotting me in a diaper. The fact that the dress concealed the diaper better than I anticipated did mollify me some.
My cousins remained clustered in a group near the opposite corner of the room. They hadn’t come to say anything to me, save for a few that walked over silently with their parents, their eyes shifting away from mine. Under other circumstances, the social ostracization from my peers would have been deeply hurtful, but I couldn’t imagine how that incident wasn’t, even now, re-playing freshly in their memories. I wanted nothing to do with them.