Death and Such
I left the house at 3:00 AM. My mother came to pick me up in her first ever brand new car that she had just gotten the day before. He sister, my Aunt Connie was with her. Aunt C had just gotten off of work an hour before.
We drove down there in pouring rain with gusting wind on highways that were slick and back roads that were too dark to drive down on best of conditions.
We stopped at the funeral home around 6:15 AM, but the doors were locked. We wanted to view the body before the chaos. We didn't get that lucky.
We arrived at my great-grandmother's house. It was solemn for us. It was the last time we would ever be there. All of us had grown up there, spent our summers there. People were already awake inside. It was just 7:00 AM.
We went inside to find my great-aunt Jeanie, great-uncle Billy Edd, Great-Aunt Evelyn, and my mother's brother's wife Cindy sitting around the kitchen table. Aunt Jeanie hugged my necked and told me about 10 times (no exaggeration here) that she loved me and I was her baby.
That was about as pleasant as it got.
Aunt Jeanie promptly launched into a tirade about who was entitled to the money from the life insurance policy. After about 5 minutes, my mother said, "Aunt Jeanie, can't this wait? Grandmother isn't even cold and buried in the ground yet." Then my Aunt C said, "Yeah, we can do this after the funeral, can't we?" Then I, who had remained quiet until this point said, "I think we can wait on this. Let's at least get her buried before we go through this. It. Can. Wait."
As the morning progressed, my Aunt Jeanie started several fights over what in the house belonged to her. My great-uncles were trying to figure out the best way to split things amongst the surviving children.
By about 9:30 AM, we had all kind of settled into our corners of the house. My mother and Aunt C were going through Grandmother's dresser trying to find paperwork for the funeral and such, which, for some ungodly reason, hadn't been taken care of yet. They found a couple of old photograph books.
Around 10:00 AM, the arguing had reached ear-splitting level. I slipped off to Grandmother's room and started looking through the pictures. I had been fine up until that point. Then, I ran across pictures of Granny. (For those of you keeping tabs, this person was the woman who raised me and Grandmother's youngest child. She passed away some time ago.) At the thought of "Aunt Jeanie wouldn't be doing this shit if Granny was here. If Granny was here, there wouldn't be all these problems. Everything would have gone smoothly" I lost it. I had to step outside because crying is a sign of weakness when there are vultures about.
Then, it all hit me at once that my last tie to the family I had grown up in, that had raised me, that had been there all my life was gone. I sobbed for a bit. I thought I was okay.
At around 10:15 AM I stepped back inside, and went back into Grandmother's room. The vultures moved in there. It was everywhere... the taking, the lying, the arguing...
It was like they didn't care that their mother had just died.
That started a whole new round of crying for me.
At around 10:40 AM my aunt Virginia showed up with her family. That was a surprise, and I was scared that something worse than the drama that already was would take place. But, Granny's kids... we behaved ourselves. She would have been proud of us.
At 10:45 we had to leave if we were to make it to the church on time for the service. They all wanted my mother to take Aunt Jeanie with her. Aunt Jeanie was still in the bathroom getting ready. She had been in there for nearly an hour by then. My mother went on a rampage about how she was sorry and she didn't mean any disrespect to my great-uncles but Jeanie had made her late by over an hour to my mother's own wedding and she'd be damned if Jeanie was going to make her late to her grandmother's funeral.
We left.
The service was held 15 minutes late. We had to wait for Aunt Jeanie to get there.
My uncle, David, was apparently getting over a drug induced hangover. He fell asleep three or four times during the service. He wife kept poking him to make him wake up. My mother had to be a pal bearer. There just weren't enough healthy men who could do it.
There was no graveside service. The ground was so wet that we couldn't stand out there. We would have sank in about 4 inches of mud. In fact, when we left, they still hadn't put her in the ground. The gravediggers were having trouble pumping the water out as they dug the grave.
My grandfather, my mother's father, called to see how the funeral went. He really just wanted to know which of his kids was there. When I told him that we all were there and that my Aunt C had ridden with me and mother, he cut the conversation short. His new wife doesn't like Aunt C, so my mother and I aren't supposed to be in contact with her. . . that's a whole different story however.
We left without going back to the house he had partially grown up in. All's the better for that, I suppose.
I came back with the pictures of my Granny that her brothers and sister said I could have. I also have my Grandmother's two watches. Granny's siblings don't know that. They never will.
I also came back a lot emptier on the inside. I loved Grandmother very much, and it hurt me so badly to see her children fighting over her stuff before she was even buried... I just couldn't stand it.
I'm sad still. It'll take me a while to deal with it all. There was a lot going on there, and this is really just the tip of that iceberg of a day. Still... I'm sorry my great-grandmother was put to rest in such chaos. I'm not sure she deserved that. A woman who lived to be 92, she out lived two of her grown children, lost one child in birth, buried 10 out her 11 siblings, out lived her husband by over two decades, and watched most of her contemporaries be put to rest really didn't deserve to not have a second thought given to her after her death. Really, I think her children should have done much better by her than they did that day...
Sad... truly sad...
We drove down there in pouring rain with gusting wind on highways that were slick and back roads that were too dark to drive down on best of conditions.
We stopped at the funeral home around 6:15 AM, but the doors were locked. We wanted to view the body before the chaos. We didn't get that lucky.
We arrived at my great-grandmother's house. It was solemn for us. It was the last time we would ever be there. All of us had grown up there, spent our summers there. People were already awake inside. It was just 7:00 AM.
We went inside to find my great-aunt Jeanie, great-uncle Billy Edd, Great-Aunt Evelyn, and my mother's brother's wife Cindy sitting around the kitchen table. Aunt Jeanie hugged my necked and told me about 10 times (no exaggeration here) that she loved me and I was her baby.
That was about as pleasant as it got.
Aunt Jeanie promptly launched into a tirade about who was entitled to the money from the life insurance policy. After about 5 minutes, my mother said, "Aunt Jeanie, can't this wait? Grandmother isn't even cold and buried in the ground yet." Then my Aunt C said, "Yeah, we can do this after the funeral, can't we?" Then I, who had remained quiet until this point said, "I think we can wait on this. Let's at least get her buried before we go through this. It. Can. Wait."
As the morning progressed, my Aunt Jeanie started several fights over what in the house belonged to her. My great-uncles were trying to figure out the best way to split things amongst the surviving children.
By about 9:30 AM, we had all kind of settled into our corners of the house. My mother and Aunt C were going through Grandmother's dresser trying to find paperwork for the funeral and such, which, for some ungodly reason, hadn't been taken care of yet. They found a couple of old photograph books.
Around 10:00 AM, the arguing had reached ear-splitting level. I slipped off to Grandmother's room and started looking through the pictures. I had been fine up until that point. Then, I ran across pictures of Granny. (For those of you keeping tabs, this person was the woman who raised me and Grandmother's youngest child. She passed away some time ago.) At the thought of "Aunt Jeanie wouldn't be doing this shit if Granny was here. If Granny was here, there wouldn't be all these problems. Everything would have gone smoothly" I lost it. I had to step outside because crying is a sign of weakness when there are vultures about.
Then, it all hit me at once that my last tie to the family I had grown up in, that had raised me, that had been there all my life was gone. I sobbed for a bit. I thought I was okay.
At around 10:15 AM I stepped back inside, and went back into Grandmother's room. The vultures moved in there. It was everywhere... the taking, the lying, the arguing...
It was like they didn't care that their mother had just died.
That started a whole new round of crying for me.
At around 10:40 AM my aunt Virginia showed up with her family. That was a surprise, and I was scared that something worse than the drama that already was would take place. But, Granny's kids... we behaved ourselves. She would have been proud of us.
At 10:45 we had to leave if we were to make it to the church on time for the service. They all wanted my mother to take Aunt Jeanie with her. Aunt Jeanie was still in the bathroom getting ready. She had been in there for nearly an hour by then. My mother went on a rampage about how she was sorry and she didn't mean any disrespect to my great-uncles but Jeanie had made her late by over an hour to my mother's own wedding and she'd be damned if Jeanie was going to make her late to her grandmother's funeral.
We left.
The service was held 15 minutes late. We had to wait for Aunt Jeanie to get there.
My uncle, David, was apparently getting over a drug induced hangover. He fell asleep three or four times during the service. He wife kept poking him to make him wake up. My mother had to be a pal bearer. There just weren't enough healthy men who could do it.
There was no graveside service. The ground was so wet that we couldn't stand out there. We would have sank in about 4 inches of mud. In fact, when we left, they still hadn't put her in the ground. The gravediggers were having trouble pumping the water out as they dug the grave.
My grandfather, my mother's father, called to see how the funeral went. He really just wanted to know which of his kids was there. When I told him that we all were there and that my Aunt C had ridden with me and mother, he cut the conversation short. His new wife doesn't like Aunt C, so my mother and I aren't supposed to be in contact with her. . . that's a whole different story however.
We left without going back to the house he had partially grown up in. All's the better for that, I suppose.
I came back with the pictures of my Granny that her brothers and sister said I could have. I also have my Grandmother's two watches. Granny's siblings don't know that. They never will.
I also came back a lot emptier on the inside. I loved Grandmother very much, and it hurt me so badly to see her children fighting over her stuff before she was even buried... I just couldn't stand it.
I'm sad still. It'll take me a while to deal with it all. There was a lot going on there, and this is really just the tip of that iceberg of a day. Still... I'm sorry my great-grandmother was put to rest in such chaos. I'm not sure she deserved that. A woman who lived to be 92, she out lived two of her grown children, lost one child in birth, buried 10 out her 11 siblings, out lived her husband by over two decades, and watched most of her contemporaries be put to rest really didn't deserve to not have a second thought given to her after her death. Really, I think her children should have done much better by her than they did that day...
Sad... truly sad...