What a week
I should start off with Happy Birthday Canada, and wish my fellow Canadians a great day.
It's been a long week for me, I managed to get through my grandma's funeral and see my father with almost no damage done.
Why is it that the older you get the only time you see most of your family is at weddings or funerals? It was good to see a lot of my cousins and aunts & uncles again. Being with them reminded me of a lot of my childhood and all the good memories I have of it. I also got to laugh my ass off at my brother Cory trying to play "Guess That Relative" he truly sucked at it and by the end of it all most of the family was having fun going up to him and getting him to try and guess who they were.
I really shouldn't laugh too hard at him about it though. I got to thinking afterwards all the times I spent with my dad's side of the family that my brother wasn't around for, he missed a lot of family functions while he was gone to camps and appointments etc. It also made me realize just how much I did things with my dad when I was younger which made me very sad with how our relationship turned out.
But some good did come of it. I don't know if it was the 3 1/2 years since I last spoke to him, him realizing he's getting older, or having just lost his mother but my father did the one thing I never thought he would do. My father actually apologised to me, for all the crap that went on when I was splitting from my ex fiance, with my step brother pulling crap like booking my wedding day for his before I even called mine off, etc. Now if I could only do something about his wife........ who the hell turns to you at a funeral and asks "So how are you doing?" let me see, I'm at a funeral probably not the greatest. I don't think she's ever going to change. *sighs*
The one thing I was regretting before going was that no one had sat down and actually wrote out all my grandma's stories about her life and all the amazing things she had done in her life. I got a nice surprise at the funeral, one of my uncles has compiled a family history of sorts. He's been working on it for a number of years and has traced back a fair bit on my grandmother's side, not so much on my grandpa's side because we can't find anything passed my great grandfather. So some of my grandma's stories are written down in the books he's made up. He made up copies for each of the grandchildren, not sure if he made some up for the great grandkids or not (my family is 5 generations at the moment)
I also got to see my mom's family as I stayed with them for the weekend. It was a usual visit with them, lots of good food, plenty of card games, catching up on family news and just being comfortable around family that loves me.
My mom and I are starting to plan our summer road trip. It's been a very long time since we've done anything just the two of us, so we're going to spend a week together travelling out to the west coast and maybe down into the states. It'll be nice to had some time to just the two of us, whenever I go home I seem to be so busy catching up with friends I don't have much time to catch up with her. So I'm looking forward to it.
It's been a long week for me, I managed to get through my grandma's funeral and see my father with almost no damage done.
Why is it that the older you get the only time you see most of your family is at weddings or funerals? It was good to see a lot of my cousins and aunts & uncles again. Being with them reminded me of a lot of my childhood and all the good memories I have of it. I also got to laugh my ass off at my brother Cory trying to play "Guess That Relative" he truly sucked at it and by the end of it all most of the family was having fun going up to him and getting him to try and guess who they were.
I really shouldn't laugh too hard at him about it though. I got to thinking afterwards all the times I spent with my dad's side of the family that my brother wasn't around for, he missed a lot of family functions while he was gone to camps and appointments etc. It also made me realize just how much I did things with my dad when I was younger which made me very sad with how our relationship turned out.
But some good did come of it. I don't know if it was the 3 1/2 years since I last spoke to him, him realizing he's getting older, or having just lost his mother but my father did the one thing I never thought he would do. My father actually apologised to me, for all the crap that went on when I was splitting from my ex fiance, with my step brother pulling crap like booking my wedding day for his before I even called mine off, etc. Now if I could only do something about his wife........ who the hell turns to you at a funeral and asks "So how are you doing?" let me see, I'm at a funeral probably not the greatest. I don't think she's ever going to change. *sighs*
The one thing I was regretting before going was that no one had sat down and actually wrote out all my grandma's stories about her life and all the amazing things she had done in her life. I got a nice surprise at the funeral, one of my uncles has compiled a family history of sorts. He's been working on it for a number of years and has traced back a fair bit on my grandmother's side, not so much on my grandpa's side because we can't find anything passed my great grandfather. So some of my grandma's stories are written down in the books he's made up. He made up copies for each of the grandchildren, not sure if he made some up for the great grandkids or not (my family is 5 generations at the moment)
I also got to see my mom's family as I stayed with them for the weekend. It was a usual visit with them, lots of good food, plenty of card games, catching up on family news and just being comfortable around family that loves me.
My mom and I are starting to plan our summer road trip. It's been a very long time since we've done anything just the two of us, so we're going to spend a week together travelling out to the west coast and maybe down into the states. It'll be nice to had some time to just the two of us, whenever I go home I seem to be so busy catching up with friends I don't have much time to catch up with her. So I'm looking forward to it.