Home Sweet Home?

Apr 25, 2010 23:56

Well, I made it back to Tennessee.

I'm currently in my old bedroom, sitting on a twin mattress resting on the floor that I think my parents stole from my (still living) grandmother's attic. I've never seen the sheets and/or blanket on it in the 23 years that I lived here, so I'm thinking those might have been stolen from Meemaw as well. My parents were quick to assure me (five seconds before I opened the door, walked inside, and started batting away the spider-web hanging from the ceiling just inside) that they took a broom and vacuum to the corners, so there shouldn't be many spiders left.

... yes, that's about as reassuring as it sounds. Especially when you consider that I found brown recluses in here on a regular basis back when I was, you know, actually living here and therefore cleaning the room semi-regularly.

My flight got in around noon CST, and my dad wasn't too late picking me up from the airport once I got him on the phone and was able to give him directions. Since apparently he's never been to an airport in the past 50 years and didn't even know that he needed to follow the signs marked "arrivals."

It was an hour's drive south, upon which arriving I visited RF/DF (dad's brother and his wife), stopped by to see my surviving grandmother and MF (dad's sister who lives with her), was informed by both MF and RR/KR (mom's sister and her husband) that they and only they would be paying for my plane tickets (oh, I foresee drama on that front over the next few days), visited my grandfather in the assisted living facility (husband of the grandmother who just died for just shy of 55 years; has Alzheimer's and therefore doesn't really even know anything's going on), stopped by the Restaurant of Doom™ to say "hello," and had a random former customer from said restaurant stop me in the parking lot of Wal-Mart to eagerly ask if I was back in Tennessee to stay.

I, uh, might possibly have burst into hysterical laughter at that point. You know, maybe.

There was an issue with the hospital losing some paperwork which meant that the funeral home couldn't pick up Granny's body until late this afternoon. Because of that fact, they're not going to know until in the morning when anything will be (though they're leaning toward visitation tomorrow night and the funeral on Tuesday afternoon, if possible). RR and one of my great-aunts, BS, are about to come to blows, if RR doesn't have a complete breakdown before then. (She's basically spent the last 15 months spending all her free time taking care of my grandmother since her stroke, and she was in the room when Granny fell and hit her head yesterday.) They're seriously expecting at least 1/2 the population of the town to show up at the funeral home for visitation, not to mention the people coming in from out-of-town. Oh, and my brother's apparently pretty much AWOL, though he did call my mom for five minutes to tell her that, yes, he will be at the funeral on time since he's one of the pallbearers.

So, yeah, I made it back to Tennessee. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to bed now.

real life: bedroom, real life: death, job: restaurant of doom, real life: family, health: granny's stroke, real life: little brother

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