What was I thinking...
...calling my mom? Mom has decided to give me her ginormous tree because it is too big for her to put up and what all with her arthritis and like that, so I called to see if she wanted my small tree for the holiday, but she has already gotten a smaller replacement, so now I have two trees. And if you think I am not putting both up, you have another think coming.
Now the bad part of calling my mom is that there is always some damn thing wrong somewhere.
Here is some confusing backstory:
My parents were married in the mid to late 60's, his third marriage and her second. My mother's sister lived with them for a time. My father's former brother-in-law (brother of Dad's second wife) married my mother's sister.
My Uncle's brother (uncle who married my mother's sister, uncle who was friends with my dad through two marriages and divorces) killed himself two days ago, well, three now since I found out about this yesterday.
Now the irony, or, well, whatever... is that my brother would have, I think, gladly gone with him, and the selfish bastard didn't offer a ride.
My brother, half brother from my father's second marriage, is dying of ALS and has lost the ability to move at all. He is a prisoner in his body and that must be hellish and I wonder why people with it don't go utterly mad... or maybe they do but we can't know that because they can't fucking tell us.
So Ronnie is dying and his uncle (his mother's brother) got tired of getting old and shot himself. What the fuck, beevis.
Now, granted, I have never been close with my father's children. They are older than me, all lived with their mothers and so I didn't know them much growing up. And then after dad died, I hear of them only through the family grapevine. I have never met the nephews I have from Ronnie and Roger's families, I have never met their wives, I don't think they even knew I moved to Colorado, got married, got divorced. Though they have the same access to the grapevine I do, I don't think it occurs to them to ask.
I tried to write letters and be more in touch after our father died, but only my brother Chuck responded with anything like regularity. So I wrote off my brothers Ronnie and Roger.
I am sad for Ronnie's family, and sad that his life is being cut so short. He is only ten or eleven years older than me, he is not done yet. And I am sad that we grew up in circumstances that made it difficult for us to know one another.
It sucks. It is sad.
But it is a step removed, distant sadness rather than close up and immediate. Yesterday I was very sad about it all. Today, after a nights sleep, it seems more manageable.
It still sucks much though.
Now the bad part of calling my mom is that there is always some damn thing wrong somewhere.
Here is some confusing backstory:
My parents were married in the mid to late 60's, his third marriage and her second. My mother's sister lived with them for a time. My father's former brother-in-law (brother of Dad's second wife) married my mother's sister.
My Uncle's brother (uncle who married my mother's sister, uncle who was friends with my dad through two marriages and divorces) killed himself two days ago, well, three now since I found out about this yesterday.
Now the irony, or, well, whatever... is that my brother would have, I think, gladly gone with him, and the selfish bastard didn't offer a ride.
My brother, half brother from my father's second marriage, is dying of ALS and has lost the ability to move at all. He is a prisoner in his body and that must be hellish and I wonder why people with it don't go utterly mad... or maybe they do but we can't know that because they can't fucking tell us.
So Ronnie is dying and his uncle (his mother's brother) got tired of getting old and shot himself. What the fuck, beevis.
Now, granted, I have never been close with my father's children. They are older than me, all lived with their mothers and so I didn't know them much growing up. And then after dad died, I hear of them only through the family grapevine. I have never met the nephews I have from Ronnie and Roger's families, I have never met their wives, I don't think they even knew I moved to Colorado, got married, got divorced. Though they have the same access to the grapevine I do, I don't think it occurs to them to ask.
I tried to write letters and be more in touch after our father died, but only my brother Chuck responded with anything like regularity. So I wrote off my brothers Ronnie and Roger.
I am sad for Ronnie's family, and sad that his life is being cut so short. He is only ten or eleven years older than me, he is not done yet. And I am sad that we grew up in circumstances that made it difficult for us to know one another.
It sucks. It is sad.
But it is a step removed, distant sadness rather than close up and immediate. Yesterday I was very sad about it all. Today, after a nights sleep, it seems more manageable.
It still sucks much though.