Warning: very, very long entry. The occasion must allow for it.
My reason for not being present online the past couple of days has nothing to do with playing the Sims 2. It is, regrettably, much more serious.
Tuesday morning, I woke up at 6:45AM, giving myself enough time to shower before I went to work that day. I began doing my daily Brain Age training when my mother called. I let it ring while I finished the training program I was currently on, and listened to the voice mail she left just a minute later. It simply said to call her back as soon as I got it.
My heart fell. I already knew it was bad; my mother never calls my cell phone, and she would never have done it at 7AM if it wasn’t something bad.
I called her back. The first thing I said was, “Something has happened.” It wasn’t a question. And I think I knew what was coming, but I was also pushing the possibility out of my mind. I was at least appreciative that she didn’t waste any time.
“Mammaw died this morning.” She meant her Mammaw. Because my Mammaw died when I was eight years old. She meant my Granny. My great grandmother. The woman who raised me for the majority of my childhood, until my adolescence when I was able to take care of myself.
First of all, I never handle death well. Even if I am not particularly close to the person, when a relative dies, I tend to lose it a little bit. And this one was particularly bad. I immediately began crying. Then, came the second blow.
“The funeral is today, at 11.”
I became hysterical at that point. Even if I headed to the airport at that very second and got on the first available plane, I would not have gotten to Elizabethtown in time. The thought absolutely destroyed me. “Who decided that?” was all I could respond with. My mother assumed it was our cousin Dana, who had power of attorney. After a few more minutes of me attempting to silently cry, and my mother saying whatever she could to console me, we hung up, and I lied in bed to cry with myself. I would not be able to say goodbye to this woman that was so important in my life.
But then, there was a little light. Not an hour after the first call, I received another, Mom again. She was talking fast, excitedly. “There’s been a change of plans. The viewing is tomorrow at 10AM, and the funeral will be after. Get on a plane, we’ll figure out the money later.” I did not need to hear it twice. Of course, that morning was the first in the entire semester that the internet connection was down; I had to go into Aisha’s “bedroom” (in the living room), bawling my eyes out, and ask her if I could come in to reset the Ethernet box.
Orbitz is officially off of my go-to list for this situation; their cheapest flight was over $600, when I booked directly through Continental’s website for just over $350 total round-trip. I would only be home until Friday afternoon, because it was twice the cost to leave on the weekend, but at least I would be there for the funeral. I would not have to deal with a lifelong regret of not seeing my Granny one last time. (As we later discovered, Dana had never intended to have the funeral so soon; it was a miscommunication conjured by another drowsy and disoriented cousin.)
My second flight landed, and Josh picked me up from the airport. It was a bittersweet reunion, of course. That evening was quiet, spent by all of my family in mental preparation for the next morning. I was asked by a cousin to speak at the viewing, but I knew I had to turn it down. As much as I wanted to, I knew that once I got to the podium, I would simply begin sobbing, unable to say anything coherent.
I was okay the next morning. Somber, but collected. When we all got to the funeral home, though, I tensed up. I’ve written before about how much I hate funerals, how much I hate seeing the frozen faces lying in the coffins. But I knew I could never forgive myself if I avoided this one. As we walked through the halls toward the viewing room, I was holding on to Josh’s arm for dear life. Once we walked in, on the opposite end from the casket, I saw her face. I couldn’t take another step; I was already crying, hiding my head on Josh’s shoulder.
I eventually managed to walk to the front of the room, my mother on my right, my fiance providing physical support on my left. Though I cannot describe the act as anything near easy, I was at least somewhat relieved to find that they had done well in making her look like her old self. Indeed, she looked more like the Granny I remembered than the one I had seen last summer at the nursing home, tiny, twitching in her sleep, looking completely unlike the strong petite woman she’d always been.
Within the hour I was able to stop crying, numbed by erroneous thoughts. And eventually, I was able to talk. I talked to family I haven’t seen in years, family that perhaps I have not always gotten along with, but who all behaved civilly, particularly towards me.
Though I generally do cry more than almost anyone else at funerals, I particularly stood out yesterday. The other great grandchildren were much more composed as they discussed with each other, as I sat by gazing unseeingly at the carpeted floor, how this was my “hard one”; how they had had their difficult funerals when my Granny’s husband had died, when Granny’s first daughter - my Mammaw - had died, when Granny’s remaining daughter - Aunt Norma - had died. She had outlived her entire nuclear family unit by many years. I had been too young to grow really attached to any of them, though I am extremely attached to the stories told that elaborate on the memories I already had; but Granny was mine. I had feared my relatives would look down upon me for not having visited her in recent years, after her memory had gone and I never knew if she would welcome me or scream at me to leave her alone when I went to the nursing home. But no one made me feel that I had not earned my grievance; everyone was sympathetic to me yesterday, above all others. It only made me cry more.
I made it through the rest of the ceremony floating between composure and hysterics, depending on where I let my thoughts float to, and how much I listened to what people were saying around me. Before the readings and speeches began, everyone else in the front row made sure there were plenty of tissues within my reach.
I continued to numb as we drove slowly to the cemetery, and sat through the remainder of the funeral. At the end, I was at first not offered anything from the casket decorations by my older cousins. But my younger cousins - the ones of my generation - understood things better. Megan decided that I, not she, deserved the Great Grandmother banner that had been handed to her. I quietly thanked her.
There was a dinner afterward for family at Dana’s house. I was still fairly numb throughout the rest of the gathering, but no longer crying. I managed to socialize a little, but nobody pushed me. The consideration didn’t go unnoticed.
After we got home, I called my stepmother, as she had asked me to do via a text message during the funeral. You see, my father - the grandson of my Granny - did not attend the funeral. I was told this the morning of, also through a text message from Judy, the simple (and poor) reason being that they didn’t want to “cause trouble.” My thoughts had had no opportunity to dwell on this previously, but now that my goodbyes had been made, I began to fume.
I’ve learned a lot of horrible things about my father as I’ve grown older, but it has never changed our relationship. Primarily because he doesn’t know I know. And I had never once told him how I really felt about anything he’s ever done - until last night.
It caught both of them, my father and stepmother, off guard, I’m sure. I was angry, and I let them know it, even through a new wave of tears. They gave me excuses, downtalking my great grandmother that I had just buried to justify themselves in not coming. I made it very clear that every excuse they’d thrown at me was not good enough, and that nothing they could come up with would be good enough. It didn’t matter what Granny had or had not done to my father when she was alive; it is my belief that you attend the funeral of your relatives, ESPECIALLY your own grandmother, when you are able. It doesn’t matter what they did, or who said what; for me, all is forgiven when that person can no longer apologize, or be apologized to. My father apparently disagrees, and began speaking condescendingly to me when he felt I just “didn’t understand.” And then, as per usual, my stepmother began making the situation all about herself, which only made me angrier. Despite sharing honest feelings with them, there was still a lot I wanted to say in response to their pitiful justifications that I kept in last night. I apparently still made my father cry, but I had a hard time feeling remorse. When Judy realized that the conversation was not going to have a happy ending - that I was not going to tell them everything was alright this time - she told me to call her back the next day, after I’ve “calmed down.”
I’m not calling them. If they want to speak to me, they can call me, and I will answer. But they both lost too much of my respect yesterday with both their actions and subsequent words to me to earn any effort on my part.
I still cry about my Mammaw’s death, and that wasn’t even my hard one. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again after this one, and I think that means the relationship I have with my father will also never be the same.
But I will still go to his funeral.
9 Comments - Link directly to this entry - 
Subscribe to to the Retarded Feed