Dysfunction Junction

I'm well aware every family has it's fair share of dysfunction. I seriously wonder if mine might not have a smidge more than fair share sometimes. Most of you have heard tales of my family over the years.

One of the main reasons behind starting this "secret" blog is so that I could share stories about certain members of my family without it getting back to them.

My dad's family has had a certain amount of she's not talking to him, he's not talking to her, so on and so forth for a number of years. It got worse in the process of clearing out my Nanny's house when she died 8+ years ago. Even worse when my Aunt Linda died 6+ years ago. Various other things have added to it over the years.

My dad's dad had two families, though not as scandalous at that sounds. He had three children with his first wife who died. Then he married my grandmother and had five children. That means there are plenty of aunts, uncles and cousins some of my cousins are even older than my uncles and aunts. My Dad never met his brother who died in World War II. (I had to draw a family tree for my nieces at one get together to try to explain all this.)

It's a lot like trying to explain a family on Days of Our Lives sometimes. With almost as much drama. Really some stories rival DOOL story lines.

Anyway, my Aunt Carol, died on Friday. She had brain cancer - it was actually her third go round with cancer. It had been a year and a half since I personally had seen or talked to her at a family get together.  She missed the last one since she was not feeling well. Although Dad had tried to call, we didn't realize how bad she had gotten, seemingly quite quickly. Within the past couple of months, she had even gone to Canada for a trip.

Getting updates on people in the family is a lot like a family grapevine. A told B who had talked to C who texted D who saw E on Facebook kind of thing. I'm sure that's the case with many families, but some people just need to pick up the phone and get the word out.

Back to last Friday. Carol's husband (Bill) of just a few years, called my Dad and Dad's brother Mike (and other people, I suppose) around 4 AM. Everyone waited through the day to find out when the services would be. Her funeral/visitation would be here in Corsicana even though she lived up in Red Oak for maybe the past 10 years. All her friends and family were down here for the most part.

Late in the day, Dad finally calls his brother to find out if any arrangements had been made so that he could go back down the family phone list to give updates. My uncle had just talked to Bill, and since he was up most of the night, he slept most of Friday and wasn't going to meet with the funeral home until Saturday. Ooooooooook.

So all Saturday, we sat around waiting. Dad tries Mike again around 3, and gets his wife. They weren't meeting until 2:45. Our town paper doesn't run over the weekend to run info on the services, no one knew when to get flowers for on Friday, so were out of luck on delivery. No one was going to know anything unless they were called.

OK, so visitation on Sunday evening. Funeral on Monday. We finally have answers after waiting around most of 2 days.

Funeral home last night:

I attempted to talk to an aunt (another sister) who gave me a complete cold shoulder. Mike and I effectively don't speak to each other at all because we mutually have no reason to speak to each other regardless of circumstances (he is evidently not fond of his nieces because he doesn't speak to at least one of my cousins either). I fled to another part of the room when one of my cousins showed up (some of you know the one I'm talking about). After I moved, my mom soon followed, then my dad.

There were a lot of friends of Carol's that were there, but many were friends of her siblings who the nieces and nephews probably knew better. However, many seemed to not really talk to Carol's son and daughter strangely enough. Erin stayed mostly in the back.

Bill proved to be every bit as strange as I ever thought he was and his attempts to be funny were rather odd which very much gave itself to some "cricket chirping" moments.

And trying to answer family dynamics to my dad's elderly half sister and her three daughters can be somewhat delicate since they talk to everyone, and aren't as in on the angst of the rest of the family.

I guess my dad talked to his brother and sister that I didn't really have interaction with, but I never saw it happen.

So, on to today. We get out to the cemetery for the graveside. I did speak to some of my cousins. One brought his third ex-wife. At least I think it's an ex. I heard it was an ex. My mom and I were surprised to see her. They were there together since they came from Dallas.

I still didn't see my dad and his brother and sister speak at the cemetery. Dad and Mike may have because they were in close proximity at one time.

We had to wait for Carol's daughter to even arrive before the service could start. You could say she was late to her own mother's funeral.

I'm also surprised Carol's ex-husband didn't come. They were married like 25 years and raised two children. He even came to her mother and sister's funerals after they had divorced. It just seemed odd to me (to my parents too).

The service was officiated by a friend's husband who is a judge (I think). It was rather strange. The only prayer offered was the Lord's Prayer recited by everyone. There were a couple of Ecclesiastes references. I don't think any mention of afterlife. Not that I remember anyway. And Bill kept making comments throughout the service.

Then, there were a few stories told. My aunt was a personality. This was talked about a lot. And how she liked noise (and was loud) and to have fun. True and true. And then there was some stories about her going to bars. A few actually. The only story from her growing up referred to de-facing a Richard Nixon poster.

None of her siblings evidently shared stories with the officiant. I'm not really sure that the kids did either. No warm fuzzy stories of growing up (hers or her kids) shared. A reference was made to her getting to see her grandchildren at least.

Just very, very odd. Though this did reconfirm why a friend and I have referred to her as "Drunk Aunt Carol" after a certain outing in Vegas. (A cousin got married out there {who did not make an appearance this weekend}, and I was visiting my friend Jenny who was stationed out there.)

Paige had left some clothes and her boots in my car yesterday, so I needed to get them to Brian. I had told him before I needed to get them to him. When the service was over, we were getting ready to leave  and heading to lunch with friends of my parents. I said I needed to find Brian. Mom thought maybe he had left. I said, "he was here just a minute ago."

Dad looks around and says, "he's right through over there." I make a face and mutter something like, "nevermind." My dad said, "yeah, I didn't figure you wanted to go talk to him. You can leave the stuff on his hood."

If my brother has forgiven and is good to talk to his cousin (some of you know the one I am talking about) that did what he did, go for it. I choose to not interrupt their conversation. My dad certainly didn't blame me because he doesn't want to talk to him either. My poor mom had to go get my purse last night which was right behind where he was standing because she knew I had no desire to go over there. Score one for my mom who really didn't want to either.

All of this strikes me as incredibly off. Just off. So, I'm just glad this event is behind us.

Nice, no stress weekend, huh?