my life

Three of my parents woman friends took charge of taking care of our family for the past 5 days. They were unbelievable. The three little women would silently slide in and out of the house several times a day, laying out the many platters of food that were delivered all day long, and then turn up later to wrap and store everything for the following day. They brought in plastic cutlery, huge coffee urns, trash bags, and box after box of cookies. They made coffee, emptied the trash, laid out their own table clothes, wiped up spills, and cutest of all, they sent over their housekeepers to tidy up the house at the end of the day. I want to be like them. I am channeling their graciousness as I write this.

In true "this is my life fashion" the limo driver fell asleep behind the wheel on our way from the chapel to the cemetery. I'm not kidding you. He dozed off at a time when all of us in the car had fallen silent. I was in the third row, mindlessly staring out the front window trying to wrap my mind around the reality that in the hearse in front of us my mom was lying in a box. I was staring at the back of the hearse, when I realized that it was getting farther and farther in front of us. I sat up straight and saw that our driver had checked out. I started yelling "Poke him! Poke him!" to my step-BIL in the front seat, but he was frozen in fear. Then the limo started to drift to the left just as a big lawn service truck with a trailer full of mowers was passing us. Lil sis yells out "DUDE WAKE UP!!" and the lawn service guy lays on his horn and the driver regains his (awake status) composure and falls back into the funeral line. Can you even imagine how hard it was for us to get back into that limo with him after the burial? We were imagining the headlines in the next days paper "Six family members and limo driver perish on their way home from local lady's funeral" No thanks.

The scumcle did show up. I figured he would since he was in the country and it was convenient and all. Also, I was sure that there was something he had not stolen from someone yet and he probably wanted one more chance to scope out mom's house. There had been discussion of the scumcle and his antics before I managed to get to dad's side on monday and my very sweet cousin did thoughtfully conceal the two sculptures of grandma's that mom still has. In true scumcle fashion, he comes up to me at the well stocked buffet table a mere hour and half after after we get back to the house (as in my mother had not been in the ground for two hours yet) from the cemetery to ask me if I know where something he once gave to grandma is in mom's house. Yup. You knew it would go down like that right? I mean, who puts the scum-bag in scumcle? Mine does. Though truthfully, his cold as ice wife was following him during the whole ugly interaction and I am pretty sure I saw her holding the puppeteer strings, so in the end, I am still (and maybe I am just being incredibly stupid, but to imagine that my own flesh and blood could be so heartless is devastating) left wondering which half of that couple is so the idiot savant and exactly how the other member one figures into that kind of social deficiency. Maybe they are both socially inept. I dunno.

So this is how it went down. I am standing there surveying the dining room table, plate in hand staring at the abundance, wondering what, if anything, I will be able to keep down, (turns out I can keep an awful lot of corned beef down) when the scumcle glides in. First he expresses concern that somehow grandma is going to force out of him that mom has died. And he feels that he will not be able to lie to her. I tell him that grandma will not be asking about mom, since she can not remember mom and that he is not to under any circumstance bring up mom or her death because that would only serve to upset grandma. It's everything I can do not to slap his face, he is so stupid, because scumcle still won't admit that his mom is losing her marbles. Then one of mom's friends comes over to ask me a question and I tell her that I will be returning in a month to help dad clean out mom's closets. Scumcle hears the word closet and says "Speaking of closets, once I gave grandma a shawl, and I think she may have left it here..." And I cut him off.

Here is the background, scumcle gave grandma a cashmere shawl. A few years later grandma pulled the never used cashmere shawl out of her bureu and gives it to mom. Mom stashed the still unused cashmere shawl in her own closet. Then the whole scumcle stealing statue situation took place. Not long after the scumcle was going through grandma's drawers (as was his custom) when he realized that the cashmere shawl was gone. He wanted it back. He questioned the family and Mom said he could have it back if he gave me my statue. Mom has been hanging onto that shawl as a kind of collateral for the statue.

I said to the scumcle "I will not talk about that now" He persisted. I said "Do not talk about that now." he persisted. I said "Stop talking!" He went bla bla bla... I looked around, realized how much more horrible the day would be if I punched him (I could have pounded him right into mom's tile floor I just wanted him to stop talking) like I wanted to and I said "I am walking away, I will not talk to you" He followed me talking! I said "Go away from me, Do not talk to me" "Stop talking to me" and he followed me around the house talking about the fucking god damned shawl, which to tell you the truth internet, I did not even know or care where it was. I was trying to walk toward little sis who would have protected me, but she had at that exact moment hidden herself in dad's bathroom to do some bathroom business and had no idea what was going on. Luckily my cousin saw scumcle on my tail, grabbed my other cousin and my step sister to separate us and when I stepped out on the back porch he was not right behind me anymore. I am so deeply saddened and somewhat appalled by this. What could possibly be wrong with this man?

Comments

[jenny]

A. He has no grief coping skills, so he focuses on the mundane instead of the raw emotion of losing his sister, and this is all he knows how to do.
B. Once an asshole, always an asshole, regardless of circumstances.
C. All of the above.

[jenn]

i must agree with Jenny. she is a wise, wise woman.

sorry you had to deal w/ this kind of crap while trying to cope with the death of your mother. some people, family or not, are such complete assholes!!

hugs!!