My Grammy always said, “Nothing will cause a family feud quicker than weddings and funerals.” She was more right than she could ever know.
My aunt. My aunt.
The day we went to the funeral home to plan my mom’s service, we stopped by my mom’s house afterwards to get an outfit for her. My mom was cremated, but still I couldn’t let her go naked. She would haunt me!
So, I’m standing in the room to pick out clothes for my mom and my aunt walks in (she was few minutes behind us) and before anything, asks, “Do you want the Christmas Cookie Jar or can I have it?”
Blink. Blink. Think, “Did she really just ask me that?” I say, “I don’t even know what cookie jar you are talking about?” Needless to say, that is how every moment with my aunt has been since then.
I’m standing there, trying to pick out clothes for my mother who hasn’t been gone less than 24 hours and we are talking about stuff? Seriously? I mean really, seriously?
Need one more example?
After “it” happened, my aunt and I left the hospital and I smoked a cigarette in her car in the parking lot. My aunt brought up some fancy glassware that Grammy wanted me to have, but there were two plates made the same year and my aunt asked if I minded if my cousin (her daughter) got one and I got one. Again—Blink. Blink. And with my mind numb from what had just happened, I said, “Ok.”
I honestly don’t care about anything in my mom’s house except for her pictures and her writings and her crossword puzzles that she had completed. Those things, yeah, they are mine. Everything else, I simply don’t care.
I don’t want a big piece of furniture sitting in my house reminding daily of the loss. I am the kind of person that loves looking a pictures and reading anything that my mom wrote. From her silly reminders of when the Real Housewives of Atlanta would return to a letter she wrote to my real dad. Fancy glass or a cookie jar? Like Shania Twain would say, “That don’t impress me much.”
My mom always said that my aunt was crazy, like seriously crazy… I am beginning to believe my mom. She sees the world as something that is out to “get her.” That we are all “over here” and she is “over there.” Never realizing that we are all on the same team here.
Have I done everything perfectly and handled every situation when dealing with my aunt perfectly? No. But damn, she makes it nearly impossible to take her seriously.
The Saturday right after that day, my mom’s boyfriend changed the locks on my mom’s house. My aunt had lived in that house for years up until my grandma passed away and then my aunt moved in with her daughter (my cousin). (yes, my grandparents, my mom, my mom’s boyfriend and my aunt all lived in this house.) My aunt thinks she still has free pass to come and go through that house at will. Boy was she surprised when she went over and her key didn’t work! But since nobody is living there now, my mom’s boyfriend thought it was best to change out all the locks and put new deadbolts on the doors. I agreed.
You see, the day we went to pick out clothes for my mom, my aunt took a fisherman and my grandpa’s flag from his funeral service before she asked me about the damn cookie jar. She didn’t ask, she just took. Not that I cared, but it’s a matter of respect. You just don’t go in someone else’s house taking what you think is yours to take under the name of “these are family items that have to stay in the family.” She thinks that my mom’s boyfriend is going to go in and steal everything! She is so very wrong. My mom’s boyfriend lived there five years, if he wanted to steal anything, he would have by now, don’t ya think?
My aunt has not been a support system for me in one way at all. She was upset with how I handled the funeral, didn’t like certain song choices and didn’t like that I had a ribbon “No regrets.” My mom always told me that she wanted “No Regrets” on her tombstone, and since she wasn’t going to have a tombstone, she got a ribbon instead. My aunt vented to my cousin about how upset my aunt was about the service I had planned. That I was painting my mom in just one light. This she assumed not knowing what I had planned to say about my mom, not knowing about the Honor Guard that was to be there, the military rites, the police that stood at each intersection with their hats over their hearts, the pictures I had chosen… she just assumed I was going to talk about how my mom was just a good ole drinkin’ chain smokin’ Harley shirt wearing person. She had no clue, but upset all the same.
Today at work, my first day back (aka, one of the hardest days of my life), she calls and starts in with the “I don’t know why everyone wants to keep me out of that house!” I explained to her that we had hidden a key and I’m sorry that her daughter didn’t inform of this, but nobody is trying to keep her out. Well, to be honest, I’m not trying to keep her out anymore. Yesterday, all of us went over and made piles of the stuff we were to take and post-it noted other things. She, out of everyone, proved she would go in and take what she thought was her right to take.
She fails to remember that I grew up in that house. It was my mom’s house –my mom’s name and hers alone was the only name on the mortgage, and while she and my mom may have had some agreement, that agreement doesn’t trickle down to me.
But it all doesn’t add up to a hill of beans. She has been the one dark light in an otherwise virtual world of light from all the hugs, well wishes, texts, midnight phone calls, flowers, cards, and every person in my world has seemly come to lift me up. Not her. She has been nothing but a disappointment from the word go.
The sad thing, I only have four people on this earth that are a direct blood relation to me (minus my cousin’s children). I have my cousin, my aunt and my two kids. I have to love her, right? I have to accept that she is hurting too, right? I have to see through her eyes, right? But I don’t want to. I want to lay her out and take all the hurt that I’m going through, all the pain and why the fuck did God take my mom from me now! confusion, I want to take it all out on her because she above anyone else should be my source of comfort but being around her or talking to her on the phone makes me realize more than ever just how alone I really am without my mom because I can’t instantly call my mom and vent to her and tell my mom, “Yeah, you were right!” And to hear my mom laugh that all knowing great laugh of hers and hear her say, “I told you!"
I would gladly give my aunt every picture, every cookie jar, every crossword puzzle and silly reminders my mom left behind just to hear that laugh again. Nothing my aunt wants can every equal to that laugh. She simply doesn’t get it and it’s not because she wants anything for me, like, “You need to have this.” Nope. It’s all about what she wants and what is afraid the rest of us are going to steal from her. I should feel sorry for her. I don’t. I feel anger and rage when it comes to her. I’ve reached out to her many times because I know she just lost her sister, but the day after the funeral, my aunt called and before she said anything of comfort, I was asked,"Where are the flowers? My church sent me flowers.” I just sighed and knew from that second on, I really understood all that I had lost. Now I understand why my cousin has thought about kicking her mother to the curb, I couldn't deal with living with this type of person either.
I love Chris Rock among many others, but his Bigger and Blacker will always be a standout to me. What is one of your favorite comedy specials?
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