Cousins for Sale
Sometimes I just don't know what to think about stuff. Stuff like life and families and people you'd really love to just drop kick into the next millennium but can't because not only would God not like it, GRANNY wouldn't like it. Not to say that Granny's more powerful than God. But God forgives. Granny might not.
*sigh*
My cousins...Grrr...
They're circling around like vultures only worse...they're not waiting for Paw-Paw to die, they're moving in BEFORE he's dead. It makes me sick. They're already asking Granny for some of Paw-Paw's stuff to get both before and after he's dead. They've "spoken" for much of Paw-Paw's stuff. Really it's just two of the three that are doing it and don't you know if I thought Granny wouldn't care I'd be giving those two cousins a little something to remember ME by...something like the imprint of my FOOT on their BUTTS.
Grrrr..
It's bad enough that I cringe each time the phone rings because just any day now the news might come. It's bad enough that I cry at the drop of a hat at the least little thought of what life is going to be like without him...It's bad enough that I've already begun to grieve for him. But to know that they're so thoughtless, so lacking in any real feeling that they're more concerned about getting their "share" than mourning the life that we're losing...
And it isn't that I feel like I won't get mine. I couldn't care less about the stuff. I have everything I'll ever need to remember him by. I carry it in the deep soft places in my heart. I carry his voice, his words and deeds...the way he showed up for ever major event in my life and my family's lives and how he never failed to say how much he loved us and how proud he was of us. How he'd give any of us the shirt off his back if we'd needed it...I carry the way he smelled after he'd come home from work before he retired--he'd be wearing those same brown uniforms smelling of dirt and sweat and metal, carrying that brown plastic lunch pail that he'd set on the counter. The goofy faces he made and the silly voices to garner a laugh. His decisiveness and yes, his sometimes unyielding censure. He wasn't always wonderful. Sometimes he was hard. But never with me. With me and my sisters and even those vulture cousins of mine, he was soft and fun and while not the most demonstrative man, he loved us as though his blood ran in our veins. As though we were the greatest gifts he'd ever received. These are the precious things I'll have with me forever.
But them...they see his stuff and what they can get. I hope I'm wrong. I hope their hearts are breaking not because I want them to suffer but because I want them to feel. I want to know that he wasn't just deep pockets with a willing hand for handouts.
And I hate they're doing this to Granny. She's losing her husband of 51 years and that they reduce him to what they WANT from him sickens me. I don't know if it sickens her or not. She'd never speak against any one of us to the other but I hope for her sake that she doesn't see them for the greedy grasping vultures that they are. And I hope she keeps all his stuff. Don't give it to me, my sisters OR my cousins. Because when he's gone, his things and her memories of him will be all she has left of him. And after 51 years, she's going to need something to cling to. Something that they'll never understand. Something that I'LL never understand, having never loved before.
*sigh*
My cousins...Grrr...
They're circling around like vultures only worse...they're not waiting for Paw-Paw to die, they're moving in BEFORE he's dead. It makes me sick. They're already asking Granny for some of Paw-Paw's stuff to get both before and after he's dead. They've "spoken" for much of Paw-Paw's stuff. Really it's just two of the three that are doing it and don't you know if I thought Granny wouldn't care I'd be giving those two cousins a little something to remember ME by...something like the imprint of my FOOT on their BUTTS.
Grrrr..
It's bad enough that I cringe each time the phone rings because just any day now the news might come. It's bad enough that I cry at the drop of a hat at the least little thought of what life is going to be like without him...It's bad enough that I've already begun to grieve for him. But to know that they're so thoughtless, so lacking in any real feeling that they're more concerned about getting their "share" than mourning the life that we're losing...
And it isn't that I feel like I won't get mine. I couldn't care less about the stuff. I have everything I'll ever need to remember him by. I carry it in the deep soft places in my heart. I carry his voice, his words and deeds...the way he showed up for ever major event in my life and my family's lives and how he never failed to say how much he loved us and how proud he was of us. How he'd give any of us the shirt off his back if we'd needed it...I carry the way he smelled after he'd come home from work before he retired--he'd be wearing those same brown uniforms smelling of dirt and sweat and metal, carrying that brown plastic lunch pail that he'd set on the counter. The goofy faces he made and the silly voices to garner a laugh. His decisiveness and yes, his sometimes unyielding censure. He wasn't always wonderful. Sometimes he was hard. But never with me. With me and my sisters and even those vulture cousins of mine, he was soft and fun and while not the most demonstrative man, he loved us as though his blood ran in our veins. As though we were the greatest gifts he'd ever received. These are the precious things I'll have with me forever.
But them...they see his stuff and what they can get. I hope I'm wrong. I hope their hearts are breaking not because I want them to suffer but because I want them to feel. I want to know that he wasn't just deep pockets with a willing hand for handouts.
And I hate they're doing this to Granny. She's losing her husband of 51 years and that they reduce him to what they WANT from him sickens me. I don't know if it sickens her or not. She'd never speak against any one of us to the other but I hope for her sake that she doesn't see them for the greedy grasping vultures that they are. And I hope she keeps all his stuff. Don't give it to me, my sisters OR my cousins. Because when he's gone, his things and her memories of him will be all she has left of him. And after 51 years, she's going to need something to cling to. Something that they'll never understand. Something that I'LL never understand, having never loved before.
Comments
Seriously, this sounds a lot like some of my aunts/uncles when my maternal grandmother died. People went through her things before she was even in the ground, making off with family photos, as well as jewelry and stuff others gave her, with no thought that the givers might like those items back.
(((HUGS)))