This morning when I went up to help Mother make a grocery list and remind her to get ready to go to the store she told me that my brother, John (yeah, the one that was just here)had called her last night and that he was on his way here (to Oklahoma) because someone had died???
Well, you just never know with Mother, so, I called John's house - no answer.
Mother said it was someone he had gone to school with - which seemed to make no sense at all - why in the world would he drive 14 hours to attend a funeral for anyone he had gone to school with 40 years ago???
So, being the super sleuth that I am, I went to adaeveningnews.com to read the obits.
hmmmmm... in yesterday's paper I found an obituary for a woman, Shirley, who was my third cousin. I haven't seen her in probably 25 - 30 years, she was 67 years old. Both of her parents died a couple of years ago. She died on the 13th (in her home).
then the mystery... the next obituary was for her brother, Howard. He was 59 years old and died on the 12th (in his home).
I remember Howard from my childhood days. I always thought he was really cool. He was the bad boy of their family, a musician, a lot of whispering was done about Howard. I kind of think he had mental problems or was heavy into drugs.
This whole family was kind of a mystery to me. My Mom never really told me (if she even knew - kids in her day weren't allowed to ask many questions)what the real deal was with this family and my Grandmother was dead before I ever really cared enough to ask.
Howard's Dad, Murray, was raised by my Grandmother (his aunt) and my Great Grandmother (his Grandmother). He had a brother very close to his age, they were orphaned when they were babies by my Grandmother's sister, Mattie, who died mysteriously when the two boys were just babies. I never knew what really happened to Mattie, all I knew is that she was very young - it just wasn't talked about. I never heard anything about the Father of the two boys. But, later in my Grandmother's life when she had Alzheimer's I remember her talking to or about her sister a lot.
Don't you wish, sometimes, that you could go back in time and watch history happen, to know more about people's thoughts and motives?
I guess every family has secrets and skeletons, especially since any kind of mental illness was hushed up and never spoken of.
If and when I find out anymore about the mysterious death of brother and sister (Shirley and Howard)I'll let you know.
*update:
Mother was confused about my brother coming. I talked with him this afternoon and it was all news to him. more later
4 comments:
I lost both of my grandmothers in 2005.
Before they died, each time I saw them they did this 'archival memory dump' on me.
Shit I never knew (like my maternal grandmother's second husband who beat the living shit out of her all the time) and my paternal grandmother's craving for alcohol. This was just the smallest piece of all the really awful stuff that they both told me. (and in my maternal grandmother's case, what she told my mother that completely freaked her out)
They both did it completely independently of each other, and when they had me all to themselves.
You know, it was interesting, but it was stuff that I am not sure now I really wanted to know. Part of me is grateful to know it, to understand just where some of my truly galactically screwed up-edness came from.
The Alzheimer's folks that I lived and worked with day in and day out struggled with a kind of 'time warp' thing. Ida always did anything her grandson wanted because he looked just like her late husband when they first got married. She always was wanting to go home, because she didn't recognize where she was living.
I really hate this disease.
How odd that your brother knew nothing about it and yet if your mom hadn't mentioned that he was coming you might not have looked at the obits and found out about your two cousins.
I remember talking to my great grandma about things in our family history I didn't understand and being dumbfounded when she told me she had left her husband for the mailman. It's just not something you think about your great grandma doing.
Sandy, yeah, the whole thing felt pretty bizarre, evidently someone had called Mother to tell her about their death, but, she didn't really know who it was. She doesn't even have any memory of who the cousins are.
Dealing with her sometimes makes me feel as if I'm the crazy one.
My great grandma on my dad's side had Alzheimer's. We only met her a couple of times. One of the times she grabbed my shirt which was polka dotted and started yelling "pretty flowers" really loud and then told us she had to go milk the cows. She was also convinced that lard was ice cream and ate it by the spoon full before my grandma finally had to put her in a nursing home.
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