(no subject)

My grandfather died early this morning.

When i talked to my mom, she told a story that seems to be a good warning for the upcoming family dynamics. She described how she, her sister, and my grandfather's wife and her daughters were all together with her father as he faded. At some point his breathing changed, and the hospice worker said now was the time if anyone wanted a last private word with him. My mother indicated she did want a private last word, and she says the hospice worker got up to leave, but her father's wife and her daughters didn't.

I think the distress of feeling like an outsider at her own father's death has led her to act out. Just talked to my dad (still in NC) and found that she'd fussed him out for going to the neighborhood bar ("There's beer at home!" she accused) and she's apparently told her sister's husband how my father and everyone else think he's having an affair with her father's wife's daughter.

Southern Gothic funeral, here i come.

I hope i can fill the listener role for my mom,. She needs to talk, to let the anger and bitterness and bile come pouring out. I've listened before, and i know she has deep festering wounds. Dad notes how over the past years, watching her with her father, he's come to understand how much of the crap my mother gave him had less to do with him and far more to do with her father. He's seen how the wounds run deep to her childhood; i just know those festering deep wounds are older than i am.

I will drink lots and lots of water, and i will try not to retain the pain. I will let it pass through me.