You can pick your friends...

and you can pick your friend's nose, (eewww, I'd never do that, gross) but you can't pick your relatives.

Yesterday was my Uncle's funeral. I began typing out this long post about the country music (I Saw the Light, by Hank Williams) that was played on crackly-sounding mono-speakers, and the mostly country bumpkin's with redneck-mentality sort of kin folk that are my Uncle's close family and friends, but decided against it. There was no possible way to write about these people who were close to and dear to my Uncle without sounding or feeling disrespectful, so I deleted it all and started over. My intention was not to poke fun, but to relay certain things that happened and to give a true descriptive of the people, I just couldn't pull it off. But two things happened that gave me something to write about.

Uncle T didn't belong to a church so a quick service was held by a local pastor at the funeral home and cemetery. The funeral home is an old Colonial style house. It was small and very quaint. The decor was calming and peaceful and...homey. The room that held us all looked to be the former living room that opened to the dining room. The walls were papered in cool pastels with large flowers, and the lighting came from tall floor lamps that were dimmed with lovely matted glass shades. It smelled of fresh cut flowers. Chairs were set up in rows beginning directly in front of the casket and continued all the way back to an alcove behind where I was seated. It was a full house.

My sister, brother and I decided to wait until the last possible moment to go in as I had no intention of sitting anywhere near my Uncle's body. I have an image in my head of him when he was healthy and robust. I didn't want that to change at all so I decided against "the viewing".

After all of my Uncle's favorite songs were played, the service began. It was short and sweet followed by an announcement of how we were all invited to gather at the local American Legion for food and refreshments after the burial. At this point I still hadn't had the chance to see my Aunt E to give her a hug so I figured I'd just wait until we were at the Legion.

My Aunt E sat with us at our table along with my favorite Aunt S, her husband Uncle J and their daughter C, my sister, brother, our mother, and me. We all had conversations going with me catching up with my cousin C, my sister and brother chatting away and my Aunt S talking with Aunt E. Uncle J was sitting back just taking it all in, not saying a word. My mother tried to interrupt each and every conversation taking place, but all ignored her and kept right on talking. Every now and then I'd look up and noticed that my Aunt E and Aunt S were just glaring at my mother and both looked very upset as they talked. Eventually my mother left the table to get food and I asked Aunt E if everything was alright when she informed me that she was not happy with my mother. At that point all conversations at my table stopped. I asked why she was so upset and she replied, "Your mother brought Duke to the wake last night". I said, "Well, she brings the dog with her wherever she goes. I'm not surprised". "No", she said. "She didn't leave him in the car like she usually does . She brought him in to the funeral home". Holy shit. My mother certainly outdid herself in the selfishness department. You see, she thinks that because her world revolves around her dog and she just loves him so very much, that everyone else should feel the same way about him. Yeppers, that's my mother.

Everyone there was dressed in their very best and the dog isn't your typical sized dog, (lab and shepherd mix) and has had no training what-so-ever. He is obese, reeks and sheds like crazy. He thinks nothing of slobbering and sniffing and planting his big, long snout straight into your crotch, man, woman or child. Duke does not discriminate. Apparently nobody was amused at or thought her little antic was cute and all were quite pissed, rightfully so.

My Aunt E, the one who just lost her husband of 54 years said, "You can't bring him in here". My mother replied smugly, "Oh yes I can, T liked Duke". Aunt E was a wreck and in no shape to argue. She hadn't slept much and had barely eaten in the past few days. My mother is a narcissist remember, and will never ever admit when she's made a mistake or is just plain wrong about something, so Aunt E would have just gotten more upset and my mother would have gotten all indignant and caused more of a scene if she argued the point with her. Duke really slobbered my Aunt S up fairly good, leaving her covered with his jowl-juice, hair and nasty wet-yet-oily dog smell. She was just beside herself and said, "Look what he just did to me". My mother completely ignored her and walked away.

So I guess that's why my mother got the silent treatment at the gathering. The only people there who gave her the time of day were the people she got up to talk with. After all, they had no choice. After finding out what she had done, I did my best to ignore her as well because I was so embarrassed and disgusted by the whole thing and I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep myself from telling her what I thought. I was angry with her self-absorbed attitude and lack of consideration and respect for other people, especially my Aunt E, who clearly didn't want the dog in there.

On the bright side, if there is one;

After we ate, my sister and I sat at the bar and started playing pull-tab tickets out of sheer boredom and to get away from our mother.

I started out buying ten tickets and hit one for $50, and then bought ten dollars more and won another $100.