Thursday, December 08, 2005

Putting the "Fun" Back in Dysfunctional

Today is Eli's second day back to work. He's doing okay. What I'm finding odd is that he's showing more emotion with his father's death than he did with his mum's. I'm guessing it's because his mum lived on borrowed time for the last 40 years or so. Dad's passing was so unexpected and therefore more shocking. Well, at least that makes sense to me.

I told one of my sisters-in-law that Dad's passing means more to me than my own father's ever will. As it turns out she feels the same. Her father was (he's dead) as much a loser as mine is. Dysfunctional families unite!

The service was nice, not overly religious which is a plus because Dad wasn't. The "viewings" the previous day were a little awkward. Mostly because of not knowing the people visiting and my own shyness. And as it turns out the family didn't know many of the people who showed up. Dad had a lot of friends that were unknown to them. Ah well. I hung around the (my!) grandkids, mostly. They did really well especially considering their ages (six and nine). I put "viewings" in quote marks for a reason. Dad was cremated right away. His remains were placed in a nice oak urn and that was on display rather than a body to ogle. I'm grateful for that. Having Dad's body on display would've been too much. Oddly enough, my daughter-in-law said she prefers a body. It gives her a better sense of closure, I guess. Well, to each his/her own.

Thanks to my daughter-in-law I figured out what I'm doing for family gifts. In this month's Martha Stewart's Kids magazine there are ornaments made of buttons and pipe cleaners. They look really cute, and better yet, cheap to make. (Oooh, I just checked out that link. There are several more ideas for handmade ornaments. Cool!) Anyway, so I'll get the stuff for those this weekend and get to work on them. The ornament and a candy "thingie" will be it for the local gift giving*. I don't mail gifts to the rest of the family. I did that for several years without a "thank you" or "kiss my ass" so fuck 'em. They're lucky they still get cards.

*Last year's gifts were nice brass deer ornaments. Guys got gold coloured deer, gals got silver deer. Everyone also got a chocolate-candy-thing that was his/her first initial. I'm hoping to find the same thing this year.

Oh, we didn't get the promised snow. We also didn't get the promised sunshine. Well, the sunshine showed up today, finally.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hug to you and to Eli

Deborah said...

Thanks, Vince. :^)

NiNi said...

I'm so sorry to hear about your loss, Deborah. *hugs to you both*