I'd pit her as well, but she just died of a heart attack.

Once again my silly, silly family’s actions become a thread in the pit. You may or may not remember the thread about my mother learning her half brother in fact did NOT die in the Vietnam war but lived a rather full life in show business. She never met the man (who was just a few years older) and spent the last 30 years thinking he was dead. This lie came from her mother who to this day stands behind the story.

Tonight I get a call from my mother that her younger sister died of a massive heart attack last night. This should be a time of closure for her, but that would make too much sense for that side of the family.

How about a little history first?

There are three daughters. My mother and my two aunts, Aunt M and Aunt D. My mother is the oldest and Aunt D is the youngest.

About 25 years ago my grandmother and all the daughters got together to figure out how grandmother would write up her will. She wanted to know how to split the land, the belongings, etc. I thought it was kind of cool. Find out what things were most important to each daughter. They split the land into three pieces -the house, the woods and the pastures. Everyone was happy.

A few years later Aunt M met a rich man and they got married. They bought a big house with lots of property, started a business, and she spent the next year flaunting her riches. After a year or so the business fell flat and they lost the house. They were dead broke. They somehow convinced grandmother she needed “taking care of” so they kicked her out of the house into the garage which was converted to a makeshift home. Aunt M took over the house. For the record, even today at 80-something, Grandmother is doing just fine. She’s wacky, but fairly healthy and active.

After several years Grandma was convinced Aunt M was the only one in the family that cared about her and changed the will to give her everything. I think it goes without saying this caused a rift between the family. The other sisters felt a little shafted they wouldn’t be left any of the land they grew up on.

Fast forward 20 years later and most wounds had healed. There was still some minor grumbles about the land but it was mostly shrugged off as “what can ya do about it?” Aunt M and her husband still live in the house, Grandma is in the converted garage.

About a week ago Aunt M has “an episode” and ends up in the hospital. I’m told tonight by a cousin Aunt M has had several of these “episodes” in the past but no one really talked about them. As it turns out “episode” is a code word for heart attack. Aunt M stays in the hospital because of her “episode” for a handful of days until she has one final “episode” which kills her.

Word gets around and my mother and Aunt D (who does not live in country) make the trek to the family house to comfort their mother, each other, and Aunt M’s family. A death in the family is a time of reflection and closure. But NOOOOOOOO! That wouldn’t be dysfunctional enough.

As it turns out Aunt M had not made out a will or put anything in writing on what to do with her body when she dies. Of course Grandmother and Aunt M’s husband have two different solutions to the same problem. Uncle M (for the lack of something better to call him) has acknowledged Aunt M did not wish to have a service yet he wants to have a wake. She’s to be buried in his family plot so when he dies he can be buried next to her. Grandmother says “oh no, that’s not what she wanted at all”. It seems grandmother thinks Aunt M wants to be cremated and her ashes scattered in, oddly enough, the same place grandmother wants HER ashes scattered when she dies. She wants a memorial service at the house. The two can not discuss this like to humans they have to get into a very heated debate ALL NIGHT in front of the two other sisters and Aunt M’s two (out of three) children; as well as a few of their children. I guess heated debate is a kind way to say they fought like cats and dogs. I understand it was not a fun scene.

Knowing my grandmother I know how this is going to end up. Uncle M will end up not being allowed to stay in the house if grandmother doesn’t get her way - there is already grumblings about this spreading through the family. It is my understanding the house and property are still under my grandmother’s name. Knowing this side of the family, this whole affair is going to get ugly fast and people will hold grudges for 20+ years. If my grandmother could lie to my mother about her half brothers death, she very easily will ruin another mans life over the handling of a dead daughter/wife’s remains. Hell, the old bat still has a grudge against me because I was born the day they put her husband, my grandfather, in the ground. Thus the reason I never received a birthday card growing up. All the other grandkids did however.

One thing to think about is Uncle M has lived and made improvements on this house and property for 20 years. He’s not going to leave without a fight.

All my mother really had to say over the phone to me tonight was “I wish I wasn’t here”. I thought my cousin was going to start crying when she heard how this was being handled. I think she knows this is going to get ugly as well.

What the fuck is wrong with these people. The loss of a loved one is hard but why fight?

Fucking stupid fuckers.

And they wonder why I avoid the lot of them.

Obviously, the answer is for Uncle M to have a chat with the nice funeral home director and get his “wife’s ashes” put in a container for Grandma to scatter wherever she wants, and put the real body in his family plot, to get a headstone once Grandma dies.

Of course, mooching off of someone else for your living arrangements is never a good idea, because you become dependant on their good graces.

All my life I heard my mom, who grew up in a large family, harangue my dad about what a “real” family acted like. Seems she thought her family was this idyllic close knit clan, while my dad grew up with wolves or something.

When my mom’s mother died (coincidentially the same day my dad’s mother did), all hell broke loose in Des Moines - fightiing over the house and which grandkid was more deserving of living in it, where, how even WHEN she’d be buried. My mom was in Arizona on vacation, another Aunt was in GUAM of all places, but a couple of the kids rushed granny in the ground in 2 days because they had vacation plans they couldn’t miss. The Aunt in Guam missed and my mom made it in the morning of the funeral, having missed the wake.

One of the arguments for waiting even one day was to let my sister and I make both funerals. I got a phone call from one of the aunts going on vacation calling me selfish for expecting her to miss one day of her cruise just so I could go to my grandmas funeral. After all, why couldn’t my dad’s family move theirs one day instead? Then got berated for choosing that grandma over her mother. never mind that after my dad died, he left me in charge of grandma’s arrangements and she was being buried 50 feet from my dad, next to her husband in a cemetery 1/4 mile from my house.

That was 1994. I said fuck them, and haven’t spoken a word to any of my mom’s “perfect” family in Iowa since. My dad’'s dysfuntional family by the way? Only two of the seven uncles/aunts are still around, but the next generation - us cousins? We’re closer than brothers and sisters.

I still like to think of grandmothers as kindly old benificent entities. It always shocks me a little when I hear of one who is a selfish old bitty.

My ex-girlfriend told me of her paternal grandmother, who would grudgingly gift each of her grandchildren a silver dollar on Christmas. Except for my ex, who would only get a half dollar because her father didn’t have the good sense to marry a Catholic.

Ugh.

Old people are old people. If they were jerks when they were young, they’re jerks now. Treat with respect, sure–but that’s different from respecting.
I have yet to meet a “cool” old person(blood related) and I’m almost one myself!

Well, that’s not quite true–my great uncle was a nice man, but I didn’t know him well. My grandparents? Not so much with the nice and Hallmark stuff.

Eh-you get what you get.

Sorry about your troubles, Seven --like my troubles with my inlaws and my not so nice grandparents, I figure I am being shown what NOT to do with my own (if I am that fortunate to have grandkids).

I thought I knew my aunts and uncles. But when my grandmother died, and they were all at the house, scoping out what they could take home before anybody got there, trying to co-ordinate schedules so they knew when there would be somebody there (so they could go in when the place was empty and steal stuff), that was my first clue about what kind of people they really were. Then, I witnessed a screaming match - over who was going to get which tea cups. That’s when I decided that these were people who, even if I wasn’t related to them, I would have nothing to base a friendship with them on, so they could all take a long walk off a short pier, for all I cared. I have no place in my life for Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. I haven’t seen any of them since. Don’t miss 'em, either.

I don’t know if this was intentional, but that is the name of a real band.

My mom has four sisters. The oldest (M) and youngest (E) of them are currently on a collision course that is going to end very badly. My grandmother is in an assisted care facility (she has Alzheimer’s). The five sisters are, in theory, supposed to pay an equal amount for her care. However, M hasn’t been paying her share, which has made all of them angry, but especially E because she has my grandmother’s power of attorney and is sort of “in charge”. M has also been extremely grabby with my grandmother’s things, to the point that when my mom and her sisters sold grandma’s house, she took the tea towels and cleaning rags.

This is coming to a head because M’s daughter, my cousin, is getting married next year, and has turned the wedding into a circus, of which she is the main attraction. (BTW, my cousin is 40 years old. She could plan her own damned wedding, but somehow her mom has ended up running the show.) Last week when I was home for Thanksgiving (fortunately, my immediate family lives several hundred miles from most of my extended family), I got all the updates - E is my cousin’s matron of honor and they’re now having a pitched battle over what shoes to wear. I talked to E on the phone and tried to be sympathetic, but she read me a note she wrote to M and it reeks of passive aggression. Yeah, that’s going to solve everything.

To top it off, M is a diabetic in denial, refuses to be treated, and a couple years ago she had a stoke and went AWOL from the hospital the next day. E is also diabetic (it runs in the family), under medical care, and I know it frustrates her to see her sister killing herself like this.

And people ask me if I miss my family, living a couple thousand miles away. Um…sure thing.

It’s unkind of me, but I’m quite relieved I won’t be able to attend the wedding.

Another vote for “some old people are just mean and nasty.” Case in point: My hubby’s family. Specifically, his parents (his dad, who we’ll call E, and his mom, who we’ll call A) and his paternal grandparents (who we’ll call Grandpa and Grandma).

My hubby grew up thinking Grandpa was a tight, stingy man – he and his siblings got grudging gifts, if any at all, from those grandparents, and Grandma always explained that Grandpa wouldn’t let her spend more. Plus they hadn’t attended E and A’s wedding because E (a Lutheran) and married A (a Catholic).

E died at 46 and A was left a widow with six kids. Grandma passed away a few years after E’s death, and Grandpa moved in with A to help her take care of the house and the kids. So what happens? They all start getting lovely, generous gifts – Grandpa pays to fix stuff around the house, makes sure everyone’s life is at least comfortable, and is beloved by all.

Apparently it was Grandma who was the stingy bitch, who all those years blamed it on Grandpa, and he was too nice to out her to the family. Till she was dead and gone and he could do it without presumably endless aggravation at home.

Sorry about the family mess, Seven. You’d be well advised to stay as far away from it as you can safely manage.

Oh, and Uncle M should probably get himself a lawyer stat.

For some reason, funerals always bring out the worst in people. Hang in there. This too shall pass. Unless cousin L gets Auntie’s good silverware, the stuff she promised our T, who still isn’t talking to L from the Christmas argument last year.

My family dreads the death of my remaining Grandma because 1)well, she’d be dead. 2)her house is Crammed with stuff. The Lay-z-boy empire alone gives us the shivers. The woman has between 12-14 recliners. It’s frightening. I’m honestly not sure what will happen when stuff gets split up. I think there is enough meaningful items for everyone, but what about the kicknaks? the collection of alternative beanie babies? (sure to be collectors items one day, mmm-hmm) the dog beer steins? 184 pairs of impractical shoes? the decorative fly swaters? The filing cabinets of tax records*? I mean, this stuff isn’t even useful for a charity. It boggles the mind. Thankfully, I can’t really see anyone fighting over this stuff, at least, not in the sense of that they want to keep it. It’ll probably be a “who has to get rid of it all” kind of argument.

*we’ll probably burn these, actually.

Dumpsters. You can rent them, you know. Someone drops one off where you want it, then picks it up when you’re done putting stuff in it. Really helpful for major debulking of households

Here’s the update from crazy island.

Uncle M awoke this morning with a slamming hangover and commanded the kids to start clearing the house of all Aunt M’s stuff.

Grandmother, in her old wise ways, has announced there will be no Christmas for the family this year.

I’m so glad I only have to go through this via the telephone.

I hear one of my cousins has grown to be a fine young man (I don’t know him at all) and he is mostly being the resident voice of reason through all this. I bet he feels like the only sane man in the asylum. I feel for him. he lost his mother and has to deal with all this extra bullshit. Sad.

I plan to avoid this as much as possible but if there is a service I plan to attend only to support my mother and a couple cousins.

When I read threads like this, I always want to tell my story about my mom’s family (brothers and sisters), and how they acted when my maternal grandma died. They split her estate seven ways (there are 7 siblings), and one of my uncles who is quite well-off quietly gave his share of the estate to my mom who had recently left her abusive husband and was struggling.

Now, that’s a family.

Damn, featherlou…that’s such an incredulous scenario that it *almost * demands a cite. You been taking Functional Family Fantasy[sup]TM[/sup] drugs or something?

:smiley:

Ooh! Ooh! Nitpick! I am incredulous. It is incredible.

Bite ye’r fucken pedantic arse Case Sensitive. :stuck_out_tongue:

[nitpick]

It’s “your fucking”.

:: d&r ::

Wow. That’s harsh.

I wonder how I managed to get so lucky? My family, extended and all, is great! You couldn’t ask for better. I think the worst that ever happened is that my one of my uncles married a woman who turned to be… odd. Later on, she divorced him and occassionally harasses him.

If I didn’t know my mom and her family, I might be incredulous, too. Hard as it is to believe, there are actually people in the world who act this nicely to each other.