I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO END THIS ONE
Got a little easy @ 2:08 p.m.
on 2003-10-29
I�ve discovered the date when relatives no longer feel obligated to send you a card with a five-dollar bill inside wishing you �all the best� on your special day. It�s your 25th birthday. Even my grandparents didn�t send me a card; all I got was an email. Damn you electronic age!!
I was really looking forward to those five bucks.
Ok, enough joking around, onto something that I�m not sure how to talk about and don�t know exactly how I feel about yet. When I was in college I worked at a small family-owned kiosk in the mall. The woman and her husband that owned it are about my parent�s age, and I quickly became a part of the family. They were the surrogate supportive, funny, chain-Virginia-Slim-smoking parents I needed, and I was their surrogate not-in-jail-or-popping-pills child they felt very proud of. Plus, I was also the older role-model sister for their pre-teen granddaughter they were raising. They referred to me as �their good child� and it made me feel good. People often mistook me for Garland�s daughter because we would spend hours in that kiosk together laughing and gossiping, and Sam bought me my first mattress after I revealed I�d been sleeping on a pull-out sofa for months.
About the time I graduated, roughly two years ago, Sam decided to come out of retirement and go back to work at a clinic in a town hours away. I didn�t think much of it, they could use the money, and I was starting a full-time job in mental health and couldn�t work anymore with them without exhausting myself. Time went by, and I heard about bad things happening. They were separating and talking about divorce�he�d been lying, and cheating the last 15 years of their 18 year marriage, custody arguments over the grand-kid, really really bad things.
This all came as a huge shock to me. This was not the happy father-figure that I knew, it was like he was leading a double life. I still don�t know exactly what went on, having only heard one side of the story.
Then about a year ago, as Garland had already held her head high and actually had a new beau herself (that I don�t particularly like), life got worse. Sam was diagnosed with cancer, and nothing they tried worked. His many siblings and parents were not supportive, so he turned to the only person he knew could care for him. He gave Garland an ultimatum: If she stayed with him till he died, he wouldn�t cut her out of the will and would make sure the granddaughter was well taken care of financially.
She agreed.
This woman has been through heaven and hell, married 4 or 5 times, has four children of her own, and helped raise two of Sam�s from a previous marriage, plus one of their daughters..Sam�s granddaughter. I can�t begin to imagine the inner strength she has. She told me about going to the police when Sam would walk around the house drugged up after treatments, with a gun in his pocket and two bullets he�d carved �His� and �Hers� into. Most of his family living on the same road as them, owning all the land on that road, and not one coming to visit him, even in the hospital.
She shouldered a burden I can only imagine.
So when she called Monday, and said that Sam had passed on, and she wanted Joe and I to come to the funeral Tuesday, I was a bit hesitant. Did I want to hear nice things said about a guy who had lied to and manipulated everyone around him? Not really. I still feel betrayed by him, for making me look up to him. Then I thought about Garland, and if she wanted me to be there for her, no hounds of hell were going to stop me from attending.
So we drove up, sat through the service, and made the rounds by the body.
The body.
This is my first time to ever see a dead body. Laying there in white satin, in his Navy Uniform, stiff as a board. Thin. So, so thin. Garland later said that he weighed 105 lbs the last day, and that the embalming and cosmetics made him look healthier in the coffin than he had in months. She also gave me details on how his body would expel rotted tissue and exactly how it smelled.
I almost threw up in her laundry room.
But I could tell that she wanted to talk about it and about her months of suffering, and I was willing to do anything to make her feel better, even if it meant just listening.
She seemed chipper, kept saying, �I made it through� and �Gonna be all right,� which she will be. She assured me she will call in a few weeks when things settle down.
Oh, and on a twisted note: Sam�s family can�t stand Garland. They hate her. They told her they would have her run out of town in five days at the funeral. Well, Sam�s dad died unexpectedly two months ago, and his will passed everything on to Sam, and Sam�s will passes everything on to Garland since she stayed with him. Yup, she now owns all the land they�re living on, plus more assets waiting to be discovered! Ha! Isn�t that a kick in their collective groin.
So Joe and I headed back home feeling slightly relieved that the whole ordeal is over, but not quite sure what to make of it all.
My first dead body, though. It really creeped me out. Really. When we got home I made Joe watch �The Blair Witch Project� with me so I would have something scarier in my head than dead Sam.
He�s the first person that I�ve actually sat down and had conversations with that�s died. I wonder how I�ll react when someone I actually love dies. I�ll probably cry a lot. His granddaughter cried a lot, she�s 14 now, and lost the only dad she ever knew. I feel badly for her.
I�m glad I had Joe with me, he�s the extra support I need when all mine is spent.