Hey ho.
So, the widow has demanded an autopsy. And in other news, I don't want to attend the funeral.
First things first: WHAT?!
You cannot be serious?! The man had progressive failure of most if not all of his vital organs - heart, kidneys, liver, lungs...you name it, it was failing - was incredibly massively overweight and caught one of the infections that whirl their way around the wards of hospitals, and you wonder what killed him.
I'll tell you what killed him. HE did. At 58 years of age, his body simply couldn't cope any more and when he contracted a bug, it simply succumbed. There is no mystery. Nobody murdered him. Nobody was even negligent in his care, from what I can tell. It just happened.
I know why she is doing this. She wants somebody to blame. Somebody to get angry at, to channel a little of the tremendous overwhelming grief that is raging within her. Because she loved him, dearly. Poor woman. One good thing to come out of this is that with their marriage being relatively fresh - less than five years, I think - dad hadn't had chance to hurt her yet; to do what he did to every woman he tied himself to when he got bored and fancied a change. I know that is a cruel thing to think and that it is evil to speak ill of the dead, but I don't care. Given dad's track record, sooner or later, it would have happened. It's just that in this case, death intervened before he could.
So she loved him. Still loves him. And she wants someone to blame. And because she loved/loves him, I am venting my angst here to you, Blog, rather than directing it at her, because that wouldn't be fair.
But the bottom line, you poor, poor woman; when all is said and done, is that dad killed dad. Nobody else. Nobody else needed to. He did it to himself.
Anyway, moving on...
The funeral, when it happens, is not something I want to go to.
Why? Well, a few reasons. One of them not insurmountable, and the other ones not so much.
Reason one; the journery.
It will be long, complicated, exhaustive, scary. Not undo-able, as I said. Perfectly do-able. Just not particularly pleasant. I am frightened by long journeys, particular those into places unknown to me. And particularly where rather than leaving somebody else in charge, the only person responsible for not messing it up is me. And I don't trust me. I just don't.
Reason two: the family.
Dad's family. That's a biggie. Because I do not want to see them. They are horrible, mean spirited, spiteful people that go out of their way to do and say horrible, mean spirited and spiteful things and I do not want to see them. Not now, not ever. And especially not at the funeral of my father, several miles away from home in a place that is unfamiliar and while I am distressed and vulnerable. I am having difficulty coping with day to day life right now as it is. Five minutes in the company of any one of those people will in all likelihood send me over the edge.
Reason three: the setting.
I mentioned that it would be unfamiliar. It will also be terribly uncomfortable. And more importantly, wrong. It would feel WRONG.
To explain further. To me, dad; the dad I knew when I was a child, belongs here. Not there. And it is that dad that I want to say goodbye to; not the other dad. The other dad was the one who disappointed and hurt me over and over again, the man who became a rather unpleasant stranger.
To travel to Scotland would be to travel to the home of that other dad, to say goodbye to him. And I simply do not want to do that. I want to say my farewells to the man I loved more than anything else in the whole entire world. And that man in inside of me. Here.
Reason four: Michael James.
Now, my brother, for now at least, seems to want to go. And I know that he wants to go with me. For us to face it together. But the problem with that is that I won't just be facing the journey, and the family, and the farewell being in the wrong place; I will also be facing the prospect of MJ spiraling out of control before my eyes.
Right now, MJ is just about OK. Balanced. Managing. But it is precarious. Like me, he finds crowded places difficult; so travelling all that way, even if nothing goes wrong and we don't get lost or miss a connection, will be terribly hard for him. Then there is the family to contend with. Can I trust them to treat us with respect? To understand what we must be going through? To be kind to the children of the man being buried by remaining polite, or if they can't do that, to help us by leaving us alone? I don't think so. When terribly upset, MJ loses restraint. I should know; I lived with it for years. And on that day of all days, on a day when the balance of mind of the most level headed person would be sorely tested; one wrong word, or perhaps even one wrong look, and I shudder to think what his reaction might be...
I am frightened. That's the truth of it. I am frightened of having to try and cope with Michael James and how Micheal James can be on my own. Which may not be fair. He may well, as he has done in the past, rise to the occasion and become stronger and calmer than I would have thought possible. He may well become the big brother that I know he can be and end up supporting me, rather than the other way around. But I am frightened nonetheless, because what if he doesn't? Or what if he copes for part of it and then falls to pieces for the rest? He could cope wonderfully through the journey, then the funeral itself and the family, and then once all that was dealt with melt down on the journey home.
And if he did, I couldn't cope, I know I couldn't. I am finding hard enough to cope with myself. Right now, after years of having the knowledge that although I wasn't contributing much to the household financially I was able to provide the emotional crutch that mother desperately needs to cope, mother is supporting me and providing the same emotional crutch, because if she didn't, I would go to pieces. And with that in mind, how would I manage to provide the support MJ needs? How could I help him to cope, when somebody else - someone who would not be accompanying us - is having to do the same for me...?
I don't know. I just don't know. All I do know is that MJ wants to go and I don't.
And that if he did go; to even have a chance of preventing him regressing into psychosis, he would need me to go with him...
Alice xxx
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