When my grandfather died, the shit hit the fan. We went over there everyday, my family and I, and paid our condolences. It was a whole distant family affair. All of my dad’s brothers and sisters where there with their kids. We went there every day for 5 days straight just so we could all be together and watch him decay. My mom would bring food for the family because we didn’t just go there and watch him but we would eat lunch and dinner there. We all just stood around and waited from him to stop breathing. He was in his late 70’s and has lived a rather bland life. He was in War World II but because of his nose bleeds when he piloting planes, he was put into the demolition crew that would just blow up already downed planes so no one would steal out intel. Then he worked for a post office, dropping off letters. But he mostly took his love of crafts. His bedroom was filled with model planes that he built and painted. There was hundreds hanging from the ceiling. Also he has built his own model T car that he kept in his garage. That was his life in a nutshell. He didn’t talk to much or really expand on anything. He would tell stories at time but none memorable enough to stick out. He was simple and plain.
But my dad’s family was parasitic. My grandpas wife, or my grandmother, was a give in. Anything that her sons asked for she would give them and more. Pay them to fix up her roof but they would never fix anything but take the money. She would pay for your college if you mowed her grass in the summer. She gave away his pension like she worked a day in her life. She told my parents not to have any more kids after their first one. If my parents took her advice then I would never exist. She was a shrew of a women and that is how I have come to know her. She was nice in person but you would always here the evil comments later through the rest of the family. They didn’t care because they needed her. My family did because we didn’t need her assistance through life and she hated us for it. She liked the control and it was a sad thing to watch as my non-immediate family was being treated like dirt but stayed there and didn’t care.
But my mom tried to make the event into a family event. She wanted everyone to be together in a time like this based on pure necessity and kindness. It wasn’t her father but this is what she would want if she was passing away. This is probably what she wanted for her father who got cancer when he was 45. He was buried with his girlfriend, my mom’s parents got divorced, in Minnesota away from his family. She was at the service but it was small. For some reason my grandmother did not like what she was doing.
My dad was in the room with his father just watching him breathe deeply. My aunt Kathy was in there too with her brown hair down to her shoulders just keeping my father company in this painful retreat from the rest of the family. She was 2 years younger then my father. My grandmother came in the room and somehow didn’t see my father sitting in the corner and came up to her favorite Kathy. She told her that if she was ever like this, dying in bed, that she didn’t want Patricia allowed in the house. My mom’s name was Patricia. Kathy then motioned to my father. My father then got up and left and didn’t say anything to my mom until we got home. My grandfather died that day.
When my mother heard the news she instantly picked up the phone and called my grandmother. She told her that she would never step foot in her household again. She stuck to her word and we never went back. I only saw my grandmother at my graduation party. Anytime I would hear from her is through my oldest brother Kane. The one she loved the most out of all the siblings because my dad was the first born too. He loved her and also was good friends with our cousin Nick. Then her house got burned down. She put her bank account in the name of Kathy. Then she died. But everything was given to the third child Dan. My dad never received anything in the will and no one else did either. He didn’t care.
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