The Real FreeDragon

* I simply cannot write a post about my identity (or lack thereof) without using real names. I'm going to try to avoid using last names and my real name. All the people in this post are real. All events are real. I trust no one wants to invade my privacy.

My uncle died a week ago. The funeral was last Wednesday. My mother does not get along with her family. I don't know why. I think mainly it is a case of jealous self-centered people trying to one-up each other and as none of them can ever let anything go things got way out of hand. I'm not sure this mess is fixable.

My mother debated going to the funeral. Her brother had a stroke and lived for a few days in the hospital before dying (this is also the same way my grandfather died) She did not go to the hospital. My mother is annoyed with the only sister she is on speaking terms with for not giving regular updates. My father asked Mom, did you ask Fay how he was doing? And she said, I shouldn't have to ask!

I'm not going to get into that debate. I think both Mom and Fay could be a little more considerate of each other. But I digress. On to the funeral.

As Mom didn't get to set things right with her brother before he died, she decided she should go to the funeral. But once she got there, Christy, Uncle Roland's daughter-in-law, asked Mom to leave!

I didn't witness this event. Dad told me about when he picked me up for the Hall Family Reunion (more on this in a minute, it ties together, I promise)

As the story goes, Christy asked Mom to leave so Mom went to Carmen's house which is next door to the cemetery (and it's a small, private, family cemetery. We have rules. I should write another post about it. I've got a lot of blog fodder all of a sudden) At some point, either during the service or soon after before the mourners left, my father's friend Calvin walked over. He has a business nearby and he knew my uncle and he knows Dad, so he wanted to pay his respects. Before he got settled into a chair he had heard the story of Sue getting kicked out of her brother's funeral.

I really think it was a terrible thing for Christy to do. First, it wasn't her place. Now if my uncle's wife, Beverly had asked Mom to leave, it still would have been in poor taste, but I think Beverly would have more of a right. Even if Beverly was sitting under the tent saying, GOD! Why is she here?! I still don't think Christy should have said anything. Also, Mom has never done anything to the girl, nor has she ever said a word against her. I wouldn't know Christy if I saw her on the street. I think I briefly glimpsed her ten years ago before she married Todd.

Also, it think it was so horrible, so trashy, so low class because funerals are for the living. The dead does not care what the above ground folks are doing. The funeral is so the living can have closure. Part of why I took AJ's death so hard is I did not attend a funeral. There was nothing to cement in my mind that she was gone. Sometimes I still forget and I think about calling her. We attend funerals so that we can close the door. Honoring the dead person is secondary. It's a close second, but believe me, the living come first.

I suppose you are wondering where I was. I was ignorant of it all. Mom did call and tell me Roland had a stroke and that he was at St Francis, but she didn't call to tell me he died, to ask me if I wanted to attend the funeral, or to tell me what that bitch Christy said. I sent both my mom and Aunt Fay sympathy cards. I haven't heard from either one. Yep, this is a strange bunch.

So I learned everything after the fact, nearly a week later. Dad took me to New Site for the reunion. Mom never attends. Long, long time ago, like before I was old enough to go to school, my parents had a fight. Dad wouldn't go to Granny's house for Christmas. Since all the Christmases I remember were at Francis's and Tommy's house, this must have been long ago indeed. Mom said that if Dad didn't go to her mother's house she would never go to a Christmas at his mother's house, or a reunion, or party either. And she hasn't. Can we say stubborn?

Anyway, up to New Site we go. It's a long ride because there are no straight roads in Tallapoosa County. I mean none. It's a small place but you'll spend an hour getting there. This is my second reunion. I don't really know this family either, not because we don't get along, but because I just wasn't around them growing up. Dad mainly hung around his cousin Joe who was his best friend. Joe's daughter Kathy was close to my age. Everyone else was either too old or too young to play with. Joe kept the family informed of Dad's doings and since we're all spread out across the state, I rarely saw anybody.

This means I am unknown. A few people know me, Kathy, her sister Pasty, and their mother Leola, of course. Vicky remembers me after awhile. Mark Allen thinks he knows me, but he has me confused with someone else. He'll say something that makes no sense to me and I'll say, I'm Jack's daughter. Then Mark Allen laughs, remembers me and refuses to say who he thought I was.

My dad is perhaps the easiest person on earth to get along with. Everybody likes Jack. So at the Hall family reunion, by default, everybody likes me. My relatives are actually glad to meet me. I am famous simply for being the child of a good man.

The Newsome Family Reunion is a lesson in Cold Shoulder. Nobody knows me there either. Usually I see someone eye balling me. I look like Roland's daughters, but he only has two, so clearly I'm not his child. I'm too young to belong to Fay or Francis. Shirley doesn't have children. I see the wheels turning and I know they've gone down every branch, listed every cousin, and I don't match up with anybody. Finally they'll say, Are you kin?
'Yes, I am Roland and Dessie's granddaughter.'
'Who's you're mother?'
'Sue.'
'Who?'
'Glenda Sue. My father is Jack. We live in Salem. My mother is the baby of the family.'
'Oh. You're that one. She named you after her father and and brother, right?'
'Yes.'
There ensures an awkward silence in which my poor cousin tries to figure out how to get away from me before I give them Sue cooties or something and I try to figure out which cousin hates my guts on sight. Sometimes they just walk off. Sometimes they mutter something about eating, or checking on a child but whatever excuse they use, they make a beeline for their family and in a few minutes an entire table of strangers are staring at me. I quit going to the Newsome family reunion when I was in junior high school.

I felt greatly disoriented when I finally got back home after the Hall family reunion. I've moved back to my father's family's home and I didn't even know it. My cousins are all around me. Dad must have pointed out two dozen houses. 'The Prices lived there.' 'Used to fish here.' 'Pap lived here.' 'Mom's best friend lived right here.' 'You know Ponder's Plant Farm? They got started right here. Family still owns the place. I went to school with the oldest boy.' And on and on. I feel like I belong, but I've never seen it before. It's like being adopted and after you're grown up someone is nice enough to point out where you were born. Maybe they throw in a tidbit about knowing your birth mom. It's nice to know but does knowing change the way you grew up?

Likewise, does cutting off family that despises you make you mean? Or am I better off for not being in the middle of that mess? I grew up around my mother's family. What could a child possibly have done to be so disliked? Can I be forgiven for it? If I am does that hurt my mother? What if she is not forgiven, too? Then what? Do I reject family love in favor of motherly love?

There's something inherently wrong in being named after people who don't like you. It makes your very existence a bone of contention with them. When my grandfather had his stroke I was 22. I sat beside his hospital bed because I thought I ought to. He twisted around and made strange noises. I grabbed his hand. His hand was not at all like I expected. It was rough. He calmed down a bit, so I held his hand then realized with shock it was the only time in my life I had ever done so. Since I didn't go to the hospital when my uncle had his stroke I don't know what his hand is like. I don't know if that is vital information or not.

I really don't know who I am. I can't be daughter of Jack but not Sue. I was trying to explain this Kevin. I really wasn't doing a good job. This isn't easy. I don't have words for some of it. Finally Kev kissed my forehead and said, You're my girl.

That might be enough.