Last Words

Speak when you are angry

and you will make the best speech

you will ever regret.

~Ambrose Bierce

The last time I spoke with my father was in June of 2010; once the toils and turmoil of AunT's passing, her funeral, memorial service and the emotional tsunami associated with her death began to subside. It was not a cleansing conversation but instead a soul ripping, insulting and condemning tirade by my father. It was so hurtful and damaging that I would be surprised to ever share words with him again.

Grief does unpredictable things to people, so it was accepted as 'natural' when we were in Spokane for my sister's funeral that my father's sole mission was to 'speak' with me about my sister's will and the associated financial aspects of it. Given that he has spent his life in the financial industry, it was expected that he would focus his grief upon this outlet, this one familiar topic, using it as a distraction from the pain of my sister's unexpected passing.

We were (and still are) in a torturous hell of mourning; Charles and myself, my brother Gordon and his family, my brother Brady and his family, my parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Thankfully though, during AunT's funeral, Charles and my brothers recognized the drive behind my father's single-minded focus and did their best to keep us apart. And I am eternally grateful for their efforts.

I would like to think that my father's behavior could be explained solely as grief. However, in my opinion and experience, my father is a tremendously effective bully. Over the course of my life I have seen him obtain anything he wanted with single-minded determination by way of arguments, threats, insults and pure harassment. People give him what he wants so that he will go away with the promise of never having to deal with him again.

Perhaps I should not have been surprised then that once enough time had passed that I would be on the receiving end of his methods. As a result of Charles's influence though, I've always sought to see the better side of people, to hope that any bad behavior is due to an unfortunate moment and not a flaw of personality.

When I called to speak with my father, to maintain 'transparency' about my sister's estate as he'd requested, it was a shock and a source of overwhelming sorrow to hear the last words I believe my father will ever say to me:

"Face it. You Fucked Up. You've completely fucked up your sister's estate, and in doing so you've fucked up my life and your mother's too. To be honest, you fuck everything up and you always have."

No child, regardless of their overwhelming success or failure should ever hear such words from their mother or father. 

In reply to my father, once his rage waned enough for me to enter a word, I replied with anger and incredulousness, "I fucked up? Really? Somehow I was hoping to hear a single word of gratitude. One. Lone. Word. For all that I've done to try and limit the pain  surrounding your daughter's death."

"No, not at all", he replied. "You've fucked it all up, and you have done a royal job of it. You have no idea how painful it is to lose a child. None whatsoever."

The child that he lost was the daughter that my family and I welcomed into our own for the last ten years of her life. Instead I get 'You fucked up? Not one single sentiment or gesture of gratitude for

• Obtaining, translating and passing along the information surrounding her death to anyone who was in desperate need of information when there was so little to share.

• Talking with the kind people with the New England Organ and Tissue Bank, answering questions no living person should have to answer about a deceased loved one.

• Taking the first flight to Boston the day AunT died at the expense of my children, work, school, obligations or responsibilities within our own lives when not one other member of the family did the same.

• Setting aside my shock and horror of T's death so that we could pack her belongings and send them home for further sorting and distribution with the grace and purposefulness required of the situation.

• Tending to the mourning and needs of those she left behind in Boston - especially her tender, young and inexperienced roommate who had never faced loss like this before.

• Resolving outstanding debts, contracts and obligations she left behind in her adopted city without fanfare, threats or guile.

• Tending to the most difficult task of overseeing AunT's preparation and travels to the area she grew up for her funeral, and then prepared for her transportation home, to her final resting place.

• Trying on the very clothes that AunT wore in her casket when she was presented to the family for their final goodbyes.

• Overextending ourselves financially until her life insurance policy came in to cover her required expenses, to the detriment of our children and our financial and emotional health.

• Serving as a memory of my sister, as I've been mistaken for my sister when walking down the street, taking classes or shopping for groceries. People who were unaware that my sister had passed accuse me of being aloof and stand-offish until they learn of AunT's passing. Each time the wound of loss is opened again and the scars take that much longer to heal.

After hearing again that I was a FU that I hung up the phone. We each have our own path to recovery, our own measure by which we determine we've reached 'closure' once someone we love, someone integral to our being has passed. Families pull together or fall apart when a loved one dies.

Unresolved family tensions and arguments rise to the surface and often harsh words are said. Yet it is not right or proper to attack, crush and destroy others, no matter the depths of your grief and many years ago I decided that I would no longer subject myself to that sort of hatred and anger.

More importantly, it distresses my children to see me in that sort emotional pain, especially when I'm unable to explain the complex and tumultuous relationships that are present in my extended family.

One day I hope that my parents are able to appreciate what it is that I spared them of, that someday they are able to at least acknowledge the sacrifice that my family made so that they might not suffer more than they had to.

But we will be living, creating and loving rather than waiting.