Death and Ambivalence

I picked up my cell phone Friday evening and noticed a missed call from my mother. "Bad news", she said in the message she left. Her oldest brother, my Uncle Kenny, had passed away. I called her and expressed my condolences and volunteered, through gritted teeth, to accompany her to Illinois for the post-mortem.

She didn't take me up on the offer, saying instead that she was riding with two of her remaining brothers and would call if we needed to be there. If that seems odd, you need a little more info about that side of the family. They are not, as it's said, "close". And they don't talk about "things". The few people on that side who are big talkers are also congenital liars. That's not name-calling, it's just the facts, ma'am.

My late grandmother, who passed away mere months ago, was a manipulative old bag who pretended to be alternately crazy and infirm so that one of her children would take her in. They had 70 years of "Been There Done That" to back their collective decision to not invite her home. So when she finally did descend into dementia -- for real -- it was quite some time before anyone bought it. Then it was too late. Off to The Home and soon to the cemetery.

My now-late uncle didn't fall far from that tree. "OK, Uncle Kenny" became a family euphemism for "You're full of shit." It is common knowledge that "he would lie when the truth would be more convenient." He bragged (or lied - who knows?) about teaching Minnesota Fats everything he needed to know about billiards. He bragged (no lie here) about living the last 30 years with a bullet lodged near his heart. No war wound this, he was caught in bed with a rifle-totin' man's wife. Good guy. I think I met him 4 or 5 times - and not at all in the last 25 years. My mother called him on his birthday and Christmas faithfully. "That's what you do," she told me.

So that's what you do? Nobody ever really talks about why Grandma or Uncle Kenny might have been the way they were. If not excuses, there are some plausible explanations. Life is hard for everybody. But that family had it particularly rough. Regrettably, these two became people who, even in death, evoked nothing more than ambivalence from their own family. I made the trek to upstate New York for my grandmother's funeral out of sheer obligation to my mother. And I'd been dubbed a pall-bearer for one of the nastiest people I'd ever met in my 40 years. During the service, I dissolved into sobs that would have made a Sicilian Mourner blush. I wasn't sad for my mother or my grandmother or for any sense of loss. I was devastated that I couldn't muster up an ounce of feeling for the little old lady in the box. I was wrecked that I could be so ambivalent about my grandmother.

"Well, they're a mess, but that's the only family I have," Mom offered. I was suddenly sad for her. And I was glad, in a way, that during this mourning period I could find something sad to hang my hat on. I guess that's what you do when you don't know how much of your history is true or filtered or completely altered for public consumption. In the absence of any real feeling or relationship, you grasp at straws to achieve the outward look that is appropriate for the moment's event. And in doing so, you become -- I become -- part of the perpetuated lie.

So sad for poor dead Grandma. No, I wasn't. So sad for poor dead Uncle Kenny. No, I'm not. The truth is sadder than the events. Unfortunately, in both cases, they were one rung shy of Better Off Gone. That's the truth. But you can't say that at funerals. And you can't say that to mama - who is so loathe to speak of her family's history. I just hope that when it's my turn I evoke something more than ambivalence from my own family. Maybe by being a truth-teller, I can do that. Or perhaps that has the opposite effect.

Beats the hell out of "That's just what you do."