I actually MISSED her last night - sort of

There used to be many times that I would imagine myself calling JB and telling her what I really thought. I never did for several reasons.

First, it would have caused big trouble between hubbie and me. I am sure that she would have immediately called him and tattled on me, possibly embellishing the story a bit to fit it even more to her advantage.

Second, it would not have done any good anyway. She would not have gotten it. She would not have felt sorry for the problems she has caused. It would simply be ammo in her case for going back to hubbie.

But there were many times that I rehearsed what I would say to her "IF" I gave her a piece of my mind. Last night, I was thinking through one of those scenarios. The thought occurred to me, "now I'll never be able to tell her what I really think of her." She's gone. There was a little empty space there. But it's an empty space that I can deal with.

Still another Ahhhh Moment

There was a post on the support board today about upcoming Mother's day.

Since I don't even have kids, I had tried to keep hubbie from realizing when Mother's Day was coming -- not turning the calendar, switching the TV during commercials, throwing out sale papers, etc. I am sure it was all in vain. I am sure that JB made sure he knew anyway.

When hubbie and I first started dating and were first married, he didn't even pay much attention to Mother's Day, but later he did. In fact, the last time that I saw JB may have been Mother's day 2002. Two Mother's Days in a row, I was demanded to go to MIL's instead of to my Mom's for a craptacular that SIL put on at MIL's house.

This year, Ahhhhh.

The Funeral

This is a copy of what I posted to a support group, but something I had been meaning to add to this. It is about attending the funeral. If you read the board, there are a couple embellishments to what was on the board, especially the last paragraph.

When I heard that MIL was sick and "unresponsive", I got excited and almost happy. Three days later when they decided to remove life support, I had less emotion.

As far as the funeral went, I attended the wake an the funeral, and both were pretty much OK.
My only fear was expressing the wrong emotion -- either crying because I get caught up in the moment no matter who died -- or grinning. If I cried, it would appear to be crocodile tears and not what it was since people know we didn't like each other. However, what surprised me was how NEUTRAL I felt about the whole thing, so I managed to keep up the neutrality through the funeral. I stared at the coffin the whole time and thought to myself over and over again "It's all over, she is in there."

One thing that was going around the support board is that wearing red at the funeral is a sign that you don't like the person. I could not find any references to that on the internet, but I did read that it wasn't a proper color to wear :) To the wake, I wore a dark blue dress. Under it I had on Christmas panties that had the words "joy" and "peace" on them (in red). ..And I had on a red bra. The next day, for the funeral, I had the perfect outfit. It was a suit that had a black skirt, a black jacket trimmed in red and a red shell top. Just subtle enough. Wearing mostly black with some red mixed in. At the funeral, I wore the same red bra (I had only worn it a couple hours the night before) and red panties. Oh, and to be sure, I had hubbie pre-approve the outfits when he was home right after the death. I neglected to say that red had any meaning, but I presented several things and steered him towards picking that suit.

Since there has been some amusement from the support board posters about the panties, I may take a photo of part of the material so it can be better described.

My biggest problems with the funeral were sleeping arrangements and my Mom.

I did not want to sleep in MIL's nasty house, I wanted something clean. I did not want to go to my Mom's house, because she is always riding my back to turn the other cheek. I also wanted to avoid my Mom who would be hanging around at the wake and the funeral telling me everything that I did wrong. I reserved a hotel room in town, but DH didn't like it. I had an angel save me. My best friend from work, without question, left straight from work, wen to the wake with me and stayed by my side at the wake and overnight with me at the hotel. She's a keeper! She treats me better than anyone in my family or his and I let her know how special she is. (IL's town is about a 3 hour drive from where I work).

There was a picture posted taken at DH's first wedding. I found it to be amusing that it was there. It was a pose in the front of the church of JB, DH's ex in her wedding gown, and DH's ex-inlaws. DH was not in it. Considering how he feels about her and the wedding, he did not know it was there. My "miss proper" Mom was mad about it being there, but I think it's funny, whether it was there as a dig at me or not. The funniest thing about it to me is that JB was wearing the same dress that she wore to our wedding 5 years later. I had heard that she used the same dress!

JB's family consisted of a son, my hubbie, a daughter, SIL, two grandaughters, a grandson and some great-grandchildren.

They don't like the nephew's wife either. I'll post more about that separately, but she is considered an outcast. Somehow, the two of us ended up sitting together and enjoying each other's company at the post-funeral luncheon. I find her to be a nice and pleasant person. In short, to hear hubbie talk, all of nephew's faults are because of her and all of his successes are in spite of her, but the family has never given her any reason to not want to be around. Sound familiar? I'll put more about her in a separate post.

First JB-Free Holiday(s)

It's Maundy Thursday, tomorrow Good Friday and Sunday Easter. If the phone rings, will I feel the usual holiday weekend panic out of habit?

It's that peaceful ahhhhh feeling again. No summons to rescue JB this time. No emergency that only hubbie can handle.

Buuuutttt....
Hubbie may be sad. First holiday without Mother. JB's hubbie, (hubbie's dad) was in the hospital at Easter 5 years ago. It was the hospitalization leading up to his death. I don't know if hubbie remembers that he was in there over Easter or not. If he does, he'll be doubly sad. I won't remind him and make him sad if he's not already.

On that Easter Sunday when hubbie was with his parents, my dear sweet next door neighbor invited me to join her family for their Easter lunch. It was so sweet. That next door neighbor also died unexpectedly in the past year. I remember thinking when she died how unfair it was that someone like my neighbor had to die when there was so much evil in the world like JB left behind.

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Milestone

Two months today I have been free of JB.

Know what I was doing when she died? I was sitting in line at a blood drive. I thought I should have been with hubbie as he was going through the pain, but I was not wanted there. I had made the blood donation appointment a month before, having no idea that JB was going to fall suddenly ill two days before. I was in the line between checkin and getting stuck. In fact, they called me up next to get stuck while I was on the phone with hubbie. I let the next person go.

Then come to find out that JB had gotten some blood in the hospital and we are the same blood type. How strange is that?

Finally A Little Support from Mom!

My Mom is rarely supportive of my problems dealing with JB. Whenever I would tell her of a problem, she would say something like "well she probably just..... " "I feel sorry for her....." "I'm sure she has it bad...."

I had lunch with Mom and Dad today. They were asking all kinds of questions about what is going to happen to haunted house. Mom admitted that she has never been to JB's house except around the time of my wedding (that would be twice in 1986). I talked to her about the condition of the place. She said several things that indicate that she understands.

First, that with the house in that kind of condition, it is good that hubbie did not spend the money to add the master suite onto the bottom floor that JB was begging for. That it would have been worth the money to get a modular.

I didn't even tell her all of it! I told her about the shower in the kitchen, the plywood insert that replaced the former patio door with a regular door cut out of the plywood, about the funny stairs and the low ceiling, the fixture-less bathroom.

Second, she called it a white elephant after I gave partial description of it, and agreed that it is best that he did not inherit.

We even talked about any possible value to the land. Which now is negligable. Mom thought it might have commercial value. But no, there is some valuable land around there, but it's the land on the highway. She's one lot off of the highway, so it's residential. Dad pointed out that it's also off the end of a runway and next to a train track. Maybe 20 or 30 years from now, it could have some development value, but right now, it's too far off the highway to be valuable commercial, too close to the highway for residential value (notwithstanding the train track and the runway). The land probably is not worth the cost of buldozing the place. They agreed that sitting between commercial property and the runway and the airport is probably not high dollar.

It is less of a feeling of exhaustion to have them agree with me this once. My parents have so often took the other side in JB/FIL issues that it just added to the toll that the whole situation took on me.

(Thank you JB for one thing ... for not burdening my hubbie with that white elephant.)
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Still nice not to think of things

We had severe weather today. I looked at the weather map earlier and saw it was over JB's house. First thought, out of habit "if lightening hits her house and burns it down, I hope she dies in it so she we won' t have to deal with hubbie going to fix her problems or moving her in here with us." Followed closely by hoping the ligntening or a tonrado did get it and her with it.

Then that feeling of relief again. That's another thing that I can get out of the habit of thinking about/worrying about.

Although lightening burning down the house would still be a blessing. There wouldn't be all the hassle of SIL figuring out what to do with it and hubbie having to help her with it. I am SOOOOOO praying that SIL will sell it and get the last remnant out of our lives.

So Nice Not to be Worrying

I sent an email today to someone I know who also has had MIL problems. This girl was physically assaulted by her MIL. I often wished that JB would do something concrete that I could point at so that hubbie could see her true colors. She was too smart and just pulled her passive/aggressive stuff on me.

Now I no longer have to worry or care of hubbie sees her for what she was. Since she's finally dead, it's over. There will be no more trouble out of her.

All I feel when something like this comes up is relief that I don't have to think about it any more.

Another thing I no longer have to worry about

That is JB coming to live with us.

That would not have happened anyway. If she had moved in, it would have been with him, not with us. Her moving in would have been a deal breaker. I would have moved out. Fortunately, we never had the discussion. I think Hubbie knew the answer without one. So, I didn't worry about that one very much, but it was in the back of my mind.

I think that JB wanted it though. She always had a way of making comments about other people's situations that were really Passive Aggressively made out her own situation.

The last time I saw her alive was during the time after FIL died. When I was at her house, she was talking to somebody (I am not sure who) about a "friend" of hers. She said that "her friend" didn't want to move away and leave her home to live with her children in another city, but sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do. Was that said for me to hear? I don't know for sure, but I thought so.

During the Hurricane Isabel incident in my last post (less than six months later), I did worry about it. Hubbie wanted her to come stay for "a few days." I had a fear of the meaning of "a few days." I did not tell him that, I only told him that I would not be there when she was there.