GMIL Passed Away Last Weekend

This brought up a lot of stuff.

Firstly, the mother of Evil JB's husband, Evil EJ died at the age 0f 98 last Saturday night. She was one of the few people in the family that I liked. But because of Evil JB, I lost ten years of her.

GMIL, I'll Call her AB, was a generous person with a funny sense of humor. She was a bit salty and would tell people what she thought.

I wanted several times since cutting off Evil JB to go and see her. Unfortunately, hubbie made going to see Evil EJ a condition of visiting their home town. Thinking back, I probably should have taken initiative to go by myself and visit her then drive over to my parent's house from her.

When she first died, I was still paying the price of the cut off. Hubbie at first acted like he did not want me to go with him to the funeral and visitation. Which was difficult since he had accused me of only going down there for funerals. Yes, that is what the last three visits have been, Evil EJ's funeral, then Evil JB's funeral and now Nice AB's funeral. I would not have gone to Evil EJ's funeral if I could have gotten out of it.

I had expected GMIL to pass away before evil JB and I dreaded it because I thought that I would be pushed into attending the funeral and that I would have to be around Evil JB. Instead, it happened after Evil JB's death, and I was not dreading going, but at first DH pushed me away The first day, Sunday, he said that I did not need to attend the visitation Monday night and that I could attend the funeral Tuesday if I wanted to. He mentioned me having to get someone to cover for me at work. I told him that work would not be a problem.

I did want to go. But I did not want to try to stay at anyone's house. I sort of feared that he would want to open up Evil JB's nasty house and stay there.

The other thing that I feared is my overzealous and over-protocol conscious Mom being there telling me what to do and telling me what I was doing wrong. When Evil JB was living, I had planned to not tell Mom when GMIL died. For some reason, it did not occur to me (until later) that this was still a possibility.

The way that he was acting, I was unsure whether or not to go. I wanted to go. But I wanted to do what HE wanted. And I could not tell what he was really feeling and what he was hiding behind his he-man shell. Talked to a friend and she pointed out that I could not undo NOT going and that I should go. So I decided that was what I would do.

Fast forward to Monday. Hubbie, before leaving to go to work then to home town told me that I could go that night if I wanted to and when and where it would be. (I could not actually go with him because he had rented a car for a business trip which he was leaving for directly from funeral. That was part of what complicated this.)

So that was my final decision to go although I had decided after talking to friend that I would go. I decided that I was going to stay in a hotel. I send emails to cover my usual Tuesday on-call shift. Went downstairs to talk to other friend. She thirded my decision to go to both funeral and visitation. I was thinking that I needed to leave at noon so I could buy new dresses to wear. Until my friend pointed out that I did not have to tell my Mother. So I didn't. Solved the dress problem too. Had a dress that was OK based on the redneck aspect of the family, but would not be OK based on the nose in the air of my Mother. And I could use the same dress for both.

Oh yes, I wasn't going to tell her before Evil JB died, why should have to tell uptight Mother now?

So I could leave at 2:00, pack and go. Next thing: Hotel. Found the hotel online that I wanted to stay at. Started to make reservation. But there was no cancellation allowed. There were rooms available of all types so I said, OK, they will have rooms available at walk-in.

Fast forward again, to lunch time. Hubbie is getting nicer and more relaxed. He is starting to realize that I only wanted to be supportive of him. He was getting ready to leave. I told him that I was going to leave in a couple hours. He asked if I was going to stay with him. I told him that I was getting a hotel room and I would stay with him if he stayed with me. He asked what hotel. I told him. He said what about other hotel where he has frequent traveller program. I was shocked. But said that was fine if he set it up. He said OK. There was such a weight off. When he got there he called and said he had a room and for me to call when I got to the area.

So I get there and he meets me at the hotel. So far so good.

VISITATION
For the visitation, He wants to go casual instead of dressed up for wake. It's his Grandmother, so that's fine. We went casual. There were people there dressed from one extreme to the other. Just glad my Mom wasn't there to not see me in a dress!!! Good decision to not invite my Mom.

Hubbie wanted to eat afterwards. I had already eaten but told him I could go anywhere he wanted and I could get some dessert. He was suspicious until I followed through.

His family was OK to me and I managed to not to say much about his family, but only to talk about his Grandmother who I liked.


THE SERVICE
So the funeral, it went OK too.
There were a lot of good memories of GMIL, and a lot of tears. GMIL had a cute sense of humor and some of her funny remarks were repeated, and I could hear her saying just those things. She was also very generous that was mentioned as well. This contrasts with MIL's funeral which the service was generic, with very few memories presented, and no tears.

BEING BACK IN Hubbie's HOME TOWN
I used to go to Hubbie's hometown a lot as when growing up it was near where my own Dear Maternal Grandma lived, and had previous good memories of it. But after the problems with Evil JB started, I got a feeling of dread when visiting there. This is my first trip there since Eveil JB's funeral. Her funeral was tense for me because I wasn't sure how it would be.

This trip -- the one to GMIL's funeral was the first time I have been to that town in over 20 years that I entered that city without a feeling of dread, that I was relaxed instead. This includes a trip where I was driving THROUGH her city to another city with a friend of mine. When I was close to driving by her house, that time I got butterflies in my stomach. And I KNEW that time I that wasn't going to see evil JB. No more!!! Now I can freely go back to the city without a feeling of dread.

I'M GONNA GET IT
As I said own Mom is very formal and a what you should do type person. As I said earlier, I have not told my Mom that GMIL passed. I did not need the stress of her to add to what I thought I would have (but ended up not having after Monday) The advice from friend is to just mention whenever Mom mentions GMIL again to say that she died a long time ago. My Mom will be angry that I didn't tell her so she could go to the funeral and make the proper appearance. I'll deal with that when I have to deal with it. Hubbie never mentioned my Mom through this so he probably has not thought about whether or not she was informed. I later mentioned to Hubbie that I was going to be in trouble for not telling Mom. He asked why and I told him that she would think that she should have been told, that she would have attended had she known, and that she will be angry for not having been told. He said "well, don't tell her then." I mentioned that given GMIL's age, Mom would figure it out sooner or later. But since in-laws are a forbidden topic with Mom, it could be quite a while. At which point, I can say that she passed a long time ago.

CONCLUSION
I think the whole two days did something to bring some of the lost trust back between us. Maybe even a new start for us. Once there, and he saw that I was going to just be myself, he seemed happy that I was there.

The Funeral Panties

Here is a picture of the material from the panties mentioned in the post about JB's Funeral.

God's Hand in JB's last day and Afterwards

I am Christian. Not a holy-roller type, pretty mainstream. I go to church and Sunday School most weeks. JB was a particular challenge to me. I know that you are supposed to love your enemies, turn the other cheek, try to reconcile, etc. My preacher said that some people are hard to love....

When she was in the hospital on life support and hubbie was there with her, I was left at home, not by his side where I thought I should be.

(1) The Sunday during that time, when prayer request time came around, I hesitated even mentioning her, because I was conflicted. I wanted her to die. I know that is not the Christian way. Finally I told the class her condition that I was conflicted. Her Dr. had said that there was no hope. But was my wanting her to go off life support because I wanted her gone or because it was the best thing? (I didn't say that much...) My Sunday school teacher then led us in a prayer with the various prayer requests. For JB, she turned that situation over to God.. She prayed that the family make the right decision and for me to deal with the "strained relationship". Not 5 minutes later, hubbie called my cell phone. With medical and pastoral advice, they had decided to remove the life support. To this day, my teacher and I both believe that God had a hand in that decision. The timing was too eerie.

(2)
Then later that afternoon, she died. I was scheduled to give blood that day at my church's annual drive. I knew that she would not last long off of life support, but since hubbie did not want me to go join him, I figured that I had might as well go on doing what I would be doing if the situation did not exist rather than sitting at home waiting for him to call. He called my cell while I was at the blood drive to let me know she had passed away. I was in the waiting area between registration and the couches. In fact, my number got called while I was on the phone with him, but I signaled the next person to go on. I doubt they knew what I was talking about on the phone. It turns out that there was a problem with his donation. His bag got busted and his was unusable. Mine turned out fine. Later, I found out that MIL JB had received blood and that she and I had the same blood type. I always thought that I would not want her to have any of my
blood, but she would not have gotten it anyway, we were in different regions. But I think that at least it is good that I was able to replace in some sort of way what she had needlessly consumed.

(3)
Everyone kept saying that they would pray for me. I felt that I did not need prayers, because I was not upset for her death. I even felt like a hypocrit. I did say "thank-you" to most people rather than "that's ok, we didn't like each other anyway."

It turns out that I did need the prayers. One of my preachers mentioned that often the death of one who you don't get along with is sometimes harder. But really, it wasn't. If you read my initial posts on this blog, you will see that my feelings were pretty neutral -- neither happy nor sad.

But I did have some needs. I did not want to sleep at JB's haunted and nasty house when in her town for the funeral.(you can read posts about that as well...) I did not want to sleep at my Mom's house 40 miles away either. My Mom would be barking judgmental orders and asking nosey questions. I just wasn't in the mood for my Mom. I also didn't want to do the extra driving. So, I told hubbie that I was getting a hotel. He objected. He wanted me to stay with him at his Mom's house or with my Mom or sister. I would have been fine staying with him -- at the hotel, but not at JB's nasty house. I wanted somewhere I cold take a shower that did not have visible mold. I wanted a bed to sleep in that was somewhat clean. Hotels don't always have that either, but I felt my chances were better than that. With him grieving, I couldn't say that to him. But I did have the excuse of that there was only a double bed and he hogs the whole bed in a double bed. He offered to sleep on a sofa.

My best friend from work found out that I needed support. Without question, she called her hubbie. She left straight from work and followed me to hubbie's home town. We stayed in a hotel room together. She stood by my side at the wake and spared me my Mom's criticisms and gave me someone to talk to rather than the Clampett's and the Darling's. (No, that's an insult, the Clampett's and the Darling's are rednecks. ILs are White Trash.)

I feel that she was my guardian angel, sent by God as an answer to all the prayers prayed for me. She enabled me to stay in a comfortable room that at least appeared cleaner and to have some support at the wake. When I called hubbie and told him that friend was coming and we were going to stay in the hotel together, he never objected to the hotel.

In my ladies group at church, we are supposed to keep an angel notebook. I had not had any "angel encounters" to list, until then. To me, my friend that night before the funeral was an angel, sent by God. Everyone agreed. I am still awed at what she did that for me.

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.