World of Suck

My aunt died. Dad's sister.

We weren't real close. We weren't real distant. Saw each other a couple times a year. Christmas, Mother's day. Maybe once or twice beyond that.

She died fairly suddenly. Week or two notice and she was gone. Funeral is Tuesday. 10am.

I don't want to go. It's not that I didn't like her. It's that I don't get anything out of funerals. There is no sense of closure or goodbye for me.

The only reason I considered going was to be with my Dad. Support him.

I just talked to my mother. She laid down the law. I had to go. She laid down the guilt trip. When that failed, she told me I had to be there. Obviously she can't make me, but mothers like to think they retain some control over their children.

I explained to her that I don't get closure from them. I'm agnostic at best. My aunt lived. Had a good life, more or less. Now, she's dead. Maybe she'll go on to the next life. Maybe there is no such thing. Either way, I'm done with her.

My mother tells me that "the funeral isn't for you. It's for the survivors." That's a verbatim quote. I guess I didn't survive? I know what she means. But it still drives me up a wall that she's trying to force me to go.

I DON'T LIKE FUNERALS. I spend the entire time waiting for the grievers to finish up, the reverend to offer up some old words of comfort, and the people to mill past the corpse with whispered farewells. Then we all pile into cars, drive over to the cemetery, and I get to be a pallbearer. I don't know why, but it always happens, without fail, at every single funeral I've attended since age 12. Even people I don't know. Oh yeah. I've been pallbearer for two people I've never met because I was there as support for a friend/family member of the deceased. I guess I just look like I need to be carrying a casket. Anyway, then, we stack the wooden box over the hole in the ground, say a few more farewells, and then maybe toss a flower on it. Then it's off for snacks and drinks at the wake.

Seems like a bit callous take on things doesn't it? I know it does. I'm a fairly callous person. I don't express emotions very well. I don't mourn dead people. I think 'ah, that's a shame' and move on with my life.

For me, sitting at a funeral is an exercise is mental control. I have to make an effort not to tap my foot and look bored out of my mind. It's the truth, but I try not to look that way so that I don't interfere with other people's grief. I don't do it, but there is no reason for me to get in the way of their efforts to come to grips with it.

I hate this. I don't want to go. I'm going to sit there pissed off the entire time. The fact that my mother is pushing me so hard just makes me dig my heels in more and become more pissed off. To be honest, I'm more annoyed at this funeral than I am at her death. That's fucked up. I know it. But that doesn't make it any less true.