InsaneJournal

Current mood:	sad
Entry tags:	death, rant, rl

Papa died this morning. Died at 1:30 am; the toxins had built up in his body and caused his body to shut down. He was on morphine, and died peacefully with his family around him, though hubby and I had just gone home. Just gotten home, as that night was.....rough. Really rough for all of us.

Papa chose to go off the dialysis in one of his lucid moments; and later, when he was no longer responsive but still breathing, mama removed his CPAP machine - something that keeps a person breathing when they're sleeping. Some of the relatives are still giving mama trouble over that, and are mad that she had an old family friend named Frank staying here the last few days to help.

Frankly (Har har) I can't stand Frank. He's one of those - aggressive huggers, who swoop down and SQUEEZE the life out of you. And if your a girl and your boobs are sore, that's not a treat as he's really a chest-on hugger and I had to tell him that "Yo, your hugs HURT".

He's also kind of creepy. He....well, he's from a church were he gets called Brother Frank or something, and insists everyone calls him that even if you're not of his denomination or anything. And family has to call him 'Uncle Frank' - even the adults. Sorry, but where I come from, you earn the right to address adults by their first name when you live on your own and support yourself! Besides, he seems to not be particularly helpful, from what I can see; he's been clashing with the pagan side of the family; he hates them, they hate him - as if this family isn't divided enough over religion!

It's hard enough dealing with papa's death, but we're struggling to see how many days we can afford to take off for this (3 paid bereavement days, total), and I also found out that my inlaws all think I'm a pathetic loser not worthy of respect because I am a coward and am afraid of driving and don't have a 'real' job. That's a - well, in some ways it's like, nothing new. I mean, i grew UP being told that I was good-for-nothing and destined to be a failure, anyway. But in other ways it's crushing, because to me, I'm working hard to overcome my cowardice and issues, and I've *made* progress, but everyone else only sees how much farther I have to GO, and never how far I've COME. And I'd had hopes that my inlaws were different from my parents, more supportive and understanding.

*sigh* Anyway. I miss papa; little things keep setting me off to cry. After two years of a steady deterioration of his quality of life (and that's just the two years I was actually around for it - I know it all began long before that), we all were prepared as much as could be, and we all got to say our goodbyes and we god video tapes of it. And we know now papa's not suffering, he's in a better place, and we'll see him again. He died on mama's birthday; the funeral is being held on what would have been their 25th wedding anniversary. Before papa became unresponsive, he told mama he wanted to give her a ring for her anniversary gift; a tear-drop shaped diamond set on a gold band. Mama went and got it, and put on her wedding dress, and papa put it on her finger....and they disconnected the dialysis machine that night.

While mama picked out a ring, papa told hubby and I he wanted to replace the wedding ring I lost (a cheap, simple ring, since I tend to lose things easily), and that - oh man, it tore me apart that papa remembered something like that when he was only semi-lucid.

So today we went and looked at rings. Yellow gold has gone up - but I very badly wanted to have a ring again for the viewing and funeral Monday and Tuesday. I found a perfect ring, though, on discount for $80:
http://www.camelotbridal.com/collection/detail.php?pid=00000000323

It's like that, only without the silver edging. If you took out the gold centre band, that's what it would look like. Old fashioned, romantic: papa would have laughed, but he would have approved. It's the last gift papa ever gave us, so let's pray I don't lose it.

Anyway. That's sort of what's going on here. My parents are actually going to come to the funeral. My sister actually called to offer condolences, and I thought "awwww!" for all of ten seconds before that idiot was once again trying to bully me into moving out to CO and bragging about the 150k house they just bought with "5 bedrooms, two full baths, backyard, huge kitchen, walkin closets, etc" before I wanted to smack her. They can't stay out of debt even when they HAVE money, how are they going to pay for that when Nate's military job ends? Which it ends in May....sis's part-time job at Barnes and Noble is NOT going to pay enough for a house of that price range. And it was just so tactless - telling us that right after papa died, while we're lookng around at our own, tiny, 920 sq ft run-down house with a broken drain and no doors inside and an old octopus furnace and ONE closet in the whole house and a 1920s kitchen sink that only works with clamps to turn on the faucet...yu get the idea.

I wish - I hope, after this, perhaps life will be a little more SIMPLE. And for life to cut all of us a little slack. Please keep us in prayer; most of all for mama.