It's Late For You....

But early in my retarded world.  I guess before I should break more bad news I should tell you about my trip to Florida.....

We all went.  Me and all three kids drove down on a Thursday night.  I worked, went and watched the last three innings of the big kids baseball game, then we were out......  I drove 18 hours myself without stopping other than to get gas.  The baby wasn't happy.  At 4am I had to let him get out and run around Tennessee for a minute.  

Chip couldn't get out of work so I had no other choice.  Yes, maybe I could have left the kids at home, but with Chip working so much and my mom and stepdad in Palm Springs, I didn't feel like I had another choice.  We left and I drove.....  I drove that 18 hours because I didn't know what else to do.  We arrived in Ft. Myers around 3pm that Friday.  As soon as I got there me and my sister Melissa got into an argument because I didn't want to go to the viewing.  I had been in the car for more than half a day and the last thing I wanted was to get showered and look at the old man's dead body.

Instead,  I got a shower and dyed my hair a bright red.  Brighter than I've normally been coloring it.  Bright red because that's something that I could be in control of, no matter how big of a mess it left in the hotel bathroom.

When I felt like everyone was ready, after showering, eating and all that other bullshit, we headed to my dad's house, where everyone was hanging out for the night.

I don't really know what I expected.  I was greeted with open arms by my stepmom and my older sister who lives down there.  Everyone else seemed surprised by my arrival. I didn't really care.  I was doing what I was supposed to do.  We all hung out and had a nice time, absent the presence of my dad who was the one who really held that home front together.

My stepmonster tried to show me pictures of his body, but i declined.  I didn't need to see the shell of a man who I once knew.  I left the party under the impression that we needed to be at the funeral home at 10 for an 11:00 funeral.....  Little did I know, that wasn't the case......

Saturday morning I woke up feeling allergy ill.  Something in the hotel room had gotten to me. Ugh.  As soon as the Target across the street opened up I went over and got some meds, eventually I'd feel better and be able to breathe....

We were at the funeral home 5 minutes before we were supposed to be and I was greeted with this....

Yeah, that's my dad's coffin being unloaded off a fire truck....  The significance in all this?  It's the first fire truck he ever worked on when he got his job as a mechanic at the fire department.  The whole thing was very surreal. This man, this awful, awful man, who quit his job as a rock miner to work on fire trucks, who eventually became a fire inspector, who was going to arson investigation school when he got sick, was delivered by the first truck he ever worked on, 20 some odd years ago.  It was a feeling I can't even describe when the firefighters and others who worked with him offered their condolences to us...

They wheeled him in and I was forced to look at him.  The thought of it all killed me.  I had avoided the viewing only to find myself at another viewing..... Ugh.

My stepmonster called my big kids up to the casket.  I didn't have an excuse to keep them in the pew.  They went.  She asked them if they wanted anything that he was wearing as a token of him to them.  They didn't know what to say.  They really didn't even know the man.  They declined and sat back down.

There were too many hours of viewing... We were there at 10 and it turned out the funeral didn't even start until 1:30.  Ugh.  Evan was a monster.  My aunt tried her best to keep him busy, but he's a difficult child.  It was hard on all of us.  Once they started the funeral, they put him in the church kids room, which was a saving grace.

My stepmonster spoke at the funeral.  She introduced all of us to the people my dad knew that might have never met us in person.  Then they all took turns telling their stories about how great of a person he was.  With every story, I died a little inside.  They knew him as this upstanding man who would help any of them out.  I knew him as a monster who beat my mother and never had much to do with us.  For a few minutes I sat and thought about how proud I was that he was a man that they were proud of.  One story in particular stood out..

When Jackie stood up, my heart immediately sunk. I knew Jackie well.  She was a good friend of my dads.  I remember talking to him the day her husband died.  It was a freak farming accident.  I don't remember which piece of machinery it was, but Jack was sucked into it and died from his wounds.  Jack and Jackie's son was about 8 at the time.  I remember thinking, poor Bobby, he didn't ever get to know his dad.  But he got to know my dad.  My dad went out there and visited as much as he possibly could until he got sick.....  Bobby turned out ok.  He was at the funeral with his girlfriend and doing good things with his adult life.  Good for him.  As Jackie spoke about what a wonderful person my father was, I hurt inside.  I hurt for the person I always hoped he would be and never was.  Good for you Bobby, I hope you remember your dad for the awesome person he was and my dad helping your mom out for all those years...

There were other stories.  Most of them made people laugh, most of them were about a man that I never knew.  I kept all the feelings and emotions inside as they spoke of him, knowing that I never met that man.  I was almost a stone sitting there, stoic and unemotional, until it happened....

The end of the funeral....  The bagpipes..... Amazing Grace....  I don't know what it is about that song, but it brings me to tears every time.  Even in a non-emotional situation it does.  I broke down.  I cried.  I sobbed.  I couldn't hold it back.My aunt Carol, who's not even really my aunt held me tight.  I hurt.  The man that I was looking at in that casket wasn't the man I knew at all.  He wasn't the man that everyone said he was.  He was an awful, horrible person who didn't deserve to live as long as he did, yet somehow, he stuck around for 10 years past when he was supposed to.  He was truly Satan in my eyes, yet it hurt to see what he had become.  In that moment I knew this was revenge from a higher power.  He was kept here to pay for all the bad things he had done to us and to suffer for those things.  Too bad it didn't make me feel better.

The fact that my kids never got to know their grandpa.  They knew a man named Tom, who was my father, kind of hurts, but there's nothing that can be done now to rectify the situation.  It's over.  Satan Claus has passed and nobody can change that.  Nobody will ever yell at my kids the way he did, nobody will make my mom and her kids feel like shit the way he did. It's over.

Sunday I had a pleasant day with the kids.  We went to the flea market, which was one of their favorite things when they were little, then I took them to Ft. Myers beach.  Little E was beside himself at the sight of his first beach and even though the weather wasn't all that great, we went anyway.

After all that I had to go to my dad's house and pick what I wanted from his stuff.  It was hard.   My stepmonster is a hoarder, so I literally had to dig through the house to look for everything.  Her shit, his shit.  Stuff all over the place.  I got a couple trinkets that I wanted, including his motorcycle helmet and got the hell out of there.

18 hours later we were back home and exhausted, but I had three hours before work.  I relaxed for a minute and continued on with my life as if the whole thing had never happened....  Because that's what I do.....

Last night my great grandmother died, so we'll be heading to Pennsylvania later this week.  Can 2011 just be over?  I mean, I've witnessed a double homicide, which is still pending, my dad's mom died and I couldn't go to the funeral because I didn't have a license, he died, now my great grandma.  I've seen enough this year.  It's time to move on to happier times for sure......  I deserve better than all this.....