We've had a rocky week or two.
Saturday before last, I made a chocolate cake and we went to visit my husband's grandfather, who had been suffering from COPD for years. The next morning, my husband got a phonecall from his mom. Grandpa Ron had thrown up that night after we left, and was running a fever. Later that day we got an update; they thought that he had pneumonia, and said his lungs were filling up with fluid, and he wasn't going to last very long.
I went outside and worked in our garden, and my husband recorded a video for his grandparents, saying good bye. He decided that we wouldn't go unless his grandpa asked for us. It's a drive of a few hours, and he had said good bye and was at peace about how we had left him that Saturday. But he still recorded the video.
A few days later, he was asked to come down by his mom, because they hadn't had time to go and fix food. So we went down and picked up some groceries; he told them that I would fix them a meal, and we got the stuff for spaghetti. But when we got there, they had eaten. And recently, too. I was kinda upset with that, because I wanted to help, and that was one of the few things I could do - but I wasn't needed.
Grandpa Ron was sleeping most of the time, and when we were there he didn't wake up once. My mother-in-law told my husband that she hadn't played the video for him when he'd been awake. I had to watch my husband, who's said numerous times that his grandpa was more like his father figure than his dad, stare silently at his dying grandfather as he moved slowly into the room. It was the saddest thing I'd ever seen. Grandpa Ron's wife, Margie, kissed his forehead, and he didn't even twitch. And then my husband had to tell him, while he was unaware, everything he had said in his good bye video. It made me angry that my mother-in-law hadn't played it when he was awake enough to hear and understand. It annoyed me further that because of that, my husband had to repeat it all, knowing that his grandpa probably couldn't hear him, and would never hear what he tried to say. He was crying, and it was heart-wrenching.
After that, we took my little sister-in-law, and she stayed with us for a few days. The second day, Wednesday, that she was with us, Grandpa Ron died. My husband had to tell her in the church parking lot, because their mom was going to call and talk to her. She burst into tears in the back of the car, and I felt so bad for her. I decided that I would try to distract her the next day. We got the stuff for cookies that night, and the next day we made cookies, worked for hours in the garden, and I taught her how to make my ramen recipe.
We went down the next day, planning on spending the night at Grandma Margie's house for the funeral the next day. I had a headache all that day, from overdoing it the day before. We had to sleep on the living room floor, and I didn't get much sleep. Maybe three hours, four if I was lucky, and what little I got was not very good. I woke up at five with a migraine-level headache. I stayed up and read a book on my kindle, but I was so tired. There was a position that, while I was sitting up, didn't hurt too bad, so I decided to lay back down and find that position while I was on the floor. I dozed a bit, but a few hours later it was time for the funeral.
We got dressed, I wore a dress, my husband wore his dress pants and white shirt and tie, since he was a pallbearer, and we took my sis-in-law and brother-in-law with us. My mother-in-law didn't give us very clear directions, so we were running late, but we made it.
The funeral was...difficult, in several ways. The gentleman giving the service wasn't particularly good at it, and then three of Grandpa Ron's granddaughters got up to say some things. My sister-in-law went up to read a letter she had written for Grandpa Ron, and she was sniffling and crying her way through it. Her voice was so small and mumble-y that I couldn't understand most of what she said.
Then the funeral was over, and everyone went to eat in a nearby gymnasium.
While we ate we discovered that my oldest brother-in-law, who is getting married the first part of next month, had been trying to ask my husband to be in the wedding for months, but hadn't ever checked up to find out what his answer was. So, two weeks before the wedding, we have to get the stuff he needs to be in the wedding party. I didn't eat very much; I wasn't hungry. But I had a sort-of conversation with my soon-to-be-sister-in-law, which was kind of nice.
Then we had to leave for the graveyard. It was really cold, and windy, but we stayed for a while, and we each picked out some flowers from the arrangement on the casket to take home and dry. I've got the rose that my husband picked out hanging in the kitchen window to dry.
Then we went back to Grandma Margie's house for a while.
We were going to go straight home, but we got a text from my mother-in-law that sis-in-law was crying hysterically and wouldn't stop. So we got her some Shopkins that she collects, and went back. We gave her the Shopkins, and i talked to her for a while. Once she had calmed down we went home.
The whole thing was exhausting, and I kept tearing up. I briefly considered saying something about Grandpa Ron. When I first met him, I was lonely and homesick, and he was the only person who asked me how I was adjusting to the move. He was funny, and kind, and the only person besides my husband that made me feel wanted and welcome. He called me Angel, and loved my chocolate cake. At the funeral, they kept talking about his faith, how we would see him again, and they even had an altar call of sorts. Which, I can understand some of that, even most of it. I just think it was inappropriate. And I'll remember him, not because of the nice things people said, but because he actually lived his faith. He reached out to me, he loved me, called me his granddaughter, even though all I'd done was marry his grandson. Grandma Margie, when I hugged her after the funeral, said "He loved you." And I said that I knew. All those people talked about how he loved Jesus, and how dedicated he was to his faith. But I'll remember how much he loved an outcast - that he showed the love of God in his everyday life - to someone like me that didn't feel I fit anywhere. I'll remember him for his love of chocolate cake, Dr. Pepper, and his humor.
I felt, most of the time, that my grief was...somehow inappropriate. That, because I'd known him for less than a year, I couldn't possibly feel anything like what his family was feeling. That, because he wasn't my family in the same way, I should keep my distance and not try to be involved, not say anything, or do anything. Because I never felt as welcomed or as wanted by the rest of them as I did by Grandpa Ron. Having him was like having a part of my own family. And I miss them so much. Now he's gone. So my mourning has been largely private. The way I knew and loved him was different from everyone else, even if I was included in the list of "surviving grandchildren." Whenever I think about it too deeply, I start crying and sniffling like I have a cold.
And that's not everything that's happened, either.
My husband is going to be in his brother's wedding, and escort some girl down the aisle. Normal people wouldn't be bothered by that.
But...I was happy that he hadn't been asked to be a groomsman, because then I would at least have him next to me for the wedding. I don't know any of these people, and I've never been a guest at a wedding before, either. The thought of having him next to me made me feel a little better about it. But now he's not going to be, and, to make matters more complicated, he's going to be paired up with some girl and have to escort her down the aisle.
It doesn't really make a lot of sense for that to bother me, I know. Well...unless you know the backstory for it.
I dated once before. I only had one boyfriend before I married my husband, and he...he was a mess. He emotionally abused me for a year, and then got arrested for sexually abusing minors. There was a lot more to it than that, but I've had to come to the conclusion that I don't trust my husband with other women, even though he's given me no reason to be distrustful. I don't like the idea of some other female hanging onto his arm like that. Especially since I'm the only one that ever does that. I feel like that's my territory, and no one else should allowed to do that. I know it's extreme. I know it's ridiculous. He's not going to hold her hand, or kiss her, or flirt with her. It's just escorting her down the aisle. I also know that it's not fair to expect, or even ask, him not to do it. Because, logically, I have nothing to freak out about. The problem is that it's not logic I'm trying to deal with. It's emotion, and my emotions are notorious for not being reasonable. I can't logic my way out of a negative feeling or into a positive one.
So here's my dilemma. My husband is going to be doing something I don't want him to do, something that will likely cause me emotional distress. I know that it's only my history of being unable to trust and my heightened emotions that are doing it. But that's not going to make the feelings go away. In addition, I'm also going to be sitting by myself, possibly for the entire thing, in a crowd of strangers. So I'm going to be lonely, in a noisy, uncomfortable place surrounded by people I don't know, watching my husband do something that's making me anxious before it's even happened. This wedding is going to suck, and I don't want to go to it now. But I already RSVPd for the both of us, and I can't skip out of a wedding, just like I refused to play hooky for the funeral, even though I didn't really want to go that, either. Except, in this case, I refused to skip out of the funeral because I really did love Grandpa Ron, and I wanted to show my respect. For this wedding, it's just an obligation because I married into the family. And this time, I won't have my husband sitting next to me.
So, yeah, we've had a crazy few weeks. And that's not including us having to leave the church we'd been attending. The preacher basically threatened us with discipline if we brought up things like Greek words in Bible study, and claimed that we were starting to upset people. He couldn't take any criticism at all, refused to even acknowledge my request for a study, and gave us an ultimatum - blend in, or leave. We felt that was a blatant discouragement of Bible scholarship, so we left. Luckily, there was a much better church more conveniently located that we found. They encourage questions, and the young adult Bible class is on a much higher level than the full-on adult class at the other. We're going to try it out for a while before we place membership, but I think we've found our people.
A mix of good and bad stuff, but still incredibly busy. I can't wait for things to settle down a little bit.
Saturday before last, I made a chocolate cake and we went to visit my husband's grandfather, who had been suffering from COPD for years. The next morning, my husband got a phonecall from his mom. Grandpa Ron had thrown up that night after we left, and was running a fever. Later that day we got an update; they thought that he had pneumonia, and said his lungs were filling up with fluid, and he wasn't going to last very long.
I went outside and worked in our garden, and my husband recorded a video for his grandparents, saying good bye. He decided that we wouldn't go unless his grandpa asked for us. It's a drive of a few hours, and he had said good bye and was at peace about how we had left him that Saturday. But he still recorded the video.
A few days later, he was asked to come down by his mom, because they hadn't had time to go and fix food. So we went down and picked up some groceries; he told them that I would fix them a meal, and we got the stuff for spaghetti. But when we got there, they had eaten. And recently, too. I was kinda upset with that, because I wanted to help, and that was one of the few things I could do - but I wasn't needed.
Grandpa Ron was sleeping most of the time, and when we were there he didn't wake up once. My mother-in-law told my husband that she hadn't played the video for him when he'd been awake. I had to watch my husband, who's said numerous times that his grandpa was more like his father figure than his dad, stare silently at his dying grandfather as he moved slowly into the room. It was the saddest thing I'd ever seen. Grandpa Ron's wife, Margie, kissed his forehead, and he didn't even twitch. And then my husband had to tell him, while he was unaware, everything he had said in his good bye video. It made me angry that my mother-in-law hadn't played it when he was awake enough to hear and understand. It annoyed me further that because of that, my husband had to repeat it all, knowing that his grandpa probably couldn't hear him, and would never hear what he tried to say. He was crying, and it was heart-wrenching.
After that, we took my little sister-in-law, and she stayed with us for a few days. The second day, Wednesday, that she was with us, Grandpa Ron died. My husband had to tell her in the church parking lot, because their mom was going to call and talk to her. She burst into tears in the back of the car, and I felt so bad for her. I decided that I would try to distract her the next day. We got the stuff for cookies that night, and the next day we made cookies, worked for hours in the garden, and I taught her how to make my ramen recipe.
We went down the next day, planning on spending the night at Grandma Margie's house for the funeral the next day. I had a headache all that day, from overdoing it the day before. We had to sleep on the living room floor, and I didn't get much sleep. Maybe three hours, four if I was lucky, and what little I got was not very good. I woke up at five with a migraine-level headache. I stayed up and read a book on my kindle, but I was so tired. There was a position that, while I was sitting up, didn't hurt too bad, so I decided to lay back down and find that position while I was on the floor. I dozed a bit, but a few hours later it was time for the funeral.
We got dressed, I wore a dress, my husband wore his dress pants and white shirt and tie, since he was a pallbearer, and we took my sis-in-law and brother-in-law with us. My mother-in-law didn't give us very clear directions, so we were running late, but we made it.
The funeral was...difficult, in several ways. The gentleman giving the service wasn't particularly good at it, and then three of Grandpa Ron's granddaughters got up to say some things. My sister-in-law went up to read a letter she had written for Grandpa Ron, and she was sniffling and crying her way through it. Her voice was so small and mumble-y that I couldn't understand most of what she said.
Then the funeral was over, and everyone went to eat in a nearby gymnasium.
While we ate we discovered that my oldest brother-in-law, who is getting married the first part of next month, had been trying to ask my husband to be in the wedding for months, but hadn't ever checked up to find out what his answer was. So, two weeks before the wedding, we have to get the stuff he needs to be in the wedding party. I didn't eat very much; I wasn't hungry. But I had a sort-of conversation with my soon-to-be-sister-in-law, which was kind of nice.
Then we had to leave for the graveyard. It was really cold, and windy, but we stayed for a while, and we each picked out some flowers from the arrangement on the casket to take home and dry. I've got the rose that my husband picked out hanging in the kitchen window to dry.
Then we went back to Grandma Margie's house for a while.
We were going to go straight home, but we got a text from my mother-in-law that sis-in-law was crying hysterically and wouldn't stop. So we got her some Shopkins that she collects, and went back. We gave her the Shopkins, and i talked to her for a while. Once she had calmed down we went home.
The whole thing was exhausting, and I kept tearing up. I briefly considered saying something about Grandpa Ron. When I first met him, I was lonely and homesick, and he was the only person who asked me how I was adjusting to the move. He was funny, and kind, and the only person besides my husband that made me feel wanted and welcome. He called me Angel, and loved my chocolate cake. At the funeral, they kept talking about his faith, how we would see him again, and they even had an altar call of sorts. Which, I can understand some of that, even most of it. I just think it was inappropriate. And I'll remember him, not because of the nice things people said, but because he actually lived his faith. He reached out to me, he loved me, called me his granddaughter, even though all I'd done was marry his grandson. Grandma Margie, when I hugged her after the funeral, said "He loved you." And I said that I knew. All those people talked about how he loved Jesus, and how dedicated he was to his faith. But I'll remember how much he loved an outcast - that he showed the love of God in his everyday life - to someone like me that didn't feel I fit anywhere. I'll remember him for his love of chocolate cake, Dr. Pepper, and his humor.
I felt, most of the time, that my grief was...somehow inappropriate. That, because I'd known him for less than a year, I couldn't possibly feel anything like what his family was feeling. That, because he wasn't my family in the same way, I should keep my distance and not try to be involved, not say anything, or do anything. Because I never felt as welcomed or as wanted by the rest of them as I did by Grandpa Ron. Having him was like having a part of my own family. And I miss them so much. Now he's gone. So my mourning has been largely private. The way I knew and loved him was different from everyone else, even if I was included in the list of "surviving grandchildren." Whenever I think about it too deeply, I start crying and sniffling like I have a cold.
And that's not everything that's happened, either.
My husband is going to be in his brother's wedding, and escort some girl down the aisle. Normal people wouldn't be bothered by that.
But...I was happy that he hadn't been asked to be a groomsman, because then I would at least have him next to me for the wedding. I don't know any of these people, and I've never been a guest at a wedding before, either. The thought of having him next to me made me feel a little better about it. But now he's not going to be, and, to make matters more complicated, he's going to be paired up with some girl and have to escort her down the aisle.
It doesn't really make a lot of sense for that to bother me, I know. Well...unless you know the backstory for it.
I dated once before. I only had one boyfriend before I married my husband, and he...he was a mess. He emotionally abused me for a year, and then got arrested for sexually abusing minors. There was a lot more to it than that, but I've had to come to the conclusion that I don't trust my husband with other women, even though he's given me no reason to be distrustful. I don't like the idea of some other female hanging onto his arm like that. Especially since I'm the only one that ever does that. I feel like that's my territory, and no one else should allowed to do that. I know it's extreme. I know it's ridiculous. He's not going to hold her hand, or kiss her, or flirt with her. It's just escorting her down the aisle. I also know that it's not fair to expect, or even ask, him not to do it. Because, logically, I have nothing to freak out about. The problem is that it's not logic I'm trying to deal with. It's emotion, and my emotions are notorious for not being reasonable. I can't logic my way out of a negative feeling or into a positive one.
So here's my dilemma. My husband is going to be doing something I don't want him to do, something that will likely cause me emotional distress. I know that it's only my history of being unable to trust and my heightened emotions that are doing it. But that's not going to make the feelings go away. In addition, I'm also going to be sitting by myself, possibly for the entire thing, in a crowd of strangers. So I'm going to be lonely, in a noisy, uncomfortable place surrounded by people I don't know, watching my husband do something that's making me anxious before it's even happened. This wedding is going to suck, and I don't want to go to it now. But I already RSVPd for the both of us, and I can't skip out of a wedding, just like I refused to play hooky for the funeral, even though I didn't really want to go that, either. Except, in this case, I refused to skip out of the funeral because I really did love Grandpa Ron, and I wanted to show my respect. For this wedding, it's just an obligation because I married into the family. And this time, I won't have my husband sitting next to me.
So, yeah, we've had a crazy few weeks. And that's not including us having to leave the church we'd been attending. The preacher basically threatened us with discipline if we brought up things like Greek words in Bible study, and claimed that we were starting to upset people. He couldn't take any criticism at all, refused to even acknowledge my request for a study, and gave us an ultimatum - blend in, or leave. We felt that was a blatant discouragement of Bible scholarship, so we left. Luckily, there was a much better church more conveniently located that we found. They encourage questions, and the young adult Bible class is on a much higher level than the full-on adult class at the other. We're going to try it out for a while before we place membership, but I think we've found our people.
A mix of good and bad stuff, but still incredibly busy. I can't wait for things to settle down a little bit.
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