The End

About two weeks ago, I went back to Arizona for my grandmother's funeral. Born in the deep south in the 1920s, she was married at 14 and gave birth to my father at 17. She had four more children, and died at 87. She was preceded in death by one son (a suicide) and her only daughter, my Aunt Susie. She still had three sons alive.

My Uncle Ron, who's nearing the end of the warranty period on his transplanted heart, drove down with his wife for the service and funeral.

Her other son, my Uncle Danny, was unable to attend. He was a guest of the Arizona Penal system. Sixty years old, and a jailbird.

Most funerals are weird, I suspect. There wasn't any crying and rending of garment, no shrieks of "Take me, Jesus!" or anything like that. We spent a lot of time together at my parents' house, Lady Jiggy, Uncle Ron and his wife, my brother and his ladyfriend.

What struck me as weird was what we talked about. We didn't spend a lot of time saying, "Grandma was a great old gal," even though she was okay. She didn't smoke or beat her kids or cuss those damned immigrants who were moving into her neighborhood. What we talked about was how much of a screw-up, pain-in-the-ass thief, drug addict, and drunk was my Uncle Danny.

Because Grandma"took care" of Uncle Danny. Which amounted to letting him stay at her house, not turning him into the cops when he stole her belongings, enabling him, over and over, to keep from facing the consequences of being a life-wasting sluggard.

I heard tales of his attacks on other members of the family, and the times he burgled from them in the past. Since I've been away for years, I avoided much of this. I heard how he was a force for eroding my grandmother's house (purchased by my parents) and destroying her belongings and property. I learned that when my brother and father finally moved her, more or less by force, into my parents house, that in less than 12 hours Danny and his fellow druggie buddies had descended on her home and stolen televisions and stereos and other personal belongings. These scumbags couldn't manage to hold a job, yet, when the opportunity to steal from a sick old woman presented itself, they had motivation and ambition. They had a plan! (personal opinion: may all of those thieves burn in hell)

What I took away from this...a gentle reminder that I may want to live my life with the end in mind. When I die, people may have the odd unkind thing to say (insert name of former wife here with a very different opinion of my actions), but overall, my goal is have people say, "Lord Jiggy was pretty decent guy. Hey, you remember the time he dressed up as the Zombie Stand up comic, Rotting Dangerfield, for the Halloween party?"


So, how are you living your life?