2005-06-28

So...

Haven't written in a while. It's been complicated.

See, my crazy aunt's husband died. As my crazy aunt can do nothing for herself, though she's 57, and is addicted to suppositories, antacids, laxatives, and most other things that come in pill form, we've (Meaning Uncle Mike and I) have had to concern ourselves with her. We've had to try to send back some of the freakish purchases she'd made on HSN, QVC and any other abbreviation of a TV shopping station. These purchases included five life-sized china dolls, twenty-two tiffany lamps, and more ugly jewelry than a battalion of texas housewives.

Added to this are her periodic suicide attempts. They happen whenever anyone calls her on her behavior. Some examples of this behavior?

Telling my nephew how mean and awful his mother is.

Asking my cousin, Patrick, if he and his siblings really need me. Can't they just babysit themselves?

Telling me she's so bloated that she might have to start borrowing my clothes soon.

Borrowing a pair of my pants without asking and shitting them (suppository addiction rears its ugly head).

Calling people after two am or before 6 am and, without even saying hello, going into a laundry list of her problems and why everyone should be doing more for her.

And just when Aunt Cathy and Aunt Gigi come out to help, things get worse.

My Uncle Joe, the one with the cancer, the one whose kids I watch, was planning a pilgrimage to Medjugorje. See, his doctors were giving him no hope. They offered Hospice care. It was about them that Uncle Joe decided to find a tour going to Medjugorje. He didn't want to wait to die. He wanted to climb up a mountain, see the Blessed Mother, and get himself a miracle.

My Aunt Patty had come to help me with the kids. It's not that I can't handle them. But I was wondering about Madeleine's reaction to more than a week without either of her parents. She's autistic and tends to think, when they're gone, that they aren't coming back. And she blames me as I'm usually the one there when her parents aren't. I needed an extra hand to man the doors and the other two in case she has a meltdown.

At any rate, things were fine for the first few days they were gone. They'd got off fine. Uncle Joe had had two days with his sisters around to joke with. I remember going to get myself cigarettes and seeing Uncle Joe and Lisa at the gas station, fueling up to go to LAX. I'd hugged him goodbye, then. Awkward. Mostly because Uncle Joe, like Grandpop, like me, doesn't always invite hugs. It's that Irish reserve some of us have.

But things were fine. Aunt Crazy was in a mental hospital for evaluation, my other aunts were helping get rid of some of her crazy purchases, Aunt Patty and I were hadnling things with the kids just fine.

It was that Wednesday that things took a downturn. They were in Frankfurt, Germany. Uncle Joe was in the hospital because the plane they were getting on had leaky oxygen. His lungs filled up with fluid nefore they could even make a decision to do a trachiotomy. Lisa said he was screaming for air in the hospital. He didn't make it.

I still haven't fully adjusted. And the past three weeks have been too filled with frantic activity and Aunt Crazy scenes for anyone to adjust.

I miss him. It's hard to be around the house with the kids without him there, making fun of us, calling for his nebulizer to be cleaned out or his breakfast, yelling at the news. Last week, I sang at the fourth funeral mass of the year. I like the Ave Maria much better at weddings.

This isn't easy to write about. I almost like dwelling on Aunt Crazy better.