Rest In Pieces

I mentioned in a previous post that my paternal grandmother was dying of lung cancer.

She died this morning.


I'm fine. But I realized I'm angry. Not the typical anger phase of dealing with death. But the same anger I've had with her for a majority of my life, only enhanced.

This woman, was not the best person in my life, definitely not my preferred grandmother. Not even close. She was the typical butt of the old lady/grandma joke, she was very religious, quite discriminatory, extremely critical, and wrote checks for holidays in odd amounts such as $17.00.

Nothing was ever good enough for her. I do realize she's lived an incredibly hard life, for she was a little over 90 years old. She was half Irish and half German, her father left her and her many siblings when they were young, leaving them with a single mother. As much as I can verbalize that I see she's had a rough life, I still will never accept the treatment she gives to others and myself. Never.

I know she cared, and had a heart. But when the time ever came to spend with her she always had her heart in all the wrong places. And this infuriated me far, far too much. I wasn't the only one either. She treated my brother worse. Her children too...my father especially.

This woman would complain about people or myself not visiting or communicating with her enough. Once we finally did, that's all she would do, complain, criticize, demean. She never accepted us or events for who and what they were. Never let anything go.



A pivotal moment in my life was a random day about three years ago when I was working in a beauty supply store. I had an elderly woman come into my store. I approached her to help her. Instead of focusing on the product she was interested in, she was fascinated with me. She first noticed my tattoos and thought they were the most beautiful things she had ever seen. She then went on to say that I was very beautiful and that I must be in show business. This continued to fluster me but made me smile a great deal. I told her I only work here and go to school. She asked me where and for what I was going to school for. I told her about anthropology and we got into a little conversation about that. Every single thing I said made her brighten more and more, she was so happy and proud of me. Proud of me! She made me feel so wonderful from the inside out in just our brief interaction. The second she left I started to cry.
My manager came to me and asked what happened. I told her about the adorable old woman and said that she was better to me than my grandmother ever had been. If only she...

For a complete stranger to recognize the good I've done and intend to do was amazing and completely shocking at the same time.

My whole adult life I had been fighting with my grandmother in this inner dialogue that I never let her hear. I had and am so frustrated with the fact that since I was a teenager I've focused my life on school and becoming something. I ignored drugs and bad people with little effort and it was something I was deeply proud of. I wasn't like the other kids. But all my grandmother could focus on was my hair color, later my tattoos, later my piercings. We never had a deep conversation about who I was, what I accomplished, what my morals were...she never gave me the chance to show her who I was because she only focused on the superficial. She then continued to insult my mother, my brother, and even my father. She only knew the bad, the shallow...never the good. My grades meant nothing, my sobriety meant nothing, my good heart meant nothing....nothing, nothing, nothing.

There was always something else I should be doing.

I cannot tell you how many times I wanted to tear her down. To tell her how horrible she made me and everyone else feel. But she was grandma and that's how grandma was.


Needless to say, I never did see her before she died.

The last time I saw her was Thanksgiving last year. She hardly payed attention to us. This was the first time I've seen her since I got accepted into my current job and dyed my hair a natural color. I told her about the job and it didn't seem to phase her, I told her I dyed my hair, nothing. I wanted to scream.

There hasn't been a single being that has reached those angry depths of me on every thought of them for such a long time.


So I will only admit here and to a select friends that I was indeed neglecting to visit her. For all these reasons. I honestly didn't see the point, and more so since she was literally losing her memories and mind. But that didn't stop her from criticizing, I heard. I had the only intention of visiting her to satisfy mostly my father along with a few other relatives. This may sound cold to some, but that's their perspective. I am not a cold person.



Why am I still angry? Well, a couple reasons. First, I never did tell her any of this just for the sake of some sort of personal release. Why didn't I? Because some family members have tried and tried that before. It solved and changed absolutely nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

The other reason is my father. He has put up with the worst of her his entire life, sometimes for the good, but usually for the worst. I know my father has life issues that are in place because of her. I may not be able to point them out or get him to talk about it, but I know they are there. I love my father with the depths of my heart and wish the best for him. I am, as I feel he is, extremely relieved of her death, because it was a long time coming. We, and she, had been anticipating this for at least ten years. That goes to say, that I hope this is a big weight lifted off my father and the rest in the family. But unfortunately there are post-death matters to handle now, and that is always stressful.


A couple songs come to mind with this, one particular is "Rest In Pieces" by Saliva. Not all the lyrics relate me to my grandmother but some do, and I think pretty much all of them could be relatable to my father in this instance.

Look at me, my depth perception must be off again
Cause this hurts deeper than I thought it did
It has not healed with time
It just shot down my spine
You look so beautiful tonight
Remind me how you laid us down
And gently smiled before you destroyed my life
Would you find it in your heart
To make this go away
And let me rest in pieces
Would you find it in your heart?
To make this go away
And let me rest in pieces
Would you find it in your heart?
To make this go away
And let me rest in pieces
Look at me, my depth perception must be off again
You got much closer than I thought you did
I'm in your reach
You held me in your hands
But could you find it in your heart?
To make this go away
And let me rest in pieces
Would you find it in your heart?
To make it go away
And let me rest in pieces


The other song is "Wake Up" by Alanis Morissette


You like snow but only if it's warm 
You like rain but only if it's dry 
No sentimental value to the rose that fell on your floor 
No fundamental excuse for the granted I'm taken for 


'Cause it's easy not to 
So much easier not to 
And what goes around never comes around to you 


You like pain but only if it doesn't hurt too much 
You sit... and you wait... to receive 
There's an obvious attraction 
To the path of least resistance in your life 
There's an obvious aversion no amount of my insistence 
could make you try tonight 


'Cause it's easy not to 
So much easier not to 
And what goes around never comes around to you 
To you to you to you to you to you... 
There's no love no money no thrill anymore 


There's an apprehensive naked little trembling boy 
With his head in his hands 
There's an underestimated and impatient little girl 
Raising her hand 


But it's easy not to 
So much easier not to 
And what goes around never comes around to you 
To you, to you 


get up get up get up off of it 
get up get up get up off of it 
get out get outta here enough already 
get up get up get up off of it 




I'm done talking about this now.