Funerals

I have never been to a funeral of a relative. It was only about 9 years ago that I went to the first funeral of a person I’d known — a Catholic funeral of someone at my work, who I was very fond of and had known since 1982. Up until then I’d been to:

- the Irish Catholic wake of one of my boyfriend’s grandmother, who passed away as we were traveling so I could meet her at her party, and

- the Mormon funeral of the father (who I had never met) of Stinky’s friend (who I had met.)

When I was a child, my great-grandparents passed away, but my mother said I was too young to go to their funerals. The next family member that I know of who died, was my father’s father. He donated his body to medical science and as far as I know there was no funeral or other service. The same was true for my father. (It’s possible we were not invited because of the family secret (my half-brother) but I mentioned funerals to another half-brother, and he just said “yeah I guess our family is not much on funerals.”) When my father’s mother passed away, I swear no one even told me for weeks. My mother said she had but I don’t believe her. I don’t even know if there was a funeral.

When my mother’s mother died, my mother did not want to have a funeral. My grandmother had told her “when I die, tell everyone I went to Las Vegas”. She died suddenly. I didn’t even go visit my mom and brother right away. My grandmother’s ashes are in an urn in some mortuary I have never been to.

My mother’s father had been cut out of her life since she was 7 and passed away sometime before my grandmother. When my grandmother died, my mom started calling herself an orphan. She was in her 50s.

My mother had aunts and uncles. I assume they had funerals when they died. No one told me about them. I didn’t really know those people after I was about 13. I think my mom was embarrassed about her bad marriage.