This Lady Lost Her Mind

The lady I'm referring to is my aunt. We all knew she had problems but she took it too far this time. "This Lady Lost Her Mind".

Sunday was my grandfather's funeral and up to that day she had been giving my whole family grief about every little thing. Yelling at my other aunt (her little sister), stressing out my dad, pissing off my uncles, and totally destroying what little relationship she had with the rest of her nieces and nephews. But Sunday, oh my goodness, on Sunday she took it too far.

The service was beautiful, everything was flowing. Everyone was saying such wonderful things about my grandfather and if that had been how the funeral ended the tone of this blog would be totally different. But it didn't because as I said "This Lady Lost Her Mind".

So we're at the part of the service where you could go up and say things about my granddad. It was going well until she got up there to speak. First of all, everyone was given clear instructions to go to the mic on the side of the pulpit to give their acknowledgments and you had 2 minutes to do so. She goes up onto the pulpit. Right there with that move we knew that there was gonna be a problem. Then she busts out literally a ten-page document that she proceed to read for the next 20 minutes. The preacher wanted to stop her but she's the daughter of the deceased, how would that look? So we were all stuck.

Now it was bad enough that she got on the pulpit, slapped down this 10 page obituary about herself (that's how it sounded), and proceeded to read it. But what pissed me and the rest of my family off is how she then in this document bashed my aunt, her sister. We sat there floored as she totally ripped her a new one (her sister -the good aunt- had been the one who took care of my grandfather throughout his entire illness. She's a nurse and worked long hours at the hospital to come home and take care of my granddad, her father.). For Miss. Thang to get up there and lie saying that it was a burden to her and that she couldn't take it anymore and all this nonesense was total disrespect. And then to tell the bold faced lie that she, herself would sit at my grandfather's bedside when we all knew she didn't even come up to see him until her sister yelled at her was beyond comprehension.

What hurt the most was the fact that my aunt (the good aunt) who sacrificed so much for the love of her father was disrespected in front of a church full of people by a woman who was waiting for him to pass away so that she could get the money that he left to her. My dad was so insensed he started praying out loud and my uncle was a split second away from snatching her off the pulpit. And her daughter (the good aunt) was so hurt because she watched how hard her mother worked. And she too made a sacrifice. It can't be easy at 14 to watch your grandfather dying and pass away in your house.

You should have seen the looks on the faces of the people in the audience. Total disbelief that she even went there. And the realization that she was the one with the problem. She was looking for sympathy and she couldn't find any. Its because, "This Lady Lost Her Mind".

I was so pissed but in that moment as I saw the rest of my family sitting in the pews I was so proud because we kept it together for each other. Even as she could have caused us to fall down to her level we rose above it by letting her reveal herself as the foolish woman she is.

That was the only blemish in an otherwise beautiful celebration of my grandpa's life. He would have been ashamed of her display but I know that he would say we must forgive the ignorance of one who knows better. So in the spirit of the example he set I shall do so. But she has done some almost irrepairable damage to her sibling relationships because "This Lady Lost Her Mind".

You know what's truly sad, if she ever got sick, the same sister she threw under the bus would be at her bed side to take care of her cuz the rest of us surely wouldn't. And that's the bridge you burn?

I hope she never needs a hand to help her up cuz she'll soon realize that she ain't got none willing to reach down to pick her up.

(shaking my head) I just needed to vent. I would have wrote it Sunday but I would of been cussing up a storm in here. I needed a few days to return to breathing normally.