It has been a rather sad few days

I am back. I have nothing funny to say today, so you are saying "why the fuck did I come here then". How the hell should I know? I cannot read minds. Anyway, I had not posted in few days because it is with a lot of sadness that I have to say my aunt passed away on Friday. She was my father's oldest sister.

She was 80. She was an interesting woman. She always tried to carry the aura of regality and being above it all. In that sense she was all about controlling appearances. Back in the day, really before I was conscious of a back in the day (circa 1960s and 70s), she tried to give off the appearance of the "perfect" family with my uncle and three older cousins. My mother said she and my father, hell everybody, aspired to be them. That appearance was a figment of somebody's imagination. They were far from perfect and that could not have sat well with her when the truth came out.

It all seemed to come out in 1980, when my uncle died. The sheet was pulled back and the world saw the Great Oz. Again, I was too dim or self absorbed to see it or even care. I mean, I had no illusion of their perfection as a family. I mean the brothers (about 15 months apart in age) could not stand each other. My eldest cousin married some dude her parents did not like and then, scandalously, divorced. This family had it all in that way. They were far from perfect but I did not care as they were family and as I said, I never really aspired to be them.

They did have the coolest house in the Manor, though. My uncle built it. It was a bungalow that was huge with a courtyard. The kitchen was small but "state of the art" cool in a 60s sort of way. There was no stove per se, two ovens built in and a cook top that was pulled out of the casing. It was just a cool kitchen. The bathroom fixtures were those mod blue color, too. It was a fucking cool house, I will always say.

My uncle's death was a shocker and not without controversy and scandal. I won't go into it, but suffice to say my aunt was not buried with my uncle and I can only assume why that is.

As the appearance of perfection fell by the wayside, she did reinvent herself and nourshed her spiritual side. She joined Kabbalah and then became more religious. I think the Kabbalists had pissed her off eventually, but they were there when my grandmother died back in 1991. The interesting thing was that she died on her mother's birthday. In her world, there were no coincidences. All these connections have meaning, though you do not necessarily understand them at the present time. I can accept that premise and I can also see that was a great way of not thinking the "what if" question. As in what if it is all random? What if life is truly "meaningless"? I am not saying it is, but just ponder the question for a moment. It can blow your mind.

At least, it is not sitting on the toilet, pondering your own death, or life without you (not in a suicidal way but in an existential way) and then breaking out in cold sweat, haunted for the rest of the day. Hands up, all those who have had that happen to them, or is that exprienced that.

She had been in the hospital and long term care for a lung/breathing problem for over a year. Finally, she gave up her apartment. She had a stroke or heart trouble while in long term care and was on a ventilator from about last January onward. I will say that when she was lucid, though on the ventilator, last year, she seemed a peace with her life and where she was in the present. I did have the opportunity to tell her that and I think her faith was a great comfort to her. If we measure a life by experiences we have had the people we have touched then she had a full and rich life, much like any habitual subway groper, by the way. I could not resist a wise ass comment. I am not sure she would have appreciated it, but she is not here to do anything about it so.....

She faced her unknown destination with courage and dignity, at least in my eyes. For what it is worth, I had not visited much since she was hopped up on a lot of morphine for the pain, which made her sleepy and loopy. I will say a sad fare well to my aunty Rita. Go join your mother, father, brother, husband and companion. I will miss you, but that is life and that is how it goes and will continue to go.

Anyway, the funeral was on Sunday. It was "fun", because as I said before, you cannot have a funeral without "fun" or else all you have is "eral" and what the fuck is "eral"?! Ciao and thank you for reading to the end!