Rest in Peace

As I said before, I was going home for my Grandma Betty's funeral. I left on the 30th out of Frankfurt. My flight didn't leave until 9:45 a.m., which meant we didn't have to leave the house at an obscenely early time. It is a two hour drive to the airport from our house, so to have a flight leave at 7 a.m. makes for an early morning. I woke up the day after Christmas with a miserable cold. My entire body ached, and I couldn't seem to wake up. Needless to say I spent the day sleeping on the couch with two lazy cats. I worked the rest of the week and relied heavily on Dayquil/Nyquil to get through. I was a little afraid flying with my cold would be miserable. We had decided to wake up at the "normal" time and leave our house at 6. I was a bit anxious and woke up before the alarm. I noticed right away that Josh was on FIRE. He is a hot blooded person naturally, and normally he is a built-in heater for me. However on that morning it was an unnatural heat coming off of him. I had passed my cold onto Josh, and how I had felt the day after Christmas was how he felt that morning. I looked out the window to see a layer of wet snow covering my car with more snow coming down. It was too late for me to try and take the train to the airport... so Josh got up and drove me to the airport through a snowstorm with a raging fever. I felt bad for him, as I knew firsthand how he was feeling.

Getting through security at Frankfurt seems to be ridiculously easy. They tell you to be at the airport two hours early for international flights. At Frankfurt you don't... I don't know if it is efficiency, or it is more lenient. Either way, it's quick. The one problem with being from Missoula, Montana is there is no quick, easy flight pattern to get there. There are no direct flights. My flight pattern went from Frankfurt to Detroit to Minneapolis to Missoula. It wasn't bad... I've had worse. It just makes for a very long, full day of travel. I left my house in Germany at 6 a.m. I landed in Missoula at midnight which is 8 a.m. in Germany. It was a long, long day. I've said I think it is easier to go from the states to Germany versus Germany to the states. After this trip I will stick to that statement. When I travel from the states to Germany, I am usually able to get a few hours of sleep on the long flight over to Frankfurt. Once I land in Frankfurt it is usually morning and you just have to stay up and keep busy (if you don't and you take a nap, you are setting yourself up to have your internal clock be off for days). I am usually tired at that point, but I seem to be able to keep going. However, when I fly from Frankfurt to the states timing wise I am wide awake, and I can't seem to fall asleep. I spend the whole 9 hours of the flight awake watching movies. By the time I got to Minneapolis it was 5 p.m. and I was exhausted (at that time it was midnight in Germany). I was afraid I wouldn't stay awake to make it to my gate or that I would miss my flight. Luckily I did manage to stay awake, and climbed onto the last leg of my journey like a zombie. I landed in Missoula to snow blowing and gusting winds. Welcome back to Montana.

I spent my first day home with my brother (more on that later). I spent New Years Eve in a fog of exhaustion. I attempted to meet up with some friends to be social, but I ended up going home because I was tired. I was in bed asleep before 10 p.m. What a wild New Year. I hoped I could catch up on some sleep and nip the jet lag in the butt early. Instead I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and couldn't fall back asleep. It made my drive to Great Falls a bit interesting. I rode with my parents for the three-ish hour drive and talked their ears off the whole ride. It was nice to catch up, even though I was dreaming of a warm bed the whole time.

On the morning of the 2nd, the day of Grandma Betty's funeral we woke up early to get ready and drive to Stanford. We agreed to meet up with my aunt and uncle to clean out my Grandma's house and sort through her things. My dad is the executor of her will. My Grandma's will states everything is simply to be split equally between the 4 kids. They are going to sell the house, so they need to clean it out first. It was agreed that if someone saw something that was sentimental to them or something they wanted, they should (with everyone's permission) take it. This way or working and cleaning worked well until the vultures showed up.

Every family has drama. Mine is no different. To try to make this as simple as possible, let's just say my dad has two brothers and one sister. One of the brothers is a bit of an outcast, by his own doing, and has had no contact with any family members for years (again, by his own doing). And, let's just say that this brother's wife (I refuse to call her my aunt... because I have some wonderful aunts. This woman is NOT my aunt) is a bitch. I think that is me putting it nicely. As the rest of the family was attempting to clean the house/sort through my Grandma's things, this brother and his wife show up. They started to help... but their helping was not helpful. They were there only to selfishly grab as much stuff as they could. This woman sorted through my Grandma's lace table cloths and linens. She then asked if anyone wanted them... we all thought about it, then said no. She boxed them up for herself. Now if she was a collector of lace, or if she had some wonderful memory of my Grandma that somehow involved the table linens, or something... then I would understand and I would think it appropriate for her to take them. However, she clearly was just taking them for the sake of taking them. My mom and I were sorting through a closet (in this closet we found over 25 boxes of unused blank greeting cards. Why so many, I can only guess) when I looked over to see her (she really doesn't even deserve to have her name mentioned) going through my Grandma's dressers. What in the hell was she looking for? And what on earth was she planning to take? This wasn't even her own mother... if it was it would be a different story. But as it was, she was just a selfish, shitty daughter-in-law.

We had to take a break from our house cleaning for Grandma's funeral. It was as good of a funeral as you could hope for. The pastor who gave the eulogy was a friend of my Grandma's, and she spoke highly of her. It was the kind of ceremony I think my Grandma would have wanted for herself. It was nice to see people who were my Grandma's friends there to show their support. It was, I suppose, a good way to say good-bye. I was impressed to look at my family and see how supportive they are. My Grandma who died is my dad's mother... however all of my extended family (and I truly mean ALL) from my mom's side showed up. They had all spent time with my Grandma over the years (what can I say? We're close) and wanted to show their support. There was more of my mom's family present than my dad's. I think that really says something.

After the funeral we returned to the house to finish cleaning. Tucked away in a drawer under a stack of old tax returns I found my treasure. It was a black and white photo of my Grandma. I would guess she was in her early 20's, but there isn't a date written anywhere on the photo. I haven't seen many pictures of my Grandma from when she was young. I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. My Grandma was beautiful, and I'm not just saying that because she's my Grandma. She truly was a good looking girl. What I was more surprised to see was a lot of myself in her face. There were my eyebrows, my nose, and my cheekbones staring back at me. How had I never noticed this before? How did I not know? At that moment I felt strangely close to my Grandma.

As the rest of the family was trying to finish cleaning, the vultures returned. They circled around the house, taking things they thought to be valuable or things they "needed." It seems funny that the people who did the least for my Grandma in the last few years of her life were the people wanting to take the most. We took it as a sign that we should leave.

My parents, my uncle (the good one), my aunt, and I enjoyed a wonderful dinner. We had a chance to talk about Grandma, life, love, the future. Although it was horrible circumstances, it was great to have a chance to spend time with them. To have some moments together. Although there are people who bring negativity to the picture, it was a beautiful ceremony and a peaceful good-bye.