It’s like every day just gets worse. Today, my mother sounds just as miserable as yesterday, and she says that when she dies, she doesn’t want a funeral, no meal, no nothing. She wants to be cremated immediately after being viewed by just my father and me. That’s it. Don’t tell anyone that I died, she said. Don’t tell anyone unless they ask where I am. No one cares anyway, she said. Everyone just pretends. No one really cares. Do you think anyone really cared when Ed died? No one cared at all. Do you think anyone cared just because they took a half day off from work to go to his funeral? It’s just pretending, she said. You can’t trust anyone other than your own parents and siblings. Do what I say; these are my wishes. 

She told me this a month after Ed passed away last year. She loves repeating herself, especially when it’s pertaining to negative thoughts. It makes her feel better, she says. Isn’t that ironic, that it makes her feel better to say negative things?

How does one not tell others when a significant family member has died in her life? Or more importantly, why would one not want to share that information?

It’s like my life is one big drama movie and I’m just waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

This sounds pretty bad, but when I was growing up, I always knew that my wedding would not be “perfect.” You know how other girls day dream about their Big Day and envision how perfect it will be? Well, I rarely daydreamed about the Big Day, and I always knew in my gut that something would be wrong that day – whether someone important in my life would not make it because he/she died prematurely, or someone picked a massive fight with someone else, or the ballroom we selected got set on fire accidentally mid-reception. I knew something would be off.

I guess I have predicted correctly so far. As of now, it looks like the most “wrong” thing is that my brother can’t be there because he’s dead from his own suicide. To make matters even better, my mom is already a drama queen and we haven’t even set a date yet, and I’m positive she will be that way on the day of the wedding because how could she resist herself?

I’m so exhausted that even saying that is exhausting.