Cousins and cousins

The funniest thing about having the majority of close family and friends all in one place for your wedding is seeing what the dynamic is like not just in how they act around each other, but how you act with all of them in one place. Who are you going to spend time interacting with, or the most time interacting with, and who are you going to have the most fun and laughs around?

Having my cousins in the same place with most of Chris’s cousins was interesting and clearly revealed who I cared and didn’t care about the most. Chris’s cousins are like my own family, the functional family I never had, and they are fun and enjoyable to be around. I genuinely enjoy spending time with them and have had many a session when I have laughed so hard that my ribs ended up hurting. With my own cousins, I barely spent any time conversing with any of them, and they made no effort to talk much to me or approach Chris and me at all. In fact, my cousin and his wife and children who came from Redwood City barely said anything to us until I went to their table, and they left without saying goodbye or thanks for having them. My cousin and his wife and son in Brooklyn left without saying bye early… in fact, they barely said hi to me at all. They actively chose not to socialize with anyone and instead were all rude during the reception speeches, talking amongst themselves with whatever gossip and negativity they like to occupy themselves with, and allowing their children to make lots of noise without discipline. This resulted in a lot of glares from Chris’s aunts and uncles table, who actually did care to hear our speeches and came because they truly care about us. Chris’s parents later asked who those people were at that table and suspected they must be my cousins. I’m sure they noticed I barely talked to them at all. It says everything about how much we value each other.

The end of the wedding period is over and is sad because it was so much fun, but it’s kind of nice because now, I have no reason to be proactive or in touch with any of those cousins, or my dysfunctional aunt, who decided to complain about her estranged son and his children she didn’t know about to me, and also came to my wedding wearing jeans. As always, the world revolves around her in her head, even when her niece is getting married. Colleagues later commented that this was the ultimate way to disrespect me and my parents, but in all truth, I really didn’t care and dismissed her presence right away. I’m getting better at ignoring idiocies in my family. It’s the end of my relationship with family members who truly don’t care about me, and I don’t really think about much seriously.

Death, Take Two

I had a dream that Ed died again. Chris and I rushed on a flight back home, and when we arrived at the Columbarium to prepare the funeral arrangements with my parents, my aunt, and my cousin, the funeral director says that their next open slot for a funeral and viewing would not be for another two months. I immediately was confused and angry, and I asked my dad how he couldn’t have known about this before I decided to fly home. He seemed nonchalant and made it seem like it wasn’t a big deal at all. “How could you not have known this or even asked?” I said to him. My dad stared back at me blankly. He obviously had no control of the situation, nor did he feel the need or desire to take any control.

I turned to Chris and said to him that we would need to come back in two months for the funeral. He whips out his work phone and says that in two months, he will be fully booked up with work travel, which will even include weekend conferences. There is absolutely no order or understanding here, and I lashed out at him for being so flippant about my own brother’s funeral, particularly given the circumstances of his death.

Then, I looked over at the funeral director and got angry with him for telling us this. “So what is it — do you just have a massive refrigerator that stores dead bodies for months at at time?” I said to him in disbelief. “How can you even plan funerals that far in advance? Are you just having people’s families scheduling when their loved ones will get unplugged or pushing people off bridges on certain dates?”

The funeral director also looks at me expressionless and says nothing to my questions. Everyone in the room thinks I am the crazy one there. But I think they are all crazy.

Dream recap

I was walking up to Grand Central tonight and talking to my mom on the phone when I decided to tell her that I dreamt that Ed never died. I guess I thought to tell her because she brought him up. Well, what I left out was that I also dreamt that although he was alive, she had died. But hey, she doesn’t have to know every detail, right?

“He said he never died,” I told her. “He said he is still here with us. He said he has always been here with us.”

“He never died?” My mom repeated pensively. “He never died… Yes, you know that when Armageddon comes, Ed will be resurrected, and he will live on paradise on earth with us forever.”

My mom loves her convenient truths. If paradise on earth really existed according to Jehovah’s Witnesses’ beliefs, then Ed and I wouldn’t “qualify” because we were never Jehovah’s Witnesses to begin with. We would go to hell. And neither would our dad qualify, and heck, my mom hasn’t converted a single person yet, so she probably wouldn’t have made the 144,000 person cut off, either! But at least our mom thinks Ed is a good enough person so that he could be resurrected, so that thought was kind of comforting.

She said to me that since Ed has passed, she has seen him in dreams only twice. I told her he comes to visit me at least a couple times a month since he passed. She expressed half surprise, half envy.

“He comes to visit you… in New York?” my mom said to me, confused. “But how doe he know the way to get there? He could get lost.”

Even in dream life, in the after life, in heaven — wherever my sweet, innocent brother continues to live another form of life, our mother continues to worry about him. After death, he still lives somewhere out there, and because she knows this, she continues not just to pray for him, but to worry if he is safe, happy, and at peace… and if he won’t get lost on the way to New York to visit me.

What our mother doesn’t realize is that now wherever her son is, Ed can’t get lost. He cannot be in danger. He can’t feel pain, and all he can do is feel peace and be happy. That’s why every time I see him now, he’s always the happy one, and I am the one crying and sobbing when I see him. I really should be happier when I see him in dreams, but I can’t because I am selfish. I miss him in this life where I am, where I live. In his new world, he has found peace and happiness. It is a daily struggle to accept and for me to be at peace with his peace.

 

 

He’s alive

I woke up this morning in shock after having a dream that felt so real that I thought there was absolutely no way that I dreamt it all up. I dreamt that Ed came back from the dead; no, he insisted in the dream that he never died, that he was always here. And he was really happy. I’d never seen him smile like that before… well, except the Seattle weekend we saw Shania Twain in concert.

So Ed was alive, and I was happy. But then the next thing that I learn is even more startling: he tells me that our mother is gone — she died. I’m not sure what to feel. Should I be ecstatic that Ed never died, or sobbing with grief that my mother is dead? And how does he even know she is really gone?

It’s like in real life: you can’t have everything you want, can you?

Dumb guests

If I really had it my way, there would be some relatives that I would not invite to my wedding. One of them would be my selfish, negative cousin in Brooklyn, his wife, and son. Their marriage is a complete facade; they got married because they were both getting old, and his wife really wanted to have a baby for all the wrong reasons (to fulfill parental/societal pressure, ticking body clock, etc.). Now, they are married, have a child, and are completely miserable together. They were miserable before, but now they are just miserable married. What a happy ending.

They had been putting off RSVPing for our wedding for a long time, partly because I’m sure they didn’t want to come (San Clemente is too far away from Brooklyn, apparently; they even told my aunt that it was too expensive to go, even though they both earn a very comfortable living and are probably in the top 1 percent of earners in this country), and if they chose not to, I probably would have been happier. But in the end, I’m sure his mother guilt tripped him, and he decided to come. And he had to make sure to be difficult about it. Today, he texted me and asked if he could invite his good friend from high school to my wedding.

What kind of grown 42-year-old man who has a wife and toddler asks his younger cousin if he can invite his grown man friend to her wedding?

Circle of life

Yesterday was the last day of my California trip for the month, and in the evening, I boarded a red-eye flight to come back to New York in time for the Monday work day. It was probably the most peculiar last day in San Francisco I’ve ever had: it started with a funeral, and it ended with a child’s birthday party. I guess you could call it a day that truly represents the circle of life.

This morning, I walked into the funeral home by myself to the loud sound of Chinese chanting accompanied by instruments playing. It was an extremely traditional Buddhist funeral to say the least, complete with professional singing, chanting, and instrument playing, all with very elaborate costuming and the family remaining fully active the entire time – standing, bowing, kow-towing, kneeling, getting up, and doing that all over again probably over a dozen times.

 

Before our mutual friend arrived, I sat by myself for a long time in the back of the chapel, observing the service and remembering the last time I saw this friend’s friend. It made me tear up just to think about it; the last time I saw her was the day of my brother’s funeral service and dinner. She had come despite never having met my brother just to pay respects, gave my family and me a very heartfelt sympathy card along with a generous amount of money, and had comforted me through that period. How strange is it that over two and a half years have passed since my brother’s passing, and I haven’t seen her up until now. Of course, I had been in San Francisco many times since then, but our schedules never really matched up. When is it that the last two times you see anyone is at a funeral of respective immediate family?

Now, we’re bonded by despondency. When I saw her, I gave her a long, strong hug, kissed her, and expressed my sadness, and she cried even harder than she already was, which made me tear up to hear her so sad. I have heard second hand how hard it’s been given that both of her parents have been struggling with health issues for so long, and her mother was so sick that she couldn’t even attend the funeral.

Losing Ed was the single most devastating thing that has ever happened in my life; it goes without saying. It was even harder because it was always my single worst fear, that one day I’d lose my brother to suicide. But as sad as that is, I am also terrified of the feeling of losing my own parents and what level of despair that may bring. And that also made it hard for me to see my friend’s friend in her current state yesterday morning.

 

Brothers who aren’t really brothers

We had a family dinner tonight with my parents, aunt, uncle, cousin, cousin’s wife, and a random JW friend of my mother’s. It was filled with as many uncomfortable moments and silences as I originally imagined, along with some tense exchanges of looks. My dad, who never sees his brother unless I am home (my uncle likes to see me, just not his brother or his wife), barely made eye contact when he said hi to my uncle, and my uncle gave him an awkward pat on the back to greet him. They proceeded to barely speak to each other throughout the meal until health-related topics came up, like who has what level of HDL vs LDL, what so and so’s blood glucose level was, and how someone else is cutting back on their meat intake. There were times when my uncle would say something, then my dad would loudly announce to my mother sitting next to him what my uncle just said as though she weren’t at the table with the rest of us. Uncomfortable and annoying. Then there were so many moments that I can’t even count where my dad would make know-it-all remarks back to my cousin or my uncle where the conversations would just end because no one ever wants to respond to someone who thinks he is a know-it-all, especially when everyone at the table knows he isn’t.

Every time we have one of these family meals, I always kind of sit back and just observe the awkwardness. I notice when my dad decides to tune in and tune out. I can see when my mom is trying to suck up or seem impressive to my aunt, or when she is babying my father by dumping food on his plate because he cannot seem to serve himself. I also notice when she decides she doesn’t want to listen to what anyone is saying and just start her own random, boring topics, or when she forces everyone to get up and leave when everyone is not quite ready.

But what really annoys me at these meals is the interaction between my dad and my uncle. They are two adult brothers who can’t seem to act like adults with each other; in fact, maybe neither of them has really become a true adult in the most genuine sense of that word (that begs the question, which of us is really an adult and why? But that is another tangent). They’ve held grudges against each other since their teen years, which is so embarrassing now considering they are in their mid to late 60s. They don’t even have a relationship with each other period, and are only forced to see each other to have some superficial guise of normalcy because of my existence. They have shared their intense criticisms about each other with me, and yes, much truth lies in both sides. It is just so sad to me because they are missing out on sibling love. They are so blinded by their grudges and hate and anger and hostility that they can’t see what they are lacking and giving up. That is just so pathetic.

So many dishes

I woke up early this morning to the sound of my mother doing chores in the kitchen. The faint sound of her step is unmistakable, as is the clashing sound of dishes hitting each other in this house for me. I walked into the kitchen, and multiple piles of dirty dishes had somehow already accumulated and lined the entire counter top. Only two people live in this house… two people, so how the heck are so many dishes possibly generated before 7am?! This isn’t even due to making complex, multi-step dishes… this is simply from making a bowl of oatmeal and reheating leftover food. Something is seriously wrong here.

When Chris and I are at home, we never have that many dishes just from reheating food. There’s no logic to this mess. When I told my mom that I didn’t understand why there were so many dishes, she shakes her head and simply says, “You just don’t know.” Thanks.

I watched her move around the kitchen, doing lots of busy work that was really repetitive and unnecessary. She bangs things about when she wants attention and to seem as though she is working hard to prepare my dad or me food. It was clear that she was just making up more work for herself to do when there was nothing left to do; she just wants to keep herself seeming like she is busy. She dirtied dishes just by dropping a dirty spoon into a clean pot, and there you go! Another pot needs to be washed now!

We ate breakfast together, and I didn’t pour myself a cup of milk and just sat and ate because I was in a rush to get back to my computer. She noticed I had no milk on the table as we ate, and she said to me in a cold tone, “You know, you can’t expect me to get you your milk when you work from home. It’s all there for you to take care of yourself. You have to stand up and do things on your own and not rely on me.”

(??????).

 

“Don’t cry”

Ed knows I’m here. He can see and feel me here the way I can feel his presence all over this house, and even throughout the Richmond district where I walk. He doesn’t normally visit me in dreams when I am here, but he did last night.

In my dream, I walked into a wide hallway in a nondescript building, and I see him standing there, facing me with a straight face, a slight spark of surprise in his eyes. And like clockwork, I immediately run up to him, grab his neck, hug him, and burst into tears. I tell him how happy I am to see him again and how much I’ve missed him. All of this is becoming like a broken record in my dreams. He puts his arms around me and pats me on my back.

“Yvonne,” he says sternly. “You have to stop this. You do this every time you see me. You have to stop crying. Don’t cry. This just isn’t healthy.”

“I can’t help it,” I respond through my sobs. “I just really, really miss you. And I just really wish you were really here.”

“I am here,” he says calmly while rubbing my back. “I’m here.”

But you aren’t, I think to myself. After these fleeting yet deeply cherished moments that my subconscious has conjured up, you will drift away from me, and I will drift off and eventually wake up. And in my bed in our old bedroom, I will awaken and turn to my right and see an empty bed next to me, the one you used to sleep in, sometimes soundly, sometimes tormented.

And that’s exactly what happened. At 3:30am this morning, I abruptly woke up and started coughing lightly, and I turned to my right and saw your empty bed…. your empty, empty bed.

 

Cousins reunited

Yesterday, Chris and I met up with my dad’s younger sister’s son, who is estranged from his mother and whom I have not seen in almost nine years since another cousin’s wedding in the summer of 2007. He’s my cousin, likely my most normal, rational cousin. We didn’t grow up close because his mother, my aunt, wanted to shield him from our side of the family, but since his dad passed away in 2012 and my Ed passed in 2013, we’ve communicated a lot over e-mail and text, and we’ve gotten to know each other quite a bit. We’ve bonded over our familial dysfunction, our relationships with our respective mothers, and the loss of his father and my brother. We share a lot of despondency and a lot of confusion and anger regarding the family life we’ve experienced. It was refreshing to be having lunch with a cousin who isn’t selfish, can speak for himself and have his own opinions, and does not purposely ignore all the very real and raw problems our family causes and continues to face.

I felt sad when we left him, his wife, and his baby son at the end and drove off. He’s the person I wish I had access to growing up, who I wish Ed and I had the opportunity to get to know and get close to. This cousin is real. He’s normal, he has thoughts and frustrations that are just like Ed’s and mine.. or just like mine now that Ed is sadly gone. he doesn’t ignore the blatant issues in the family. He doesn’t make everything about himself and his own needs. I felt so sad when he told me that he may not stay for our entire wedding due to not wanting to cause a scene with his mother when she finally sees him after years of no contact of any sort. We both know she’s very capable of causing a big scene and making the event all about her instead of our marriage.

I feel so torn. My family always makes things harder for me, even at my own wedding.