My aunt died yesterday.

[Dinner]

I must confess that I was never very close to this aunt. In fact when she was 3 years old, in 1951, she caught a major fever where here core body temperature became as high as 109 degrees F and the doctor ordered my grandparents to put her in a bath of ice water just to get her temperature lower. Temperatures that high could cause brain damage and indeed my aunt Peggy suffered brain damage for the rest of her life.

My mother was the eldest of four daughters and always stuck up for my aunt Peggy, who was the second eldest, because Peggy was handicaped. Peggy was not only brain damaged but she also suffered from seizures her whole life due to the drain damage. Never the less Aunt Peggy fell in love and married a young man, though he was also mildly retarded, though everyone in the family was happy that peggy had gone on with her life and had found a man she could be happy with.

My uncle John, Peggy's husband, called my father last night at 3:00am to tell him that Peggy had had a heart attack and that the doctors had said it didn't look like she would survive. My mother had always looked after Peggy and when my mother died my father continued to look after my aunt Peggy and her husband John because they could not fully care for themselves and because they continually needed financial help. My father was wealthy enough that he was able to give them money so that they could continue living in their own home instead of moving in with one of Peggy's sisters (John's had a small family who was all dead). So after my grandfather, Peggy &my mother's father had died, they were used to calling my father when ever anything went wrong.

My aunt Susan and my father (Susan is my mother's younger sister but my father is thought of as a brother since my parents started dating when my father was 16 and my mother was 15; this was ok in 1962) drove to go see my aunt Peggy in Long Beach, CA (starting around 5am) but by the time they got there Peggy had already died.

They didn't call me until around 8am yesterday. Now thing get complicated due to bad blood in the family. I will continue in my next post.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

We have a remarkably similar story in our family (nervous breakdown instead of brain damage), complete with bad blood. These times are never easy, no matter how you feel about the deceased. While waiting for part two, let me say that my heart goes out to you and your family.

[Dinner]

So why are things complicated? My mother's second oldest sister (my mother was oldest, Peggy was second oldest, my aunt Alice was third oldest, and my aunt Susan was the youngest) has had a running fued with the rest of the family for around 20 years. My aunt Susan used to be married to a man named Derial and when I was 10 (my elder twin cousins where 16 and their mother was my mother's sister Alice) my Aunt Susan's husband sexually molested my one of my elder cousins (one of the twins).

My Aunt Alice was always the black sheep of the family. She had run off and gotten married when she was only 16. This scandalized my mother's parents and the very fact that a 16 year old daugher had run away with a man even if he had married her and that he was 17, and that it implied they had had sex meant that my grandparents were some how terrible parents. This is the early 1960's remember and so my grandparents thought it reflected extremely poorly upon them that one of their daughters had run around with a boy even if they later got married. Those caused a tremendous amount of ill will between my grandparents and my aunt Alice. So much so that Alice and her husband ran away to Michigan and we saw them only a few times in the next decades.

So anyway, when one of Alice's daughers was molested by my Aunt Susan's husband Alice didn't blame my aunt Susan's husband (who she quickly divorced) but instead restarted a decades old feud with my mother's father (my grandfather). Really the two of them were fighting about things which had occured decades ago, however, neither of them could seem to let the past remain in the past.

During this time I came of age and I became very close to my grandfather. My grandfather had always wanted a son but he had had four daughers. My aunt Alice had had a sone however my my cousin Thomas lived in another state and was never close to my grandfather. I, on the other hand, lived close to my grandfather so I became the son he never had and although I didn't understand it at the time I formed an extemely close bond with my grandfather. I was luckly that both my father and my mother's parents lived with in one mile of each other so I could easily visit both. In fact in high school if I was bored my parents would pay for gas so I could go visit both of my grandparents and thus I spent lots of time with both. I think I was closer with my mother's father though; I was simply the only male family he had close to him so he confided in me, told me his life story, and made me feel special. Some times he would even visit my family in San Diego and bring a gift just for me because he said he saw it and thought of me. It sounds vain but my grandfather truly thought of me as the son he never had.

So anyway my grandfather and my aunt Alice had an ongoing feud. My grandparents thought Alice was a dishonorable daughter and Alice thought my grandparents were to ridged and forceful. So when my Aunt Susan's huaband sexually molested one of Alice's daughters it became a battle between my grandfather and Alice. It didn't matter that my grandfather was 200 miles away and knew nothing, it was as if Alice was 16 again and he father was disapproving of her behavior.

The end result is even though my aunt Susie divorced her husband for molesting her niece my aunt Alice blamed my grandfather and continued to turn the knife in him at every chance. The poor man died begging for a reconcieliation with Alice yest Alice hung up the phone on him. What is worse is Alice told her three chirden they'd be disenherited if they so much as spoke with their grandfather. When my grandfather lay dying he twice called Alice to make amends but she refused his phone calls. He called my cousins, Alices three children and the bastards refused to accept his calls. I became extremely angry at nor just my aunt but also at my cousins. I felt they had no right to question my grandfather and I was angry that they had taken their mother's side without ever even asking my grandfather what his side was. That a dying man was left calling their number and never recieved an anwser just meant they were scum in my mind. I didn't think I could ever forgive them.

[laurentius]

Sorry to hear your aunt has gone away. Though from the story I thought she might have been fortunate enough to have lived a happy life.

The rest of the story is pretty sad. In my family there is some bad blood too between my parents and my mother's brothers and her sister. My mother has not spoken to them for 14 years now. She never told me and my brother not to keep contact with them though we haven't really kept in contact with them anyway. Only I have had some contact with my uncle who lives in Baltimore. Other than that the only bond between my mother and her siblings has been my grandfathers maid who has always been a sort of replacement grandmother for me and my brother since our grandma lived the last 50 years of her life in a mental asylum.

I think feuds and bad blood are really a terrible waste especially in cases like with your grandfather trying to make amends while facing death. Your aunt Alice must have been deeply traumatized for her children to be molested. Now she was just projecting her anger on you grandfather for a number of reasons. It could have been as little as one word he said or didnt say to her after it happened. Maybe she felt like she wasent getting enough support from her father when she most needed it. From my own experiences these are some of the deeply sad fates you meet in life. Lets just make sure they wont happen to us.

[Zkribbler]

[Odin]

[Spiffor]

I'm sorry for your loss Oerdin

Looks like she overcame the obstacles and managed to live a happy life. That's the most important thing to remember.