After eight years with leukemia, and about seven months bedridden, my Nonnie passed away last Saturday. We are burying her this Saturday, February 28th, to mark her 78th birthday.

I wish I could say it is one of those times in your life when your family and friends come together and you feel, if not exactly - at least in some twisted demento world, like the Cleaver family. Unfortunately, that has not been the case for my mother, my Aunt Kathy, and my grandfather - who have singlehandedly done the bulk of the "work" of taking care of my grandmother these past few months (my grandfather even developed a hernia through all this and just got out of surgery on Tuesday). We opted to have a wake and a private family-only funeral, and now we are actually fielding calls from family friends who are expressing their dissapointment at not being invited to the interment. I can't believe people are so rude as to put their grieving before that of the immediate family. I understand that people are upset, and that they came and sat with Nonnie while she was sick - some of them even changed her, fed her, and bathed her - but honestly, where do they get off?! After expending so much emotional and physical energy for seven months, who has anything left to console others? Why should my mother dread the wake and funeral, knowing that they will be occassions for her to listen to other peoples' sorrows instead of being able to grieve for her own mother? I don't understand how people can be so cruel.

In any case, I am in Massachusetts for the services, and especially for my mom. I am quite stoic, as per my usual self, dealing out "thank you's" and hugs and a listening ear. As you can imagine, my house has been much like a revolving door since I arrived, and I have heard many stories about my grandmother that have made us all laugh and cry... My only wish is that this wasn't so stressful for my mom. She's a real survivor, that lady. Only a few more days and this will all be over.

Well, for the most part. There is always the question of my grandmother's belongings. My sincerest hope is that, in these past several months while she was sick, no one has stolen any of her things. I don't know if there's a will or not, but that doesn't matter. I want things to be as Nonnie wanted them, and, barring that possibility, as the family decides as a unit. Frankly, it pisses me off when I find out that things have gone missing from the house. Since my grandmother is a packrat, it is still possible that things are just lost, not missing. So I hope for that.

(Sigh.) The whole situation just makes me angry. This should be a time for people to remember who she was, in the good and bad times, and to cherish those memories. It shouldn't be a time to disrespect the family, forge new arguments, and steal from my grandmother....

With that in mind, while I was jogging around the cemetery this morning (I know - how morose! Even more so when you consider that they were actually digging my grandmother's plot today...), I was thinking about the future. More specifically, about the day when mine is no longer up to me - when I die. And I decided that when I die (barring a future will and any changes therein), I want to be cremated. There will be NO funeral and NO wake. A group of my friends and closest family members will be invited to take my ashes on "vacation" to some distant country to which I've never trekked, and pour my remains in some body of water so I can travel for as long as my ashes will be carried. That's it. No great revelations, no wearing black - nothing. I just want someone to bring me on some permanent vacation...

Well, that's enough of that. I wanted to give those of you who are wondering about me a heads up, and even for those of you who are NOT wondering, I wanted to make you wish you were.

I love you all.