Death

I've always heard that death brings out the best and worst in people. I'm assuming they mean in the people still living. I'm pretty sure once humans die, they are dead and don't change much.

This past weekend, I attended the funeral of the mother of a friend. I never met the deceased, but had heard stories about her from my friend. My friend is like me and so many of my friends . . . you know who is important in our lives by the people we talk about. My friend would refer to her grandmother who she loved dearly and who she misses, and her evil grandmother. Evil grandmother is my friend's father's mother. And, the night before the funeral, while good southerners were bringing casseroles and ham biscuits to the family's home, the evil grandmother threw a hissy fit because no one was paying attention to her. The first round of the hissy fit, her son (the deceased husband) took her aside and quietly explained that now was not the time to hog the spotlight. A bit later, when the hissy fit reappeared, it was my friend's turn to take her grandmother aside. Her grandmother pulled back to hit my friend. My friend caught her hand . . . and the grandmother put her other hand up to hit . . . and my friend caught that hand too. So, the evil grandmother head butted my friend.

Today, we realized that my friend was going to be okay when she looked at a co-worker and said "don't make me head butt you . . . you know it runs in my family."

I relayed this story to another friend. She told me about how her grandfather confessed, 24 hours before he died, that he'd fathered two children outside his marriage.

I need to re-evaluate how I'm living my life. I can't imagine having anything juicy to confess on my death bed. I pretty much have told it all already.