Thursday, April 2, 2009

my heart... kind of hurts...




On march 26th my Grandma Meier (dad's mom) passed away. It was weird for my family. My dad passed away 5 years ago, and we never really had a relationship with his side of the family. They have always been foreign and weird and always a sore subject for my mom and dad. My mom didn't get along with my dad's family, and my dad was always kind of the black sheep. I know in the beginning my mom tried, like every young bride does, but it just never worked. The year my dad was admitted to an inpatient treatment facility for depression was the end of my mothers relationship with his family. I was in 6th grade. My dad's parents had called my mom, and protested that she let them take him out of the facility, they would take care of him since she could not. They had a priest lined up, that was going to cure him.... the catholic faith.


When my parents married, my mom was not catholic, she converted, cause she had to. The morning of their wedding my grandma told my dad he didn't have to marry her, he could just not show up. All these things of course he told my mom, which really didn't help much. My Mom was not what my grandma wanted for my dad. She was young, she was not catholic, she was not right.





We all as young wives and mothers now how much that would suck. How awkward it is becoming a part of a new family and how insecure we are. My mother never got over it, and the relationship never got better.



My dad was a twin. When he and peter were born, my dad was small. He stayed in the hospital a month longer than his twin brother. My Grandma had three kids under the age of four and a newborn twin at home, my mom says my dad never got the bonding that is so precious at the beginning of life. It kind of continued through out his life, he never really fit in. His twin brother Peter became a Catholic Priest, he is an Ass. My grandpa was in the seminary before he went into the navy and met my grandmother, he talked often about missing his calling, I don't think anything could have made them prouder than having a son become a priest. Peter was kicked out of three seminaries in the U.S. He became a priest by default in Guatemala, they had a shortage, so poof, he became a priest.
He didn't come to my dad's funeral, his own twin brother, because of a fight they had gotten into years before. He participated as a priest in his own mothers funeral, and gave a horrible, mean, disgusting sermon. At his MOTHERS Funeral. People actually got up and walked out. I guess the family had had some problems with him, and he was not allowed to visit his parents. His brothers and sisters had to make the horrible decision to ban him from her hospital room. How horrible. The family had told the Priest of the church they did not want him speaking at the funeral. The priest said he could control him and he would just do one of the readings. He didn't, after he was done speaking the head priest said, "now lets re-focus on the love and life of Helen Joan Meier." What an ass. He did not attend the burial or the luncheon following the burial. I wanted to spit on him.

I always want to see the good in people, I felt my view of my uncle and my dad's family was skewed by stories told by my mom, I thought she was exaggerating. I feel sorry for my dad, to have lived a life overshadowed by a man that is seriously messed up. No wonder my dad had issues.

My uncles were apologizing to people at the funeral, my uncle Tom whispered quietly to my older sister, "I am sorry you had to hear that." My sister said "it's okay, I couldn't really understand him, he was talking so loud." "I am wearing dad's rosary and covered it up while Peter was speaking, I figured he didn't need to hear it either." It made my uncle Tom laugh, and cry.

My aunts are the sweetest, most precious woman, they took the brunt of insults from Peter, My mom had always said he had issues with woman. I didn't believe her till now.

I have good things to say about my dad's family, I have many more pictures, right now I just needed to get that out. I haven't slept very well the last couple of nights and keep having horrible dreams. Maybe writing some of this out will help purge it from my head. I have been praying alot, and can't seem to get the voice of the catholic priests out of my head... it sucks....


Can you tell which little man is my dad?

0 comments: