Archive for category Family Drama

Family…You really can’t pick ‘em

Mar 1

Posted by ness in Family Drama | 3 Comments

Family.

You can’t pick them.

You also can’t bludgeon them over the head when they are stupid, dumn hineyholes either.

I’m not talking about my immediate family. Hubby = awesome. Kids = awesome. My sister = Awesome. My other sister, also = kinda awesome. For the first time in a very long time, it’s NOT my inLaws either.

It’s the *other* part of the family. The ones who caused trouble at my dads funeral and subsequently from 10 000 miles away.

The ones who sided with the duplicitous strumpet. The ones who are still being lied to by the two-faced trollip (who has not gone quietly into the night as the rest of us had hoped) and who continue to allow the rift in our family to widen by listening to her inane dishonest drivel.

I’m done talking to her, and she damn well knows it too. But it just really annoys me when she lies to members of my family, who fail to see the untruths, believe her BS, and then try and point fingers at me (and my one sister).

Well guess what suckahs?

I have a finger I can point too, how do you like *thIs* one?

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The Silver Lining

Feb 17

Posted by ness in Big Dreams, Family Drama, Flickr, Graphic Design, Headcase, Hubby, children | 5 Comments

See? I’m feeling slightly upbeat again.

Photo by Tipiro on Flickr Under a Creative Commons Licence

Maybe pretending to be planning to run away yesterday did the trick for me.

Or maybe it’s the deluge of graphic design work that is FALLING OUT OF THE SKIES for me right now.

It might as well be raining money (hands up those of you picturing me doing a nekkid rain dance, with sticks, or wait… better not tell me).

As facetious as that sounds to say that it might as well be raining money, (yes I have no idea how to spell that so I’m going with the wordpress spell checkers version of it) it is MOST welcome.

Yessirree, very welcome.

It’s quite bizarro really, because even some of my old photography clients are emailing me and asking me if I do websites, etc and while the two fields do go hand in hand a lot, it’s kind of like ringing up your doctor and asking them if they do homeopathy. Like I said, not entirely out of left field, but still suprising. Breeeng eeeet on universe!

So it is the joy of design, and the related work that is pulling me out of my funk.

How many people are blessed enough to say that their WORK is keeping them going? I realise how grateful I am to have this stay-at-home-job, given that Skip has been off school since Monday, but the fact that it is the thing that is lifting me up and giving me the will to not just live, but to succeed and reach for my dreams again, is…well, really cool.

My husband has been stellar. The kids have been, well, themselves, except that now, when they reach out for me spontaneously, or Skip turns as he’s leaving the room and says, “I love you SO much Mommy.” it lifts me so  much more than before.

So while the search is always on for a miracle weight loss product, at least my spirits are beginning to lift.

Oh and I still have to share the story with you, of how I’ve seen my dad twice since his death.

But I’m going to make you wait some more.

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Family Drama…I am writing the screen play

Feb 15

Posted by ness in Family Drama, Graphic Design | 2 Comments

Or at least I should be writing the screen play, because I could make a lot of money retelling the story of the family feud that occurred just minutes after my dads funeral ended.

Seriously.

To put you all in the picture, my dad was married three times. The first marriage lasted 17 years and produced 3 children. Boy, Girl, Girl. The second marriage lasted 31 years and produced Boy, and Girl (me). The third marriage was entered into when my dad was 71 and thank god it didn’t produce any kids.

I get along better with the kids from the first marriage (the half sibs) than I do the full sib brother. In fact the full sib brother is such colossal wanker of epic proportions that I doubt we’ll have anything to do with each other ever again.

Two of the half sibs live in Australia, the third lives here in SA and it was she and I who were together most of the time our dad was in hospital and right up until the end. Full sib brother got back from an overseas business trip just 48 hrs before dad kicked the bucket, but at least managed to see him twice.  I’m not even going to start on how wife no 3 barely came to the hospital at all, just occasionally ringing my half sister to find out ‘if it was time’ or not. Yeah. Not going to go there, because I’ll keep you all up reading the longest blog post ever written. Really, it is worthy of a novel.

Anyhoo, so fast forward to the funeral, I designed the order of service sheets by the way, I’d never done one before, but I imagine it’s a bit like designing some first communion invitations, and other religious items. I was really pleased with how they turned out.

Here is the jpg of the proof.  It may look back to front, but remember that it is printed onto A4 stock and then folded in half, so the half with the photographs would have been the front cover, and the stuff on the left, the back. Also, I have made the last name smaller, because frankly, it’s not very common and the last thing I want is my full sib brother reading about what a doosh bag he is. Or maybe I do. As*hat.

I used CoffeeShop Photography’s Photo corners for the photographs corners.

The service itself was good (short). We sang my dads favourite hymns (How great thou art and the Lord is my Shepherd).

Then at the end of the service, my full sib brother decides to accuse me of theft of my fathers goods. I mean the people who were attending the service, were still filing out of the church (off to get some cake and tea), when he decided to pounce and yes, accuse me, and my half sister of theft.

The third wife had basically told a lie, and he’d taken her word against ours.  I’ll explain the whole story tomorrow when I have more time!  Also, take a look at the photograph of my dad as a young man (clearly the photo on the left).

That is what he looks like now.

I know this, because I have seen him.

Twice.

Yes, more on *that* story tomorrow too.

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I Just Saw My Father Pass Away

Feb 9

Posted by ness in Family Drama | 26 Comments

My father has been fighting a battle with cancer. In November 2008 he was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer called Myeloma.

The doctor did not think that he would see Christmas, but said, if he was really lucky, he would have about 3-6 months.

Tonight at 20h10, on the 9th of Feb 2010, he passed away after relapsing a week ago.

I was there.

My sister was there.

He had been unconscious for the last 48hours and we were at the hospital round the clock.

This evening as we were preparing for another ‘all nighter’ he suddenly opened his eyes and looked right at us.

Thankfully, my sister is a highly qualified nursing sister, with years of experience and she knew this was it.

We held him, told him we loved him, and told him that it would be okay to go with his loved ones from the other side.

My father lost a son (my half brother in 1982) and a grandson (my half sisters son in 2007) and we told him that it was okay to go with them, and most of all to not be afraid.

I know that he understood every word that we said.

His breathing slowed, his pulse (which has beaten with a pounding fury for the last week) slowed, and finally stilled.

It was gentle, beautiful and one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had.

I could not have prayed for a more perfect chance to say goodbye.

After 81 years on this planet, my father has moved into the great beyond.

I will see you again Daddy.

I love you always.

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Elisabeth Kubler-Ross had it right

Feb 4

Posted by ness in Family Drama, Hubby, family | 10 Comments

If you have not lost a parent then you have not sat by their bedside looking at them, just skeletons with skin. You have not experienced the godawful smell that accompanies that, that I cant get out of my nose right now.

To sit there and hear there words of denial as they try to convince themselves and you that they’re ‘fine now’ and ‘gosh, what a scare I thought I was a gonner for awhile’ and to know that THEY ARE just DAYS from the inevitable.

To sit and wonder if you should tell them they’re going to be fine or to keep quiet and then to silently obsess about the fact that your silence might speak volumes to them.

To wonder if you should cry and wail and tell them a million times over how much you love them no matter what they might have done in their lives, and as much as you may have written them off, because it might make them feel able to leave this world, and then to not do it because you realise that they don’t even know they’re that ill and doing that would make them panic about the fate that awaits them.

To sit at the fence between life and death and wish for it to just happen already so that you can go on with your life, and then to wish it away just as quickly because, well because it’s an awful thought and you shouldn’t have thought it in the first place.

To sit there and question every action in your own life knowing that one day this will be you, and are you making every second count?

If your spouse still has both parents then they are totally unable to comprehend what you are going through.

Which makes it even harder.

So when you overreact about the fact that, No, you haven’t done the dishes, and SO WHAT that when they respond with equal annoyance, that you simply have to forgive them that counter-reaction because they don’t know any better.

You know that one day when your spouses parents begin their demise that you will be the pinnacle of love and understanding because you’ve been here, and it all feels grossly unfair that you are drawing the short straw, and doing this first.

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