girlofprey (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
girlofprey) wrote2012-06-17 10:38 pm
girlofprey) wrote2012-06-17 10:38 pm
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So, we had my grandma's funeral on Thursday. And the day before that I went to see her body in the Chapel Of Rest. Wednesday was funny really, because even though my dad had said she was in the Chapel Of Rest the day before, I hadn't really considered going to see her properly. And on Wednesday morning I had to go out to a course at 10am in Wakefield, and then I was running around getting a top for the funeral and a card for Father's Day. I got home at about quarter past 3, thinking that was it for the day and I could just rest and get ready for the funeral tomorrow, and my dad said that he was going to the Chapel Of Rest with my mum and sister at 4 o'clock, and did I want to come?
After a bit of thought I decided I did, but it turned out that we were meeting my mum, sister and three nephews in town before going, because my sister was still buying herself and her partner clothes for the funeral. So mum and I had to wait outside with the kids while my dad and sister went in. Then my dad and sister came out, and my mum and I went in, and a few seconds later my sister came bursting back in through the door with my YN in a pushchair, because my dad had gone to do something about his suit and both my ON and MN had gone with him, so she was free and wanted a few more seconds with my grandma. Which...was a little invasive on our/my time frankly, considering she'd already been in for about 5 or 10 minutes, and the Chapel Of Rest was closing shortly. But whatever. Anyway, she left after a minute or two, and it was just me and mum. Then mum left and I stayed for a bit. I ended up sort of properly sobbing in there, which I haven't done for a long time. But it was good to see her, and good to say goodbye.
And the next day was the funeral. My sister was late - mum, dad and I live just down the hill from my grandma's house, where all the cars were going from, and we got up there for about quarter past 10. The cars were supposed to be going from there at quarter to 11, and they turned up at about twenty to, and despite lots of calling and stuff my sister didn't turn up until about ten to 11. Apparently the taxi was late. Then she tried to put the baby in a different car to us and her - someone suggested that the carseat might not fit in the funeral car, so she literally turned to I think just the nearest car to us and asked if she could put him in with them, and said "he's no trouble". My parents and the funeral car driver convinced her he'd be fine in our car.
The mass was a distinct difference from the Chapel Of Rest the day before. It was sad, but because my grandma was being buried a few towns over where my grandad and uncle are buried, and because we don't go to church that much anyway, we didn't know any of the hymns. There were only two, but we didn't know them, so we just had to guess at the tune as we were singing. And my dad was next to me, clearly doing the same, and singing in a slightly higher pitch than he normally does. I nearly lost it a few times, had horrible visions of having to run out of the church laughing hysterically, and had to keep looking at the coffin to make myself sad again. But it was a nice service, and the priest was really nice, and my YN was really good. My mum had to keep entertaining him and my sister had to make him a bottle, but still.
Afterwards, I realised that my grandma's brother and older sister were there, which was a little sad - my grandma was one of about six or seven children I think, and they're all that's left, and her sister Nora is 98, and her son died in the last couple of years. Possibly her only son. She was crying in the graveyard. It's not like I'm desperate to die any time soon, or I'd like to die relatively young, but it must be sad to outlive so many people you know. And then we went back to a pub near our/my grandma's house for the wake. In between, my sister started going on about a ring of my grandma's - apparently she claims my grandma promised her it after she died, and something else, but my aunt says my grandma also promised HER it, and given that she's my grandma's daughter and there doesn't seem to be anything in writing about it, I assumed the matter was settled. But my sister sounded ready to fight for it. I genuinely couldn't tell if she was serious, or just sort of upset over the day and saying anything to fill the space. She also claimed in the car that she and her partner were my grandma's 'favourites' at the end, in front of me and my dad. Whatever.
The wake was interesting. There was a lot of family there, and most of them I only half-recognised. I haven't seen most of them since I was about 10 and used to go to the big family parties we either stopped having, or our side of the family stopped getting invited to. And it was strange, because I'm not normally a big talker, but I ended up talking to quite a few of them. It was a little awkward not doing, really, but a lot of them were really nice. And it ended up being a pretty good thing that my sister brought my YN, because he was a big hit, and always a pretty solid talking point. The wake ended up going on till after half past 3, so my mum ended up also going to get my ON and MN from school, and bringing them over. There weren't many people left there, but my MN was pretty good and talked nicely to a couple of people. My ON was upset about having to see anyone and not being able to go and play on the playground outside, said he was ignoring anyone who talked to him and called everyone idiots and said he hated them, and then pooed himself. He's seven. But apart from that, it was really nice.
And then it was all over, really. It was a bit weird for me, because I don't consider myself religious anymore, so it was odd hearing everything the priest was saying about my grandma and the afterlife and stuff. And when one of my relatives suddenly brought up something that happened to Jesus casually in conversation. But I do think it's good to have those kinds of send-offs whether you're religious and believe in an afterlife or not, because it's nice to have that sort of closure, and put a sort of cap on their lives and look back and remember them, and to have a gathering of people who knew them. So it was a sad day, but pretty good overall.
So that was the main part of the week, really. But it wasn't too sad overall - it was, but she'd been ill and sort of mentally not herself for so long and she was so old that we were all ready for it really, I think. It was a nice day.
Other than that, I am still playing computer games. LA Noire continues to be slightly annoying - a big part of it is questioning people and doing interrogations, and you mostly have to either check your evidence or watch their faces to figure out if they're lying or not. But sometimes it's not clear which bit of evidence proves which thing, or if they'll talk about something completely different based on that bit of evidence. And you're supposed to be able to tell if they're lying if they look away from you, but sometimes they look away and are telling the truth, and sometimes they're looking right at you and are just really good at lying. It's frustrating. Also, you're playing as kind of a dick. But I'm guessing that's mostly to try to explain how he can be a detective and still so shit at interrogating people sometimes.
However, we have a new-ish character. A cop with a strong Irish accent. Do you think he's:
A) Good?
Or
B) Evil?
Also we have a new character with a Southern accent. Do you think he's:
A) Good?
Or
B) A paedophile?
It saddens me slightly how much American fandoms hate people with Southern accents sometimes. Southern accents are often kind of beautiful.
On TV, and on a similar note, I saw an amazing new documentary series the other day. It's called 'Moonshiners', and it on the one hand follows people in Southern America who are making and bootlegging moonshine, and on the other hand also follows the police trying to catch people making and bootlegging moonshine. The camera crews must get so much side-eye from both sets of people they're following. They do have one lovely character though who said that he makes moonshine because it pays, and because he loves it, "And what can you replace something you love with? Nothing." Heart.
In other TV news, Springwatch has finished, and yesterday I saw a Poirot where Poirot basically looked up a schoolgirl's skirt, WITH HONOURABLE INTENTIONS, and then gave another schoolgirl a priceless jewel that technically belonged to another country. Why is Poirot such a dick? Also today I watched a bit of tennis, where the Queen's Tournament final ended suddenly in a default, when one of the player's kicked an official. David Nalbandian. Just an hour or so before my mum had told me she didn't want him to win because "he's not a nice person, he's just unpleasant". I believe her now.
I'm off now to play Dead Space 2. I'm also enjoying that...it's a bit more crash-bang-wallop than the first one, in some ways, and it's starting to get hard sometimes in the annoying way that Dead Space did. But it is still good in a lot of the same way. I sincerely hope it doesn't go rubbish at any point soon.
After a bit of thought I decided I did, but it turned out that we were meeting my mum, sister and three nephews in town before going, because my sister was still buying herself and her partner clothes for the funeral. So mum and I had to wait outside with the kids while my dad and sister went in. Then my dad and sister came out, and my mum and I went in, and a few seconds later my sister came bursting back in through the door with my YN in a pushchair, because my dad had gone to do something about his suit and both my ON and MN had gone with him, so she was free and wanted a few more seconds with my grandma. Which...was a little invasive on our/my time frankly, considering she'd already been in for about 5 or 10 minutes, and the Chapel Of Rest was closing shortly. But whatever. Anyway, she left after a minute or two, and it was just me and mum. Then mum left and I stayed for a bit. I ended up sort of properly sobbing in there, which I haven't done for a long time. But it was good to see her, and good to say goodbye.
And the next day was the funeral. My sister was late - mum, dad and I live just down the hill from my grandma's house, where all the cars were going from, and we got up there for about quarter past 10. The cars were supposed to be going from there at quarter to 11, and they turned up at about twenty to, and despite lots of calling and stuff my sister didn't turn up until about ten to 11. Apparently the taxi was late. Then she tried to put the baby in a different car to us and her - someone suggested that the carseat might not fit in the funeral car, so she literally turned to I think just the nearest car to us and asked if she could put him in with them, and said "he's no trouble". My parents and the funeral car driver convinced her he'd be fine in our car.
The mass was a distinct difference from the Chapel Of Rest the day before. It was sad, but because my grandma was being buried a few towns over where my grandad and uncle are buried, and because we don't go to church that much anyway, we didn't know any of the hymns. There were only two, but we didn't know them, so we just had to guess at the tune as we were singing. And my dad was next to me, clearly doing the same, and singing in a slightly higher pitch than he normally does. I nearly lost it a few times, had horrible visions of having to run out of the church laughing hysterically, and had to keep looking at the coffin to make myself sad again. But it was a nice service, and the priest was really nice, and my YN was really good. My mum had to keep entertaining him and my sister had to make him a bottle, but still.
Afterwards, I realised that my grandma's brother and older sister were there, which was a little sad - my grandma was one of about six or seven children I think, and they're all that's left, and her sister Nora is 98, and her son died in the last couple of years. Possibly her only son. She was crying in the graveyard. It's not like I'm desperate to die any time soon, or I'd like to die relatively young, but it must be sad to outlive so many people you know. And then we went back to a pub near our/my grandma's house for the wake. In between, my sister started going on about a ring of my grandma's - apparently she claims my grandma promised her it after she died, and something else, but my aunt says my grandma also promised HER it, and given that she's my grandma's daughter and there doesn't seem to be anything in writing about it, I assumed the matter was settled. But my sister sounded ready to fight for it. I genuinely couldn't tell if she was serious, or just sort of upset over the day and saying anything to fill the space. She also claimed in the car that she and her partner were my grandma's 'favourites' at the end, in front of me and my dad. Whatever.
The wake was interesting. There was a lot of family there, and most of them I only half-recognised. I haven't seen most of them since I was about 10 and used to go to the big family parties we either stopped having, or our side of the family stopped getting invited to. And it was strange, because I'm not normally a big talker, but I ended up talking to quite a few of them. It was a little awkward not doing, really, but a lot of them were really nice. And it ended up being a pretty good thing that my sister brought my YN, because he was a big hit, and always a pretty solid talking point. The wake ended up going on till after half past 3, so my mum ended up also going to get my ON and MN from school, and bringing them over. There weren't many people left there, but my MN was pretty good and talked nicely to a couple of people. My ON was upset about having to see anyone and not being able to go and play on the playground outside, said he was ignoring anyone who talked to him and called everyone idiots and said he hated them, and then pooed himself. He's seven. But apart from that, it was really nice.
And then it was all over, really. It was a bit weird for me, because I don't consider myself religious anymore, so it was odd hearing everything the priest was saying about my grandma and the afterlife and stuff. And when one of my relatives suddenly brought up something that happened to Jesus casually in conversation. But I do think it's good to have those kinds of send-offs whether you're religious and believe in an afterlife or not, because it's nice to have that sort of closure, and put a sort of cap on their lives and look back and remember them, and to have a gathering of people who knew them. So it was a sad day, but pretty good overall.
So that was the main part of the week, really. But it wasn't too sad overall - it was, but she'd been ill and sort of mentally not herself for so long and she was so old that we were all ready for it really, I think. It was a nice day.
Other than that, I am still playing computer games. LA Noire continues to be slightly annoying - a big part of it is questioning people and doing interrogations, and you mostly have to either check your evidence or watch their faces to figure out if they're lying or not. But sometimes it's not clear which bit of evidence proves which thing, or if they'll talk about something completely different based on that bit of evidence. And you're supposed to be able to tell if they're lying if they look away from you, but sometimes they look away and are telling the truth, and sometimes they're looking right at you and are just really good at lying. It's frustrating. Also, you're playing as kind of a dick. But I'm guessing that's mostly to try to explain how he can be a detective and still so shit at interrogating people sometimes.
However, we have a new-ish character. A cop with a strong Irish accent. Do you think he's:
A) Good?
Or
B) Evil?
Also we have a new character with a Southern accent. Do you think he's:
A) Good?
Or
B) A paedophile?
It saddens me slightly how much American fandoms hate people with Southern accents sometimes. Southern accents are often kind of beautiful.
On TV, and on a similar note, I saw an amazing new documentary series the other day. It's called 'Moonshiners', and it on the one hand follows people in Southern America who are making and bootlegging moonshine, and on the other hand also follows the police trying to catch people making and bootlegging moonshine. The camera crews must get so much side-eye from both sets of people they're following. They do have one lovely character though who said that he makes moonshine because it pays, and because he loves it, "And what can you replace something you love with? Nothing." Heart.
In other TV news, Springwatch has finished, and yesterday I saw a Poirot where Poirot basically looked up a schoolgirl's skirt, WITH HONOURABLE INTENTIONS, and then gave another schoolgirl a priceless jewel that technically belonged to another country. Why is Poirot such a dick? Also today I watched a bit of tennis, where the Queen's Tournament final ended suddenly in a default, when one of the player's kicked an official. David Nalbandian. Just an hour or so before my mum had told me she didn't want him to win because "he's not a nice person, he's just unpleasant". I believe her now.
I'm off now to play Dead Space 2. I'm also enjoying that...it's a bit more crash-bang-wallop than the first one, in some ways, and it's starting to get hard sometimes in the annoying way that Dead Space did. But it is still good in a lot of the same way. I sincerely hope it doesn't go rubbish at any point soon.