Goodbye, David

This past Friday, my mom's stepbrother, David, died of brain cancer. If my mother knew about this site, I would send her a deepfelt I'm sorry. I didn't really know him that well, but I know he suffered for a very long time with this.

However...

I'm completely pissed that I heard about this TODAY. Hey Lindy, I'm sure you're hearing about this for the first time here but, another family member died and we weren't told about it.

This is a repeated occurance in our family, on both sides. All kinds of people die and no one thinks Lindy and I need to know about it. We're not 4; we're pushing 30. Okay, I'm pushing 30. But still. Mom only emailed me this morning to get help from my dad as a pall bearer. (My mom's paternal family loves my dad...I guess it's because he boinked two of their daughters in succession. My mom's stepsister was the first person my dad moved in with after my parents separated. He was a pall bearer for my mom's dad too.)

I'm assuming the funeral is Thursday because she mentioned it for dad. Here's the exact email:

Melissa,
Please call your dad and tell him to call Grandma Rose. David passed away on Friday and Rose wants him to be a pall bearer for him on Thursday. Ok?

Love You!
Mom

What the fuck? No call ON FRIDAY of honey, I'm sorry to say that David passed away, here are the funeral plans. And the upbeat "Love You!" at the end is just strange. If I knew about this on Friday, I would have been there for my hurting mom.

A few years ago, a GRANDFATHER died and we didn't know about it for two years. Again, we weren't that close because he was our evil stepmother's dad but dammit, he was only of two people in the evil stepfamily that didn't openly hate us as children--sorry, as the foreign stepchildren. We were about 8 and 11 when they got married. But I DO talk to my dad with regularity so why didn't this ever come up? If you're wondering, yes, we should have known about it on our own. You know, one Christmas he's there and maybe by Easter he's not...but yeah, the stepfamily doesn't include us in their holiday/family plans. And our dad is not an advocate for us. We've tried including this part of our family in our life by inviting them to things, but they either a) they accept the invite but fail to show; or b) come and make the meanest, insensitive comments possible. However, dammit we do send Christmas cards to the grandparents-who-were-nicer-to-us, how come no one mentioned we should only address it ONE of them from now on?

so..

Dear Family,

Lindy and I, while much to your chagrin, are a part of the family. No matter how you fluid your definition of family is from one day to the next, we are generally a constant factor. Mom, Dad, you gave birth to us, remember? I know we are adults but your boyfriend or wife is not supposed to overshadow your children ENTIRELY, especially on the big things. We are both parenting children in a stepfamily situation now and know how things are. But the difference is that our kids are loved by all parties, and they always come first.

Mom, I know you chose to tell your boyfriend and forgot to tell us. Dad, I'm sure you just didn't know how to do it after the fact of forgetting to tell us when it happened. But forgetting is no excuse. Imagine how that must feel.

Love,
Melissa