The State of the Union

The Union being me....

My Grandmother passed away recently, which has been yet another cause of my blog silence. For all thewell wishers, it's much appreciated. For those concerned, I'm handling it pretty well, actually most of the family is, she had been ill for quite awhile (you may remember me posting about it a few months back) so this wasn't entirely unexpected. She was recovering pretty nicely, but he blood sugar began to drop and it could never be stabalized, simply put, she fell asleep and never woke up. My only wish is that it wasn't painful in any way.

I was pretty close to her up until a few years ago, when she moved to Oklahoma with two of her sons and their families. Regrettably by then our relationship was strained, mostly due to her refusal to eliminate a few choice people who did nothing but steal from her and swindle her out of any money she had. It boils down to stereotypical old-folks-money syndrome. Me being the hard headed person that I am, I gave an ultimatum. It's a choice I regret, because of the rift it caused, but it's one I've come to live with.

Her health had been declinig rapidly before this last year, mostly due to he life long smoking habit. So, I'm gonna pause here and plead with anyone out there smoking cigarettes, please stop. You're killing yourself and those of us around you. Stop.

I'm going to avoid the pity-party, I'm hoping I'm well past that portion of this. I'd like to think i'm getting to acceptance, but I don't think that'll happen until the funeral.

See, we haven't gotten to have the funeral yet.

Why?

Basically the state of Oklahoma is holding my dead grandmother's body hostage. She's been dead for a number of days, and she's been embalmed, but they have not cleared her to be flown her to Georgia for the funeral. We're not sure why, and it's possible she could be on her way tomorrow, we can only hope.

No one can give us a logical explination as to why she can't be sent here yet, and when the funeral hom called on our behalf this is what they were told, verbatum: "She can be first in line for a flight tomorrow, or she can be last, depending on how you handle this conversation with me."

What?

What the F^&* does that mean?

We're talking about a grieving family, quite a few who have already travelled from Oklahoma to come to the funeral, and the state of Oklahoma, or maybe it's just Oklahoma City, is keeping us from laying to rest a woman that we all loved, and our funeral home is being blackmailed into acting civil to these assholes, excuse my frankness. For what reason?

I'd like to know, but no one can tell me.

So, let this be a huge lesson to all of you; whatever you do, don't die in Oklahoma.

-L