On the Prowl

Thursday, December 20, 2012

I've Gone and Dun it!!!

Well Folks, this should have been posted back in June, 2012.  But for some reason it didn't.  I'll give you an up date later.  But Yep, I've Dun it!

I've gone and dun it.

Yup!  Put in to retire from my job after nearly 45 years of working at it;  well if I count the years that I worked when I was going to school make that closer to 47 years.

Now I know some of you are thinkin'  "Hey!  I thought you were going to work forever?"   Well that all changed a few weeks ago.

My brother Bubba and Mrs. Bubba, well my sister in law had a younger sister---now Angel (the names have been changed to protect the innocent), in many ways her life was sort of parraell to mine, almost the same in certain ways.

But things didn't work out for her, 2 failed marriages, unable to have children, then stuck in taking care of her father who was, I thought, the most selfish, self-centered, meanest old man I've ever met.  Put the Mother though hell too.  Well the old man died---darn near killed the Mother too---but that old man planted a seed in the Mother's mind---don't sell the house and move.

Well the Mother was up there in years and she needed care, and the house was in a very bad location---what I call the "drive-by shooting range".   Angel had been working and taking care of both parents, Dad was now dead, but Mom didn't want to move.  Angel couldn't leave her Mom alone and have any kind of social life because of where they lived.  She was stuck.

Of course Bubba and Mrs. Bubba did the best they could but with three kids to raise it wasn't easy.

But Angel had not support system---no hospice or support care group wanted to come to the house because of the location...So what Angel did to numb herself from her predicament was drink.

She didn't drink while working no---she'd just drink when she got home to her stubborn Mother, she told me that she'd hope a stray bullet would find her.  Never happened.

Well the drinking did damage to her liver and kidneys---she was not a good canidate for a transplant.

She suffered from organ failure and died....then and only then did her Mother finally decides to move out of the house,  she doesn't sell it---because she wants to say she plans to move back in---so she rents it on a month to month.

But Angel died, not having lived her life---I went to the funeral and I can tell you no amount of pink embalming fluid (did you know that stuff comes in colors) could remove the grey from her face or the suffering that one could see.

Bubba and Ms. Bubba come to me all guilty but I told them that they did all they could do,  It was the Mother and the late Father that put Angel into that Hell, not them.

But then I began thinking,  my life is pretty good, I was lucky, I was working, but I called my retirement board and had some numbers crunched---Heck by working I was losing money---I'd make more by being retired. 

So finding out what would be covered in my retirement and what would not,  I put in for it. 

A BIG STEP....and one in which I'll need to get started on a new routine.

I also decided to plan my funeral---Angel's cost $16,000 dollars!!!!  For what??  A Box? A hole in the ground?  And a piece of stone on top?    That is like way too much.

So I told Hunka and Bubba---when I die, just transport me from where ever I died to one particular funeral home---immediately cremate me--no box, no embalming---then have the container with my ashes on a table, my picture (the best one) next to it and one rose in a vase---no flowers---donate to a charity--simple memorial service-then take that box have a small hole dug and put a flat stone on it, make it simple with my name--date of birth and death and the words  "I'll---Be---Back!"   on it---just to freak out the Normals.

I figure it will be very interesting in the next life, and Yeah---I do plan to come back and do it all over again---I must be a glutten for punishment.

Mean Kitty signing off---thinking.