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mousmeGod, today was rough.
The whole family fell apart one after the other, and I was there to pick up the pieces afterwards, as usual.
Funeral was lovely, very sober and dignified, the way Grandpapa would have wanted it. Priest slightly long–winded, but not overly so. Paternal Unit's eulogy was very moving.
Poor Tante Margo. She wrote a poem for Grandpapa and read it to my father over the phone. She has no idea what kind of effect she had on him. I've never seen my father cry like that before. He sobbed like a child and my mother had to take him into the bedroom to calm him down.
My aunt's horde of children took over the appartment afterwards, along with my three uncles and my aunt Marie and her daughter Sophie. True to form, the Brunelles ate and drank us out of house and home, amidst much nostalgia and tears and a lot of pompous bullshit out of cousin Dimitri, my aunt Dominique's second son by Bernard de Rome (one kid per husband/lover). He got very drunk (a quarter of a bottle of gin and three eighths of a bottle of scotch on top of three glasses of wine and two bottles of beer will do that to you), and carried on about how "free" my grandfather was, and what an inspiration it was, and how he'd liberated all his children, etc etc.
I nearly puked. I mean, it's one thing to praise the man for his qualities. He did have a lot of them. It's another to dishonour his memory by being dishonest about who Jean Brunelle really was. The last twenty years of his life were profoundly sad and isolated, and he was a very angry, bitter, violent and difficult man. He was also profoundly religious, devoted to the social causes he felt were just, and had a very strict personal code of ethics. He was proud and tormented and had a very difficult life, and I'm not sure he was ever really happy.
To pretend otherwise really just sickens me. I loved and still love my grandfather, but I don't let that interfere with my judgement, nor do I let my judgement interfere with my love for him.
There, I've said it. I couldn't say it anywhere else, because the time just isn't right.
I'm worried about my father, though. He's in such a state, and he's leaving again for Moscow tomorrow night. I'm just afraid he's not in any kind of state to travel, and that something will happen to him because he's so fragile right now.
I suppose the only thing I can do is cross my fingers and hope.
The whole family fell apart one after the other, and I was there to pick up the pieces afterwards, as usual.
Funeral was lovely, very sober and dignified, the way Grandpapa would have wanted it. Priest slightly long–winded, but not overly so. Paternal Unit's eulogy was very moving.
Poor Tante Margo. She wrote a poem for Grandpapa and read it to my father over the phone. She has no idea what kind of effect she had on him. I've never seen my father cry like that before. He sobbed like a child and my mother had to take him into the bedroom to calm him down.
My aunt's horde of children took over the appartment afterwards, along with my three uncles and my aunt Marie and her daughter Sophie. True to form, the Brunelles ate and drank us out of house and home, amidst much nostalgia and tears and a lot of pompous bullshit out of cousin Dimitri, my aunt Dominique's second son by Bernard de Rome (one kid per husband/lover). He got very drunk (a quarter of a bottle of gin and three eighths of a bottle of scotch on top of three glasses of wine and two bottles of beer will do that to you), and carried on about how "free" my grandfather was, and what an inspiration it was, and how he'd liberated all his children, etc etc.
I nearly puked. I mean, it's one thing to praise the man for his qualities. He did have a lot of them. It's another to dishonour his memory by being dishonest about who Jean Brunelle really was. The last twenty years of his life were profoundly sad and isolated, and he was a very angry, bitter, violent and difficult man. He was also profoundly religious, devoted to the social causes he felt were just, and had a very strict personal code of ethics. He was proud and tormented and had a very difficult life, and I'm not sure he was ever really happy.
To pretend otherwise really just sickens me. I loved and still love my grandfather, but I don't let that interfere with my judgement, nor do I let my judgement interfere with my love for him.
There, I've said it. I couldn't say it anywhere else, because the time just isn't right.
I'm worried about my father, though. He's in such a state, and he's leaving again for Moscow tomorrow night. I'm just afraid he's not in any kind of state to travel, and that something will happen to him because he's so fragile right now.
I suppose the only thing I can do is cross my fingers and hope.
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no subject
Date: 2002-05-04 07:46 pm (UTC)*picks up*
*squeezes*
*puts back down again*