I Shaved My Balls For This?

I have a twisted sense of humor. This came in handy after my husband killed himself. Dark humor carried me through the planning, the fucking obituary (I’ll explain that), and the memorial service.

I had little or no say in how it would all go down. His family took over and told me what I was going to do. They were pissed at me because instead of calling Pete’s mom myself, I sent the police to her house to inform her. I did this for specific reasons. She lives alone. Pete’s step father lives a half an hour away. I requested that specific officers be dispatched so that she knew them. I knew they would comfort her and wait with her if she needed it. They grew up with Pete. I thought that would be better than me just calling her and saying, “Pete hung himself. Good bye.” I mean, what’s a girl to do. I was in shock and could barely communicate with the police let alone tell someone their child was dead. So, they cut me out of everything except the packing and shipping of him home. The obituary was written by his mother and was basically all about how influential his family had been in settling the town of Lee, Massachusetts. It talked about him raising rabbits for 4-H, it had nothing about the man he had become, what he had accomplished and that sort of thing. This is because they didn’t really know him. Their relationship was superficial. The obit was a joke. More than a dozen people asked me, “What’s up with the obituary?” I would just tell them I had nothing to do with it and shake my head.

The memorial service was even more embarrassing. The pastor at the church had never met Pete and I didn’t have time to meet with him before the service so he basically read the dreaded obituary and that was it. We did pray and a family friend played a song on his guitar but that was the extent of it. The only piece of me and Pete was the rocked up version of Amazing Grace that the organist played. Pete had wanted the Drop Kick Murphy’s version played at his memorial. Pete wanted a lot of things that he did not get because these people refused to talk to me.

Pete wanted to be cremated immediately. He did not want to be embalmed, made up and put on display. We had talked extensively about our wishes should something happen to one of us. I knew what he wanted. They didn’t. They insisted on seeing him one last time before he was cremated. I had to go along with that; you know the whole closure thing. So I told the funeral director that I worked with in Florida that I did not want any make up on him. I simply wanted him embalmed, dressed, and shipped to Massachusetts. He agreed and asked me to bring him the clothes I would like him dressed in. Ok, so, here is the only other part of this big charade that I had a choice over.

My mom and I went to my house to look for clothes for him. While she was in the closet pulling out dress shirts I was going through his t-shirt drawer. We decided to go with a t-shirt as that was more his style. Now here is where it gets good. I had a habit of picking up shirts for him with funny sayings on them. One of his favorite shirts said in big blue letters, “I shaved my balls for this?” I couldn’t resist. I had to send him home in that. I can just imagine the looks on their faces when they caught sight of that. My mom, the funeral director in Florida, and I thought it was hysterical. Unfortunately the humor was probably lost on his family as they are kind of stuffy, but I got one over on them. For that I am proud. At least one thing went my way.