No one should ever die alone. You should be surrounded by friends and family. You should never find out months later that your family member died. And not just anyone. A long lost cousin or estranged Uncle Pervert. No, you find that your father, your grandfather died. Months ago.

You find out by visiting a gravesite and seeing a new stone/marker. You find out by a random phone call.

Yet, this is exactly what happened. On May 8, 2006, my husbands grandfather died. How? We have no idea. Where? Kern county is the closest definite answer.

And it pisses me off. Really makes me angry. Not that he died. He was 86 and had lived a long and full life. It pisses me off that once more my husband, his sister and his parents have been robbed of the passing. Robbed of the transition. Robbed of the final stages of the journey.

These irreplaceable moments and years were stolen from them by Uncle J and Aunt Freakin' Nutjob. Truly malevolent people. The kind of people who create situations whereby they mysteriously end up with ALL the inheritance. No matter how small. No matter how great.

The kind of people who call just to scream obscenities. The kind of people who threaten fragile women and manipulate senile old men.

They are bullies. All grown up to be sure. But bullies nonetheless.

I am FURIOUS! Furious that they control "the family" through their stupidity and selfishness. Furious that my mother in law can never say goodbye or reconcile with her father. Furious that my husband's last memory of his grandfather will be the venomous attack that his uncle and aunt launched upon his character and the disintegration of a decades rich relationship with his grandfather. He will remember how he was thrown aside as nonchalantly as an old sock.

Maybe I should have some compassion for what my husband and in-laws are going through. Maybe someday soon I will.

For the moment? I see good and kind people being taken advantage of. I see greed triumphing over good intentions. I see an old man once ripped from his own home, manipulated into believing that those who have given YEARS of their lives to care for him are the ones who hate him and then, eventually, reduced to destitution and left to die in the asshole of California. How he lived for 6 years there I will never know.

Don't ask me for a sweet response right now. If I could force repentance and restitution right now I would.

I wouldn't care how.