I’ve told this one before, but seriously, I think it bears retelling, AND I still take great joy in it! :D
After the death of my Beloved Partner’s mother, we moved into her Dad’s home to care for him. We attended her funeral in the Veterans cemetery with military honors (she was a WAAC in WWII) and he told my partner “When I go, I want to be buried alongside my wife. Please promise me you will do that.” and my partner replied “yes, Daddy, I promise.” I witnessed it. It was a solemn and yet sacred moment. To me, a promise is a promise, and this was one of the most important of all.
We lived there with FIL, for a year. During that year, he had a heart attack and quintuple bypass surgery. I gave him top notch nursing care as he convalesced. THEN he did what to me is the stupidest thing a man can EVER do… he went to a heart-attack survivors club… and he “met someone”!
“She’s wonderful! I told her all about my surgery, my house, my income, and how lonely I am… and she is so WONDERFUL!!!” Now Dad-In-Law had been an Air Force colonel, a physicist, an engineer, was teaching at a local college, and had a slew of pensions, retirement pay etc. He fell head over heels in love with this woman (I’ll call her GDGD, for Goddam gold digger) and she saw him coming a MILE away!
A week after he met her he was all gooey in love! GDGD was “the One” for him! “I’m having such a difficult time,” he told us “being good! I have to take cold showers! But we want to get married as soon as possible! You girls are going to have to move out and find your own place!” … you see, GDGD wanted him alllll to herself!
FIL moved OUT of the house, into another apartment (GDGD wanted a place of their own, but he HAD to sell the house, don't ya know!) leaving us to watch it while it went on the market. When my Beloved’s birthday happened, FIL brought her a card… but when he told us GDGD was in the car outside, naturally we invited her in! “No, she doesn’t want to meet you.” he said. She wouldn’t speak to us, or even acknowledge that we existed! Same with the rest of his family. She cut them off COLD.
FIL’s grandson suddenly became homeless. He HAD been living with us in FIL’s house. “Where will he go in the summer when school’s out?” Beloved asked her Dad. “He can stay in a motel. My sweetheart doesn’t want to see him.”
After a month, they were married. My FIL got rid of EVERYTHING in a huge garage sale. They ransacked the room WE lived in and sold some of OUR belongings too! FIL took a beautiful cut crystal decanter and glasses set that had been a present to me from my Beloved! When I confronted him, he said “Sweetheart liked it, so I gave it to her.” When I said “That’s THEFT!” he replied “Whatever my Darling wants, she gets.”
We moved to San Francisco. Over the course of a few years, we watched in horror as GDGD isolated the formerly gregarious man, separated him from his own family and grafted him into hers. Her family had a reunion. They flew there. But when his own brother lay dying, she felt “too ill to travel,” and he could not leave her side! Whenever my Beloved called her Dad, SHE was listening in on the extension. Never speaking, but she monitored his EVERY word. She also forced him to wear a jacket and tie in his own home! he could not relax because she thought shirtsleeves were ‘slovenly’! FIL was a deeply religious man, and she managed to separate him from his church, where he had attended for several decades! She ‘felt alone’ on Sundays, but would NOT attend with him… so he stopped going.
It all came to a head one day when he called my Beloved “I want to talk with you about something… but I feel I cannot tell you over the telephone. I need to see you face to face,” he said.
So we flew from California to Albuquerque NM, where they lived. Of COURSE GDGD was right there! She sat, like a silent spider, her eyes NEVER leaving her prisoner/husband, and he of course could not bring up whatever it was that he had wanted to tell my Beloved. When at last he said “Darling, I need to talk to my daughter, please can we have a little time to ourselves?” she replied “No. You’re obviously tired, and you need your rest. You can talk to them tomorrow,.” and he meekly replied “yes, Darling.”
And that was that.
The next morning, Beloved called their home to make a lunch appointment with just the three of us. But the phone was off the hook. We waited. 8:00 AM. Phone off the hook. 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM, still that busy signal. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 1:30. The phone remained off the hook! Finally, we had NO more time! We left for San Francisco with my Beloved in tears. Whatever it was her dad wanted to tell her, we had no more time.
Two days later, after we had gotten back home, my Beloved was at work when the telephone rang. I answered and a male voice asked if my partner was there. “It is about (his name). This is the sheriff. He has died, just a few hours ago, and we are notifying the family.” Naturally I asked to speak to GDGD. In the background I heard her voice “NO! I won’t talk to her!” We were shattered!
She would NOT tell us when or where the funeral was scheduled! My partner was specifically told that she was not welcome at her father’s service. I found the information by calling the newspaper’s obituary editor. The service was to be “non-denominational”, when FIL had been a DEVOUT Episcopalian. He was NOT to be buried by his late wife (despite his specific request to US to make that so!) AND he was NOT to be given military honors at his burial in a secular cemetery!
My Beloved was torn to shreds. She sneaked into the funeral and sat, hidden, in the back row. Finally, she heard the bitter truth. She was entirely disinherited! GDGD got the entire estate along with family pictures and mementos. They meant nothing to her. My partner was absolutely UNABLE to keep her promise to her father. She was heartbroken. I was not. I was coldy furious! I am Asatru. I KEEP promises made, and to me that is a SACRED obligation. That she had been so cruelly deprived of her father’s last words to her, AND of being able to properly bury him was viciously cruel, AND “ergi” (disgraceful, shameful) in Old Norse! It was my sacred DUTY to somehow save this situation.
I bided my time. Every six months, I would call the apartment building in which GDGD lived, to check on her. I would say “This is FedEx, and I have a package for Apartment 210. is Mrs. GDGD in residence?” or I was a “florist” with a delivery or whatever… every six months I got confirmation from the management that the evil witch was still alive… until one year… she wasn’t! Strike time!
We moved like lightning! NOW, my partner was next-of-kin! She spoke to the Air Force. yes, they still had his plot available, with his first wife, my partner’s mother. They would pay for the re-burial. We flew back to Albuquerque and spoke to the priest of the church where he had worshiped for so long. Yes, they would give him a proper memorial Solemn High Mass. We then spoke to the crappy cemetery where he (and now the late Mrs. GDGD) had been buried.
On the date of the disinterment, I made my plans accordingly. I wore a beautiful long (nearly floor length) dark skirt that I had purchased specifically FOR this event. I made certain to have coffee, and a lot of juice for breakfast, and I chugged water several times. We drove to the cemetery and the Colonel’s ashes were removed. We were horrorstruck to see that he had been buried in a FIBERBOARD BOX!!! A cheap crappy little container. I was seething with fury, and something else, as well.
They removed the box, and closed the gravesite. As my partner and the cemetery director went to the office to complete the paperwork, I went and stood directly over the little nondescript plot that now held only the ashes of that vile harridan who had destroyed the final years of a wonderful man.
In the following days we had the Solemn Mass, the full military burial (with folded flag, rifle salute and Taps) next to his first wife in the Veteran’s Cemetery, where he BELONGED, and the proper obsequies observed. It was a wonderfully refreshing thing. We bought a magnificent marble urn for his ashes, and discarded the humiliating box. But I digress. Back to that particular day…
I stood over that grave. I spread my feet to about shoulder’s width. it took a moment to savor the action I was contemplating… that I had planned for, for SO long… I had worn no underwear. My long gray skirt easily concealed my stance, full cut as it was.
Slowly, it began. Just a trickle, at first… then, a flood. All the coffee, juice, water etc flowed in a copious stream as I calmly, but very deliberately PISSED all over that nasty dead bitch’s grave!
I saved the very last drops for her HEADSTONE! Never in my entire LIFE has a piss felt SO good! And if I’m ever back that way… I’ll do it again!