The Stranger at the Wake
I’ve been thinking a lot about my son lately. The one I gave up for adoption when I was a teenager. The one my family told me never to bring around. ‘He’s just looking for money‘, they said (Bully!). Funny how people love to assign motives to others while keeping their own closets welded shut.
Our relationship was messy. It ebbed and flowed like the tide – sometimes calm, sometimes smashing into the rocks. He struggled with substance abuse and never really fit in anywhere. Not with his adopted family, not with mine. I met his adopted dad before he passed and he gave me subtle warnings. I didn’t see them then. Or maybe I didn’t want to.
Fast forward to the start of COVID. My son was in a new relationship and they had a baby boy. My grandson. I was so excited to meet him but somehow it never happened. One excuse after another, life getting in the way and the usual bullshit. At the time, I was at Faurel Hill minding my dad, as you know. No help from anyone. Same old story.
Then my dad died.
And wouldn’t you know it – suddenly the family who never acknowledged my son decided he should be mentioned as a grandson in the funeral arrangements. Red flag. Big one. The kind you see waving from a mile away, but by then it’s too late because you’re already drowning.
The next day was the wake at the funeral home. I was in a daze, getting ready like a zombie, barely functioning. A van pulls up and leaves. Doorbell rings.
It was him.
Drunk.
And just like that, I had a whole new nightmare to deal with. Introducing my son – the one they pretended didn’t exist — to my family. At my father’s wake. I can’t even explain what that felt like. Devastation, shock, total disbelief. It was one of those moments where you actually leave your own body, because it’s too much to process in real time.
And here’s the kicker: he has the same name as Bully.
If that’s not the universe trying to tell me something, I don’t know what is.
I still can’t wrap my head around people. The way they move, the lies they tell, the selective memory, the rewriting of history when it suits them. It’s astonishing. And this is just the first part of the story. There’s more. So much more.
But for now, I needed to get this part out.
More later.
The Stranger At The Wake – Part 2 …
UNDER THE WILL... OVER THE DRAMA... 
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