bitchyEarlier today, my brother called me and said that he'd passed. Later on, he called back and it turned out that this was erroneous. Geez, what a circus. Anyway, talked to Mom a bit more, and as it's only a few days until he does go (you can only live so long without food, after all), they want to fly me down for the funeral.
Yay fun. Now, I don't know about all of you, but I tend to be pretty matter-of-fact when it comes to death around me. I'm owe no fealty to any god or spirit, and I don't tend to stand on convention or ceremony. As far as I'm concerned, man is merely one more part of Nature and just like every other living thing, when you die, you simply die. Thus, I have no need or desire to go to the funeral or any sort of "closure" or whatnot, and I don't feel as if "he'd appreciate it"...seeing as he's dead. Thus, frankly, this is not something I give a shit about. however, if I don't, I'll never hear the end of it. Spending two days in the company of my family is going to be Hell.
So, anyway, looks like, later this week, I'll be flying across the country, simply to sit around in silence with a bunch of people I don't think much of. Hell, the only one of them I cared about is the one in the coffin...and I can have my own little moment of silence for him right here, comfortably, thank you very much.
As a side note: how hard is it to know if someone's dead or not? Cripes, don't go calling me and saying he's dying, then he isn't, then he is, then he's dead, then he's not...he's going up and down like a whore's drawers. Confirm and call, simple enough.