Can't We All Just Get Along? (With Apologies to Rodney King)

I just came back from a day full of family drama and emotional upset. How does it come to this?

So my grandma Natalie (who's actually my step-grandma) died unexpectedly a few months ago, and this opened up a whoooooole ugly can of worms around the will/trust that was left behind (as these things tend to do even in the most harmonious of extended families, which unfortunately this one is not). As a result, today my mom and I went to a meeting of 4 lawyers and their clients. I wasn't even really supposed to be there (although I am a beneficiary); I went to support my mom, because my dad, who was supposed to go with her, was home recuperating from a recent surgery. (He was there on the speaker phone though.)

There is zero point to going into the details here--I'll just say that there are nasty legal maneuvers and powerplays coming from my aunt (my mom's sister, who was written out of the will and now is PISSED).And my poor mom, whose life philosophy (like mine) is pretty much summed up in "be excellent to each other", is just beside herself. Which leads me to say...

WHAT IS IT WITH PEOPLE????!!!! CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG???

Why do people who grow up in the same family have to work out their issues in such unloving, immature ways? Honestly, I do NOT understand why it is that people can't just fucking talk to each other. All this pain and anger simmering under the surface from a lifetime of real or imagined slights and finally erupting at the slightest provocation...it's a real mystery to me. How can you let things get so bad that you can't even talk about what's bothering you like grownups? Just because you're hurting, why do you have to continue the cycle and take the hurt out on someone else? Get OVER it! Move on!

Ok I don't think I can be all literary and analytical about this right now. It was a depressing day. And of course the icing on the cake, so to speak (as she mixes metaphors right and left) was visiting my grandpa in the nursing home after this lovely 3 hour lawyer meeting. He's completely bedridden and any personality he once had is gone now, really--he can look at you, and moan a little, but he is barely there. So we walk down this institutional hallway to the sound of one of the other residents yelling "hurry up! Hurry up! Hurry up!" over and over and over, and into my grandpa's room. He's there in his bed (he never leaves it...they even have a special tent armature over his feet to prevent the bedsheets from rubbing on his toes and giving him bedsores) asleep, and a TV is blaring the worst, cheesiest, loudest daytime soap I've ever heard. My mom and I are standing there just touching him gently and telling him we love him to the sound of "I'm telling you, this is your baby! And I'm not getting an abortion! How can you abandon us so quickly?" or some such blather. And eventually he does look at us and moan a little and we pat him some more and that's pretty much it. He drifts back into sleep and we leave him there, the same way we found him.

God please please please don't let me end my life this way, with nothing and no one to keep me company but loud fake daytime dramas. Please let me hold on to some shred of myself until it's time for me to go. And let there be someone I love holding my hand at the end. That's all I ask. I won't complain, I won't struggle, I won't rage against the dying of the light. I just want a little company, a little dignity.

Life's way too short to stay mad at each other. I mean that. It's much more courageous to keep opening up and loving each other, no matter what. What have we really got to lose?

Oh yeah, and remember to give your children as much love as you can so they don't wind up full of angst and hate later on, ok?