In 2004 my mother passed away peacefully on her 92nd birthday. It was also the anniversary of my father's death in 1981.

Immediately after the funeral, my eldest brother moved several states away with his wife. He did not tell me, my other brother, or my sister about it, & left no address. We were able to locate him easily, but have not communicated in thirteen years.

(My brother, 18 years older, was first married in the early 1960s. He had four children. He & his wife decided to divorce. He opted to forego all contact with his children in order to avoid paying child support.)

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In 2002, an old friend was running for town council in our hometown while I was buying my first house, moving back here from out of state. I'm a commercial artist by profession, so my friend asked me to draw a cartoon against his opponent, a silly caricature of the man, running away with bags of money. Not the wittiest.

In a daze from moving, I said "Yeah, yeah, sure,” then promptly forgot about it. I didn't want to draw it anyway, & wish I had just said no, but there you have it. My friend didn't mention it.

Until several years later, when he dropped by, chatted a bit, then said, "Remember that cartoon? Your word's not worth *****." With that, he popped up &, I have to say, scurried out the door.

I immediately remembered a time, maybe thirty years earlier, when he & I dropped over the new apartment of his former roommate. After a while, as we got up to leave, he addressed his first words to his former: "Hi, Al."

"Don't come back, Clem."

"Ok, Al." And the same scurry out the door. (Which sandbagged me, btw: I was just there hanging out.)

I know of no one who was ever in any kind of social, romantic, or business relationship with this self-described narcissist who has anything but revulsion for him now. I imagine he continues to have friends of a sort.

The thing that really struck me was the consistent, identical scene-play between his goodbye to Al & his goodbye to me. It gave every impression of having been rehearsed, of being a scene in a repertoire, ready to be pulled out & played when wanted. Is that weird?

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Another old friend & wife came up for dinner. Behaved cold & distant, strained curt conversation, left shortly, never heard from again. Don’t know why.

Email invited another to hear live Jazz, a mutual interest. No response.

Invited another up for an evening. Received back a long, several-screen email listing minutely all the things they had to do that made them too busy. Tried again a few months later, same response. Two years later out of the blue comes a phone call from him, all garbled & odd with a sudden hangup. Nothing in several years since.

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2013, our nephew, my wife's sister's adopted son, 33, suicided in his grandfather's easy chair in the family back room, where all the Thanksgiving & Easter dinners had taken place in better times. Sure puts a different spin on those memories, I can tell you.

The GF —my father-in-law— had previously ordered my never to visit his home again so I’m describing this from a remove. My nephew requested I & another Evil Uncle not attend his funeral. That request was passed by his mother, my SIL, through my wife to me. My feelings were hurt, frankly. I always felt the SIL would have done the job better if she at least spoke to me on the phone, if not in person.

Some months later, she sent me a birthday card. A gift card could be felt within. I felt uncomfortable with that kind of transaction, returning it with no comment.

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The day of my nephew’s suicide, my SIL, her daughter, the daughter’s kids, & their GF were away celebrating his 80-somethingth birthday. Suicides are considered crime scenes, so he wasn't allowed home. In fact, with no warning, he never got to go home again. He was aging rapidly & went to live in a nursing home.

He was given a roommate. The admitting administrator didn't think the roommate was a good fit for the facility, but was overruled. The roommate immediately assaulted the GF, knocking him down & then jumping up into the air in order to land on the old man's leg, breaking his femur. The femur is the thickest bone in the human body. My wife & her sister sued & settled.

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2015, my own sister’s daughter’s son, 27 —my grand-nephew— drowned while swimming. I hope it was just an accident. It may have been a prank gone wrong. There are hints of something darker. We’ll never know.

In consequence, my sister, one of her sons & his wife are aligned against her daughter (the one whose son drowned,) her other son, & my brother (the one who didn’t vanish himself.) They are not speaking, have maintained it over a year now. Ostensibly over something involved in the funeral arrangements. I haven’t heard a clear explanation yet. I’m the only one who can still talk to all of them.

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Last week —one week after we were digging fallout shelters, you’ll recall, suddenly forgotten in our rush, the following week, into a simultaneous combination Civil War & WWII— last week, the GF, my FIL, my wife’s dear Dad, died. The wake is Wednesday, funeral Thursday. They are from a Hyphen-American culture, religion, & locale which is famous for bleak, grim operatic wallowing in death rites. I'm dreading it.

My wife is winding up tighter & tighter. I can cool her some, but it’s progressively less effective. The alternative is her biting off my head. Soon I’ll have to just hunker down emotionally & ride it out, attending the services in that state. Leave early, maybe. Any advice?

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Thank you very much if you took the time to even just skim this far. Looking back, it’s clear I’ve had a number of unpleasant episodes with funerals over a relatively short span of time recently. Not to mention sudden untimely deaths, what seem like abandonments by what were friends, & so forth.

I’m on my last nerve with my FIL’s services upcoming. I’m awfulizing a confrontation with my SIL or her horrible ex-husband. I’m aware I’m among the last thing on their minds, but we know that’s not how awfulizing works. I’m really trying to be over in the rational mind on this, to steer away from the emotional. Suggestions?

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Oh, & it seems likely this last weekend, a package worth $240 was delivered by USPS 3-4 days earlier than they told us to expect it. No notification, no knock, no doorbell, no signature. No package. Since we didn’t expect it, it seems likely to have spent part of the night out front, then being stolen at some point.

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Do all these events seem excessive?