When The Family All Gets Together

Things have been dark for Clan Hilden. But Ol'Josh has been AFK (I'm bringing that one back) and hasn't had much screen time in the last couple of days. Or, at least, not my screen time by my standards. So, with only a modicum of snark, here's a quick rundown of the madness.

My maternal step-grandfather died a little over a week ago. As I said in my goodbye blog post, he was a great man and had a significant impact, for the better, on my life. Because of him, I like to think I'm a good grandfather.

That was the beginning of the mess.

Due to my Grandpa's funeral yesterday, I was mostly radio silent here on the World Wide Web. I'm bringing that term back, too, because everything old is new again.

Have you watched TV or a movie lately?

I mean, don't we all miss the days when a person had to specify they were going on the vaunted Information Superhighway?

There's one I haven't heard of in a while.

All things considered, things were nowhere near as bad as they could've been.

There was the expected chilliness between certain members of the family and extended friends of my Grandpa. It's not a surprise because, over the years, more than one feud has raged, several of them between my mother and my aunt.

I spent a significant portion of the day making sure mom was ok, and, for lack of a better word, I guarded her from the potential nastiness. Two of my sons and I spent time acting as her shield wall. As dumb as that sounds, there were none of the potential confrontations.

I spent so much time on defense that I couldn't grieve. Once we arrived back home, I broke down, and then I slept until it was almost dark. Then I was asleep for the night before 10pm.

The one unexpected thing that happened was I had an honest to Tesla conversation with my middle brother. We haven't talked since 2011.

It was a bizarre day, to say the least.

- Josh (10/15/2024)