Kentucky Days

I've been in Kentucky for a couple of days now for my brother's funeral. I've also spent the last 4.5 days with my mother. I'm really looking forward to heading home. We've been checking the travel conditions and I think we're going to try and leave tonight after my brother's memorial service (also known as the Celebration of Life service). Luckily my Mom will be heading home with my sister as think my teeth are ground down from me clenching them so much. My mother has a difficult personality at the best of times and these are far from the best of times.

It's been a weird experience as my brother and I used to be very close but we have grown far, far apart as we've gotten older. I really know nothing about him and his life in Kentucky. However, when we were young we used to get each other into all kinds of trouble. When we were kids we used to fight like siblings do. My brother loved to fight with me and I loved to egg him on and set off his temper. He had a serious temper as kid so we used to get into some knock down drag out fights. Unfortunately I was never one to back down from a fight so we drove our parents insane with our fighting.

Then when we were teenagers we started to get along better. My brother once dared me into seeing how fast my '69 AMC Javelin would go . . . suffice it to say that the speedometer went to 120 and I had it well buried. That was until the radiator hose blew and the radiator fluid came gushing out of the car.

He also was one of the people that I partied with as a teen. I remember one time we were headed to La Crosse for a Circle Jerks concert and we had beer in the car. My brother was doing his typical bad driving . . . by which I meant he was driving under the speed limit. We got pulled over and he questioned abuot drinking but somehow he convinced the cop that he had stopped for a drink before picking me up (he was of age since the drinking age was 18 then).

There was also this great picture at his visitation that I took of him and his two boys- Alex and Seth. I took it right as I got interested in photography and it is a cool black and white print that I made. It's my brother sitting on the couch and he is turning to look back at his sons as they fight over a toy and are clearly crying. The kids are probably 3 and 5 or thereabouts.

Then there are all these pictures from a life that I know nothing about. My brother was different from me in many ways but yet was like me in some ways. He was super involved in his community (it reminds me of how I'm involved in biking). However, he was very active with church and with the boy scouts which definitely isn't my thing. I used to get these uber-religious cards at every holiday which always freaked me out.

Anyway, I can't wait to get home. I love my family but I think I've had enough time with them and given that my Mom and I have never got along all that well I think we're closely approaching the point where we're going to get in a disagreement. In addition my brother's husband and my Mom don't get along and I'm in charge of ensuring that my Mom doesn't say or do anything rude to her. I basically have just kept them apart and been super, super nice to my sister-in-law. (She's not that keen on me either since I think she hated me when I was 18 and we worked in the same restaurant. Add in that I'm one of those sacrilegious liberals and she hasn't really gotten over the fact that I was a sassy, party girl at 18).