Right before I moved, one of my friends approached me with this guest blog for Just Jules. I love sharing stories that are important to my friends especially stories of difficulties overcome. This friend wishes to remain anonymous but wanted to share a story about a difficult time in their life. It is a story that I think most of us can relate to in some way. I can relate to losing beloved grandparents close together and experiencing an "annus horribilis'' This friend needed to get it out and let it go, I think we all can understand that. Here is their story:
The year 2011 was the worst of year of my life and that’s
saying something because I’ve had some pretty bad years. There was lots of
death (three of my pets and both of my remaining Grandparents), some people who
I thought were good friends turned out to be not such good friends, the renter
(also a friend who I trusted completely) of my house in a different state moved
out after trashing the house and stealing everything he could from it,
everybody’s hours were cut at work (that’s significant when you’re single and have
one of those careers that does little more than allow you to pay the basic
bills every month).
I had to have my house exterminated for termites, police
were called (on me), lawyers were consulted,
and it seems that just about everything that could break, did breakàmy
furnace, my tv, my bike, my lawn mower, my weed wacker, my car (multiple
times), my kitchen sink……so pretty much everything INCLUDING the kitchen sink.
The repercussions, ripple effects, and stress of all that
happened in 2011 (the above and more) lasted long into 2012, and the
anniversaries of the major events (most of which happened towards the end of
2011) hit me a lot harder than expected. As a result, I begin 2013 struggling
to move forward and to find some meaning and/or good in anything. There was so
much badness that I tend to forget there were some positive things that also
happened in 2011, and I’ve recently begun wondering (not for the first time)
why the negative always seems to outweigh the positive? why do
we put more emphasis on the negative rather than the positive?
Some of the
positives were small, like how my mom and step-father bought a new tv and gave
me their old one during the time my hours were cut and it was out of the
question for me to buy one myself (first world problem, I know—I don’t have
cable/satellite, but do use the tv to watch movies while riding my bike on my
indoor trainer, one of the few things that allows me to keep my sanity during
the frigid winter months), but there were two big positives that occurred in
the midst of all the negatives. Both of these were a surprise, and both have
allowed me to not totally give up on people in general. One involved my
sister-in-law, who I did not know well before 2011 but who I would now take a
bullet for, and the other involved my Grandparents’ funeral director, Mr.
Kulik, who I had never met before my Grandmother died in October 2011.
It’s Mr. Kulik’s act
of kindness towards me, a stranger that I’d like to share:
A little background: My paternal Grandparents were 87 years
old, married for 65 years, died within 6 weeks of each other, and had
pre-arranged a joint funeral. My Grandfather had two passions in life: his
family and the Navy (he was an extremely proud WWII and Korean War veteran). He
and my Grandmother had one child, I will call him T, who is my father by
biology only. My parents divorced when I was two, and, along with always being
behind in child support payments, T showed little interest in both his
children, especially me, from the divorce on. I attempted throughout my teenage
years and early twenties to establish a father/daughter relationship with him
until I realized how futile it was, as he was interested only in himself.
He
popped up again in my mid-thirties when my brother lived with him and his third
wife for a few years. I had come to realize that T fit the description of a
narcissist to near perfection, but I really liked his third wife and thought
that maybe he would change a bit with her guidance. If anything, he got worse
and also became an alcoholic, and his third wife divorced him after becoming
afraid of him.
At that point I wrote him out of my life completely as he would
never admit he had any faults whatsoever, he honestly believes the world and
everyone in it owes him everything. This is someone who has rarely ever held a
job, preferring instead to live off whatever woman he had fooled until that
woman was fooled no more, someone who spent years at a time not speaking to his
parents because they “wronged him” in some way, and someone who thinks that his
only responsibility in life is to sit back and reap the benefits of what others
sow.
At the end of 2009 I moved home, after living out of state
for 5 years, to take care of my aging Grandparents. T hadn’t been speaking to
them for a few years and my brother could only do so much. When my Grandmother
was diagnosed with COPD after spending a few weeks in the hospital on a
ventilator, T came back into the picture, not out of concern and willingness to
help, but as a shark circling in bloody waters, knowing that his inheritance
now wasn’t far away. He appeared at their house occasionally and would berate
them if they asked him to do anything for them. More often than not he would
not show up when my Grandparents called him for help.
He more than once
stormed out of my Grandmother’s hospital room in a huff during the last few
months of her life, once leaving his soon-to-be fourth wife stranded there. His
last words to his father, who at the time was laying in a hospital bed in the
ER, were “Don’t ever call me again!”, to which my Grandfather replied, “I
didn’t call you this time!”. My Grandfather passed away eight hours later. And
when he was called by the hospital when my Grandfather died because their
computers were down and they couldn’t access my phone number (I was his power
of attorney and contact person), Tim flat-out refused to give them my number
and told them that no one would be in to view the body.
I am being very
polite when I say that I strongly, STRONGLY dislike him.
My Grandfather died
on a Sunday morning; the very next day he had an appointment set up with his
attorney to change his will and make me the executor, instead of T. My brother
and I spent the week going back and forth with Mr. Kulik, because even though
the funeral was pre-arranged, there were still some details to be sorted out
that we wanted and deserved to take part in. Mr. Kulik was also separately in
touch with T throughout the week, since he was executor and had the final say
in the arrangements.
I felt bad about the awkward situation, but figured we were
just another of many messed up families to come through his doors. I never spoke to him about it, but Mr. Kulik
obviously knew something was amiss, as I was the one who identified my
Grandfather’s body (because T refused to do it), I was the one who informed Mr.
Kulik that my Grandparents already had a headstone (after T told him to just go
ahead and order the free military headstone), and since T refused to allow my
brother’s and my names to be put in the obituary (we were to be listed, per T,
as “two grandchildren” under “survived by”).
At some point before the funeral, my brother and I realized
that T, as next-of-kin, was to be the one who received the military flag. This
upset both of us deeply and I know it would have upset my Grandfather, who was completely fed up with
his only child by the end of his life. After many phone calls and some
research, I determined that a second flag was allowed to be presented at the
funeral as long as it was purchased by us. I bought a flag, spoke with Mr.
Kulik, and arranged for the 2nd flag to be presented to me.
The day of the funeral arrived and shortly before the
graveside service began, T noticed that Mr. Kulik’s assistant was holding two
flags. After he inquired why, he instructed her in no uncertain terms that only
one flag was to be presented, and it was to be presented to him. My
sister-in-law, who had become my rock throughout everything, found out and
wanted to correct this before the service started. It broke my heart, but I
told her to just let it go because I didn’t want to put this poor assistant in
the middle, and I didn’t want there to be a scene caused.
Sadly, the most
important thing was that after the service I would never have to see T again. A
few minutes after the service began, a car pulled up and parked a little ways
down from the graveside, and out came Mr. Kulik. I distinctly remember thinking
“Wow, that’s really nice of him to attend even though he has an assistant
here”, and didn’t think any more of it, focusing instead on trying to stop
crying because I was already running low on tissues. Turns out Mr. Kulik’s
assistant called him, probably in a panic over what she should do, and he came
right over and made sure I got my flag presented to me by the military color
guard. And not only did he do that, he stayed for the entire service and then
afterwards dug through the grass himself to find and give to me 3 shell
casings, which are also presented with the flag (which I didn’t get because I
got an “extra” flag) and Mr. Kulik also made sure my brother and I were listed
by name in the obituary.
It wasn’t until a week or so later, when the smoke cleared
and things calmed down a bit, that I truly understood and appreciated what Mr.
Kulik did that day (and with the obituary). I thought that, in his eyes, we
were just another dysfunctional family to be dealt with. I was convinced that
he rolled his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief every time we left his funeral
home and he was able to shut the door behind us, but in reality he was
processing everything that was said and done, not just by me and my brother but
also by T, and he knew who the good guys and the bad guys were in this story.
In a world in which
athletes, actors, and reality stars are the heroes to many, in my view Mr.
Kulik may as well have ridden up to the graveside that day on a powerful, white
steed. He didn’t risk life and limb, but he certainly risked the wrath of T and
a potential lawsuit in order to right an impending wrong. He didn’t need to do
that; the funeral was prepaid and I was not the executor, so he owed me
nothing. I am humbled to this day that he thought that that one detail was
important enough to correct, and to oversee it personally, when there could
have been negative consequences involved for him and his business.
Aside from the day my Grandmother died, I only
ever saw my Grandfather speechless and with tears in his eyes once, and that
was when I presented him with a certificate stating that I had made a donation
to the WWII Memorial fund in honor of him for his birthday. I have no doubt
that he would have had the same reaction to me receiving a flag at his funeral,
and even though Mr. Kulik knew no specifics, he somehow did know how important
that flag was to me.
Occasionally I wonder what makes a person want to become a
funeral director and deal with dead bodies and crying people all the time.
Maybe not all funeral directors are the same, but Mr. Kulik made me realize
it’s not just about the deceased, and maybe even not primarily about the
deceased, but it’s about those who are left behind; making sure that those who
loved the deceased are able to honor them and say goodbye in the best way
possible. Despite the best efforts of a very bad person, Mr. Kulik allowed me
to do that, and for that he will always be a hero to me. I choose to focus on
the amazing act of kindness he showed to me, a stranger, rather than the
negativity that my own father chooses to perpetuate. And I hope with all my heart
that Mr. Kulik feels as good about what he did that day as I do.
