My grandmother’s virtual funeral

MOM phoned on Saturday, in tears; ‘Gran passed away 30 minutes ago’.

I didn’t know what to say right away, and had to think a bit.

‘Oh, that’s terrible, I’m so sorry mom’.

But I wasn’t.

Gran was 89, bed ridden and wore nappies, so for her, going – no matter where – must have been a relief.

89 is like completing the Comrades marathon.

It’s a damn impressive run, so I cannot see what there is to cry about.

30 minutes after mom’s call I got added to the ‘RIP Jean ’Whatsapp group, and immediately my phone came alive.

I was busy fixing a surfboard and had resin on my hands, so I could only watch as it vibrated itself off the table, fell, cracking the screen on impact.

Dammit!

That’s R1000 of my hard earned money heading over to Pakistan via MoneyGram.

I felt like falling down on the garage floor, curling up in a foetal position and crying myself to sleep.

Conscious attack

I probably would have - taken an afternoon nap - but ended up going through the members of RIP Jean’s profile pictures (on a cracked screen).

Ha ha ha ha ha, Jennifer looks like a new born hippo calf …

Holy cow, did something lick all James’s hair off?

I loved my Cousin Ben’s status; ‘When you’re dead you don’t know that you’re dead. It’s only those around you who suffer. It’s the same when you’re stupid’.

By 6pm everybody had come to some sort of agreement on what should be printed on her funeral letter.

I suggested Cousin Ben’s status but got not even one reply, so I didn’t partake in the conversations any further, keeping tally of yellow crying faces instead.

I recognised a pattern - those who visited and phoned gran the least, were the most reckless in their virtual display of grief.

Especially my sister, who hasn’t bothered to come home in six years, was having a yellow, snot-nosed tear jerking conscious attack on her iPhone over in London.

Who gets what?

And then it began…the speculation as to who will be inheriting what.

It started with small things which would not be specified in her will.

Personal items which have some or other value to the person who wants it, like gran’s wrist watch for instance.

My one cousin didn’t say she wants it, but just dropped that she always liked it, upon which my aunt retaliated (discreetly of course with the appropriate roll-eye yellow face) that it should only go to one of the four daughters and not to a grandchild.

Someone else brought up gran’s well-used Falkirk number three pot, and soon the little yellow emoticon folks were having a violent virtual protest.

Teary-eyes turned red with anger and my uncle, who’s always slightly drunk, actually posted a row of emoticons that included a coffin, a revolver, seven thumbs-down, two daggers and a brown coiled-up turd with eyes.

Best and the worse

After uncle Clément’s virtual threats of violence a number of ‘so-and-so left the group’ popped up, so I thought it the right time to announce that I won’t be making a 1200km journey for a ‘one hour funeral’ and to ‘share some dry sandwiches with people I haven’t heard from in 10 years’.

I then also left RIP Jean. Mom told me afterwards that upon me leaving, uncle Clément posted what looked like a row of little Elvis Presley’s dancing with joy and another row of brown turds.

She said I should reconsider and make an effort to be at the funeral.

I told her I don’t care because gran is dead and will not know whether

I’m there or not.

Except if they go on fighting about her possessions, in which case she will not pass on to the afterlife.

To get my point across I posted a row of little ghost figures with their tongues sticking out.

You got to love social media. It allows us to communicate in pictures like the cave people we apparently still are.