They Knew What I Was Doing

It’s been exactly three weeks since I last wrote in this blog. So much has been going on, and so much has really changed. Most of the activity has been around Dad’s death. Mum continued to receive flowers like the ones you can see below. They were from Tynte Street Flowers, and Mum had previously received another arrangement very similar to this one, so I think it’s part of their standard stock range.

She also received this bunch from the East End Flower Market, and I thought they were really cool. They came in this paper carry contraption with handles, which seems practical, and I am sure it is useful in some circumstances.

Mum received a huge amount of flowers. People can be so lovely; it's such a nice gesture to send flowers when someone has passed. Our house smelled and looked like a florist too. Mum and I are going to sit down and write thank you cards to everyone who sent flowers, as well as cards and text messages.

Dad had a memorial service and a private funeral. I didn't go to either. I'm not going to go into my reasons for not attending, but all I will say is that I don't think my Dad would have wanted me to be there. Dad and I would fight a lot about my life; I think he wanted much more for me than I allowed myself to have. But that's not the reason I didn't go.

Anyway, my brother was here from London and spoke at both the memorial service and the private funeral. One of my half-sisters also spoke at both, and a couple of other people who knew him spoke at each.

I watched the memorial service online, and it was very nice and very fitting. My brother was great; he spoke passionately and was funny at times. He could have gone into the same kind of career as my Dad, but he said he doesn’t want to take the pay cut. I also contributed to the memorial service and had the MC read out some words for me. I had some friends who went to the service, and they texted me saying they thought what I had to say was beautiful, which made me happy.

I have one gay friend who I will call Fred, and he is one of my oldest and dearest friends. He went, and I just said to him that it meant so much to me that he was there, which it did.

Prior to the memorial service, there was a bit of family drama. To give you a bit of background, Dad had four children from his first marriage: three girls and one boy. My half-sister who spoke at the funeral, Rachel, another half-sister, Esther, another half-sister, Ruth, and a half-brother, Gideon. Shalom. We are not Jewish, but my years of wanting to convert placed these names in my psyche.

Anyway, Rachel, who is in her late sixties, is the biggest know-it-all and busted up her relationship with her siblings after their mother died and she contested the will. She married a pig farmer, but they are now divorced. She has one adult son and now lives down on Hindmarsh Island. She is always after a penny. Esther is nice enough; she is also in her sixties. She started a medical degree out of school, dropped out, and I think studied creative writing. She has been trying to write romance novels for around 40 years with no luck.

She was married to a man for a couple of decades, and they had two girls and a boy who are now adults. They got divorced, and her ex-husband came out as gay. Esther started studying computer gaming later in life and now works teaching it at a private college somewhere in the city.

Ruth changed her name to Golda and then her middle and last names to the names of fruit and fruit trees. She has one adult son who is half Jamaican, and Golda herself is a serious drug addict who lives in the outback somewhere. Apparently, she doesn’t have any teeth either. I think that is fabulous — no need to worry about brushing them.

Then there was Gideon. Gideon was a violent, arrogant, aggressive son of a bitch who died last year after a short stint with frontal lobe dementia. He married this awful — and I mean awful — woman who I will call Miriam. She is a snobby, nasty, pretentious person. Now, I know this sounds awful, talking about family, especially a deceased member, like this, but hear me out.

Prior to marrying Miriam, Gideon was in a relationship with a woman named Naomi. They were quite serious, but after they split up, she was pregnant with Gideon’s child. By this point, he was in a relationship with Miriam, who was working for my Dad. When Gideon asked Miriam to marry him, she said she would marry him as long as he never had anything to do with his child with Naomi. No contact, nothing, apart from the child support he had to pay her. When I found out about this, I was not surprised, because she really is so dreadful.

If you can picture this, she comes from a family of extreme wealth. Her mother was a volunteer at the Art Gallery of South Australia, and they go to an exclusive hairdresser who only “cuts” and doesn’t “colour,” just to give you an idea of who they are. It also cracks me up when people like her mother volunteer at the art gallery because artists are rebels. They are creative, they think outside the box, and so many of them would say “fuck you” to a woman like that.

I know I am diverging quite a lot, but apart from the fact Miriam put that absolutely unforgivable condition on their marriage, which he accepted, Nanny once told me that when Gideon and Miriam were staying at our house when Mum and Dad took us away on a holiday, Nanny would come and clean the house, and she said Miriam made her feel like a servant and was a really nasty snob. Nanny is quite harsh to those she loves, but she would never say that about someone else unless they had really offended her.

Anyway, things got interesting when Dad's first wife died. She left an unusual will, but my thoughts are that it's her money and she can do what she wants with it. She married some big millionaire, so she accumulated a bit of money and left a portion to each of her biological grandchildren, which included Leah, Gideon and Naomi’s daughter, who was all grown up.

Around this time, Miriam called my Dad and asked him not to have anything to do with Leah, not to meet her or talk to her. My Dad told her to get nicked. My half-sister Esther tracked Leah down, and she lived in Queensland. This was years ago, and at the time I think she would have been in her early twenties. My parents believed that Leah might like to know her family history and her relatives, and my Dad was really sweet to her.

I remember he gave her this beautiful opal necklace. Once, at our old house, I answered the phone one day and it was Leah. She asked if she could speak to Dad, and he took the call in another room. He was so chuffed to speak to her.

That’s why, prior to Dad’s funerals, there was talk about whether Leah should be invited, and I said yes because I remembered Dad’s affection for her and I knew he would have wanted her to be there. She was invited, and she decided to go to both services.

My younger full brother Elijah called Miriam to tell her that Leah was going to be at both services, and she apparently lost it. Tears, talking about how it was a betrayal of Gideon, and Elijah said it was as if she wanted him to say, “It’s okay, I’ll make sure she’s not there,” but he was having none of it.

Leah ended up going to both services, but I can’t believe this: at the memorial service, Mum went up and started talking to Miriam’s snobby Art Gallery–volunteer mother, and then went to speak to Miriam, who was rude to her and walked away. At her husband’s funeral, my “half-sister-in-law” was rude to my mother. What is wrong with people?

There was a floral wreath at my father’s memorial, which Mum was told she could use for the private service. She brought it home, and it was still good two days later at the memorial service.

The day after the memorial service, my brother Elijah and I went to the funeral home where Dad was for a viewing. I knew there would be a lot of flowers at the funeral home, and I was not disappointed. You can see at the reception there is a large painting that hangs behind the desk, and I was talking to the receptionist about this.

They actually arrange the flowers to match the painting. They use Robyn May on Unley Road. I have received flowers from them before, and they are so beautiful. You can see the painting and the matching flowers below. The matching flowers are exactly the kind of flowers I like. Colourful, classic and classy.

Prior to seeing Dad, we were taken to a little room that had a couch and a couple of nice paintings, like the one of the pelican below. It also had some flowers that were yet to bloom.

I think it was important for Elijah and me to go together to view Dad, and I thought I wanted to go because when I saw him on the night he died, he had blood on his forehead, and in my view he didn't look at peace. But I regret going to the viewing. I wish I hadn't seen him like that. My brother got quite emotional, and I was trying to think all the thoughts I wanted to think, but moments like that pass so quickly.

I didn't like seeing him like that because there was something about the way his mouth looked; it looked artificial in a way I can't quite describe. I still can't get the image out of my head. I wish I hadn't seen him like that, but I don't regret going because Elijah wanted us to go together, and we did.

As I said, I didn't go to the private funeral. That day passed, and eventually the flowers stopped coming, and suddenly it was all over. Things started going back to normal. Mum and I started watching Wimbledon when my mother got the call we all knew was coming. Rachel, Dad's oldest daughter from his first marriage, called Mum to ask about Dad's will.

Dad had looked after his four older children around twenty years ago when he sold his farm, and he gave them each a bit of money. His financial position when he died was not the same as it had been for most of his life. When he got dementia, he had gotten himself and my mother into some serious debt by purchasing shares, and he ended up dying with nothing.

I want to make one thing clear: I do not care at all. I have lived the most blessed and privileged life, and I don't feel that Dad or Mum owe me anything. I have a little bit of money that I need to be careful with, but I have earning potential of my own, and one day I am going to either write books or go back to work and earn a living. But Rachel doesn't think like that.

Mum told Rachel there was nothing, and Rachel started questioning Mum about all the expensive holidays she and we had been on, the money she had spent on Elijah and me. Mum just told her to call the family accountant, who was an executor of Dad's will and helped Mum when Dad made some serious financial mistakes.

Soon after, Mum called our accountant to warn him that Rachel might be calling, and he told her she was too late; she had already called. He said he told her there was nothing — absolutely nothing. But she didn’t stop there. She called my brother Elijah in London. She asked him if he could get her a copy of Dad’s will. Elijah explained to her that she would need to request it, but then he was quite firm with her that there is no money and explained how the debt happened.

She really pushed him. This makes me feel sick. It literally makes me feel sick. I hate the way she interrogated Mum about her money, which is none of her business anyway. Then, when Mum told her there was nothing, it was as if she didn’t believe her, so she went fishing with the accountant and then my brother.

I don't understand some people. Everything is about money, and people have such nerve as well. Fancy talking to your stepmother like that, and apart from that, Dad had looked after them anyway. My brother Elijah and I won't get anything, and I am telling you right now, I do not care one bit. I am grateful I have my mother and my brother. I said to Elijah that I know Mum doesn't have any money, but if she did, I would never make a thing of it like Rachel is with Dad.

I don't know what she is going to do now. If she gets a lawyer and tries to get Mum to prove that there is no money, I will use some of my money to pay the legal fees. Don't get me wrong, Mum is not completely broke, but I will look after her in relation to this.

But the sad thing is, Rachel has just lost Mum, Elijah, and me because we have all said the way she has gone about this is a real arsehole thing to do. This is the half-sister who contested her mother's will and broke up her side of the family.

So those are the two family dramas that have come about after Dad's death. In relation to Miriam and her not allowing my stupid half-brother Gideon to see his child Leah, I can't believe it. First of all, I can't believe that a woman, or anyone for that matter, would not want their spouse to see their own child. If that were me, I would have said they are most welcome. Your child is my child, and I would have made them feel at home and like part of the family, which they are.

But this cold, pretentious woman didn't want it. I don't get it either. I understand she wouldn't want any of her money going to Leah, but there are ways to protect that, aren't there? 

Some people are so awful. And I could light-heartedly suggest they all seem to be in my family.

Apart from all of that, I have been working on my project, which I'll go into more detail about tomorrow night. A few weeks ago, I went to a movie called "Where Olive Trees Weep." It was held at the Capri Theatre again, and it was about Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. It was made before the current war. It was good; I liked it better than the first one I saw, but I'm getting a bit sick of the lack of balance literally everywhere in life.

I've been staying up all night working on my project, and I have Fox News on in the background. I don't know why I watch it. I suppose it's because there's not really a neutral news service available, and I want to learn about these ridiculous Trump-loving fools. I don't know. I really think I could make a neutral documentary about the Israel-Palestine conflict, but I don't have enough time left in my life to do so.

What I mean by that is it would take me a couple of years to learn how to make documentaries, and I haven't got that sort of time to be without a job. Then it would take years to make the documentary itself, and that would be with no income as well. I'm just going to watch documentaries about it and hope one day I see one with both sides of the story.

Below is a man I saw at the screening of "Where Olive Trees Weep." In case you can't see the writing on his jacket, it says "Boycott Apartheid Israel." It was quite funny; the people in the car behind him gave me the stink eye for taking his photo.

I kind of sneaked it, but they knew what I was doing.