If life teaches us valuable lessons along the way, so does death. Those of us left behind can learn not only from the person who has passed on, but from the people who surrounded them in life and death.

 Last week my husband’s mother, Joyce Childs passed away. It wasn’t a completely unexpected event, but certainly, you can never really be prepared for the loss. It still hits you hard. There are still those little moments it takes your breath away when you remember you’ll never see them again. But you understand that sometimes, in some circumstances, it is for the best. The suffering is at an end. So you celebrate the life they lived instead of the death. But that still doesn’t fill that void you feel. We’ll miss Joyce forever. We’ll cling to the memories we have of her.

 Those of us who took the time to get to know her and took the time to visit with her are the lucky ones. Those of us who gave up pieces of our own lives to help her and her husband when they so desperately needed help are the lucky ones. We knew them in both their good times and their bad times. We accepted the good and the bad.

 I’m angry right now. And I’m going to vent a little bit, which I wasn’t going to do. But something I found out about after her funeral has me absolutely fuming. And it taught me just how utterly petty some people really can be.

 Some of you, and you know who you are, deserted Joyce and Gerald in the bad times. Hell, what am I talking about? You couldn’t even be there for them in the good times. Because you lived too far away. Because you didn’t have time. Because you didn’t feel good. Because you have babies. You couldn’t even be bothered to pick up a phone. Seriously, I was told that. Couldn’t even spare ten minutes, ten minutes, to pick up a phone and say, “I love you”. Blah, blah, blah… Excuses. You always had (and still will, I’m sure) an arsenal of them on hand. But you know what? You lost out. YOU LOST OUT. You don’t have the memories the rest of us have. You never will. It’s too late. You’ll never know how much she loved books. What a joy it was to download them from the library for her and share them with her. It was never a burden. I enjoyed being able to do something for her that made her smile. You’ll never know how much fun it was to go pick her and Gerald up and bring them to your house for dinner for no reason other than to experience their company. We didn’t need holidays as a reason to visit with them like you did. You’ll never know what it was like to bring her fresh vegetables and spend the day canning sauces with her. You never got called at 10pm at night to go fix the TV remote because one of them messed it up. Not fun, certainly, when you have to be up for work at 4am, but it said a lot about our relationship with them. And my husband got up and went there in the middle of the night every time they called. So they called us because they knew they could count on us. For anything.

 I never liked or respected you for the way you treated them. But I was gonna let it go. I really was.

 Until you did something there, right at the end, right before they closed her casket that makes my stomach turn. It is a HUGE slap in the face to the people who actually cared about her and were there for her like you NEVER WERE. You put a picture of your family on your daughter’s wedding day in mother’s hands. A picture that did not include my husband or his children or many other family members who were not there that day. Sure, you have differences with your brother. But that… what you did… wow. You were asked to help plan the funeral. You said you had to go to work (seriously, none of us bought that excuse, by the way. Not when your other brother works with you and could be there). So, you left the unpleasant stuff to your siblings, as usual. You were asked to bring a few photos for the visitation and for the board at the funeral home. The board everyone else in the family used. But you said you “forgot the pictures at home.” You didn’t forget them. You already had a game plan, didn’t you? You wanted to be the only one to put something in her casket with her. And you were. Because nobody else in the family would have stooped that low. Anyone else in the family would have discussed it with the other family members.

 You did what you did to hurt your brother. To one-up him. Congratulations. You’re one classy lady. Just keep this in mind. You didn’t win. You lost. You lost time with mother you can never reclaim. You lost out on memories. That picture in her hand can’t erase what you didn’t do.

 You are childish. You are petty. You are selfish. You are a lot of words I choose not to type right now. What you did proves how TINY you really are. It speaks volumes about your character, or lack thereof. The last thing you did, the last gesture you made to your mother was made out of spite, anger and hatred. Not love. She wouldn’t have wanted that. I know she wouldn’t have. Because I knew her. And if you’d taken the time to get to know her, you’d know that too.

 Now you have to live with that last gesture you made to her. Congratulations.