The Funeral

Several weeks before Grandma died, I received a summons for jury duty. I had received several through the years but had never had to serve. Just like the times before, I was to call each day after 5:30 p.m. and a recording would say if I needed to show up or not. I thought it would be interesting to serve on a jury, but so far every time I called the recording said, “You do not need to report. Call back after 5:30 tomorrow for further instructions.” (Or something to that effect)

Of course after Grandma died, the recording said, “Please report on Monday morning at 9:00 a.m. Failure to report will result in legal action against you.” (Or something to that effect)

I thought that if I called the nice people who worked for the court system, they would immediately take pity on my predicament and grief process and say, “Oh, I’m so sorry about the loss of your grandmother. We will excuse you from jury duty this week.” Boy was I wrong. When I called them bright and early Monday morning, they said, “That is not a valid reason for being excused from jury duty. You still need to report.”

“Is there anyone else I can talk to?”

“No.” click.

Okay, I thought, I’ll just go down there, take her obituary and certainly they will understand that I am not emotionally fit for jury duty this week. Sadly, I found out that everyone who worked at the courthouse was terminally jaded from being subjected to criminals.

Me: I was told to report for jury duty, but my grandmother died on Saturday, so may I be excused?

Them: Take a seat over there with the other jurors.

Me: But her funeral is on Wednesday. I have the obituary right here. I can’t be here on Wednesday.

Them: You can be jailed if you don’t appear. The trial starts on Wednesday morning. Go sit down.

Me: But . . .

Them: no words – just a hard glare.

I sat with the other jurors thinking that these government workers reminded me of the government workers on Beetlejuice. They were hard.

I contemplated what would happen if I didn’t show up on Wednesday. Would police come to the funeral to arrest me? How long would I have to stay in jail for failure to report for jury duty? Would I have a criminal record if I didn’t show up? All I knew was that I was not going to miss my Grandma’s funeral – no matter what happened that day.

After waiting for an hour, we were herded into a courtroom to be questioned by the prosecution and defense attorneys. All I could do was answer their questions honestly and hope they wouldn’t pick me for the jury.

First question: If you’ve ever been the victim of a violent crime raise your hand.

I raised my hand along with another woman. They asked her to tell them about it. She says, “I will be happy to tell you in the privacy of the judge’s chambers.” I was so glad they called on her first. I did not want to go into my family history in front of a courtroom full of people, so I repeated what she had said.

Second question: This case involved illegal drug use, raise your hand if you feel you can not be an objective juror. (or something like that)

I raised my hand but was not asked to expound on it. They asked several more questions most of which I could honestly raise my hand to. After about an hour of questioning, they lawyers left the room to conference or do whatever it is lawyers do at this point. They came back in and excused several prospective jurors. I think – are you kidding me – I’m still here. They then excuse the women who had been the victim of a violent crime and they excuse me. I was so relieved. When I left, I asked a clerk if I still needed to call in each day that week. She said, “No.”

It took half a day of stress at the courthouse, but I was happy to know that I could go to Grandma’s funeral without the fear of being arrested.

When the kids got home from school that day, my youngest daughter had some papers that her teacher had sent for me. Her note said, “This was a writing assignment in our reading class. Students were to choose a person, place, or thing and write a descriptive paragraph about their topic. I was saving these papers for SEPs in March, but Elizabeth’s is very touching and most appropriate to share with you now.”

Elizabeth’s paragraph: My great-grandma smells like makeup. She is old. She is 92. I love going there and she is beautiful. When I go there she says, “I love you.” She had drawn a picture of my grandmother to go with her paragraph. We had Elizabeth read this and show the picture at the funeral. Teachers are wonderful people; I was so thankful to get this now instead of waiting. When Elizabeth was a baby, she was very colicky. Grandma was one of the few people who could quiet her when she was distressed. All of my children adored their great-grandmother; all of them struggled to deal with her passing.

We didn’t know if Dad would show up at the funeral. If he did show up – would he be violent? The court sent plainclothes officers to guard us – just in case of trouble. Dad did not show up. He sent a friend to take pictures of everything. It was kind of creepy – this yucky man taking pictures of all the grandkids, but it was better than having Dad there. Still, we were all on edge.

Mom was another story. She always professed her undying love for Grandma – the woman who treated her like a daughter and took her under her wing after Mom’s mother had died, but when push came to shove, she put the polygamist cult ahead of Grandma. She said she had to go on a buying trip. She could have sent someone in her place, but she did not. Then she complained and said, “I wish I could have been there.” I said, “You could have been there.” Just as always, my sisters and I were there by ourselves without the love and care of either parent. We were burying the person I loved most in the world and neither of them could be grown up enough to be there to support us. I was glad Dad stayed away but hurt that Mom made the choice she did. We needed her that day, and she once again let us down.

Even with all the trauma and pain that surrounded Grandma’s death, the funeral was beautiful. My aunt did such a good job on planning everything. She ordered two dozen red roses for the top of the casket. She even made sure to put a Kleenex in Grandma’s sleeve – just like Grandma had always done in life. Grandma was buried next to her husband in a cemetery that overlooks the city.

Several months after Grandma’s death, my aunt was looking at the red roses she saved from the funeral and discovered that about half of them had turned a lovely shade of yellow. Yellow roses mean joy and happiness; we took this as a sign that Grandma was happy. Knowing Grandma, she isn't wasting any time in heaven. She told me once that she helped plan all the events in her little town when she was a young woman. I'm sure she is giving God and the angels a run for their money with all her activity and planning.

The Trial

PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) became an everyday thing in my life. Flash backs were a normal occurrence. At night, I struggled to go to sleep because I was in a constant state of hyper-alertness; sometimes I could feel the hair on my arms. Once I went to sleep, my dreams were interrupted by horrible nightmares that I usually could not remember. One night, I cried out in my sleep. My teen daughter came in and said, “Mom, are you okay?” I felt so badly that I had caused her a bad night’s sleep. I knew I needed to get into see a counselor, but there didn’t seem to be time.


We wanted to move all of Grandma’s things out of her apartment before Dad was released from jail, and we had no idea when that would be. The day I went up there with my Aunt was very stressful. My two younger children acted as lookouts. One watched out the front window and one watched out the back window. We were so afraid he would show up and become violent.

We packed the apartment in a hurry, taking her furniture and clothing. Anything of Dad’s that was on her furniture we placed on his bed. I called Mom and asked her if she wanted her dresser back – the one Dad had taken from her so many years before. She did, so I dumped the contents of the drawers on his bed. We left him quite the mess to clean up before he could use his bed – the only piece of furniture we didn’t take. The bed belonged to Grandma, but we connected it too much to him and left it. We forgot to go down to her basement storage locker and get the leaves to her table, but those are just things and we were in a hurry. We left the apartment relieved that he had not shown up.

Grandma missed Dad. She wanted to bail him out of jail, but we wouldn’t take her to do so. My aunt had a restraining order taken out against him which meant he couldn’t come to Grandma’s new apartment. My aunt found her an apartment in an assisted living center. She had her own studio apartment and had people around her. She had lived in her old building for over twenty years, so this was an adjustment for her. She was so cute one night. She commented on an elderly gentleman who lived in the center. She said, “Isn't he a fine looking man. Look at how straight his shoulders are.” I guess when a woman is ninety one things like straight shoulders are pretty important. One day she tried to escape with another resident. This other woman had a car and they snuck out and tried to leave. She said, “We almost got made it.” The other lady was not supposed to drive anymore.

We went to see her often, but she still worried about Dad. I told her what he had said to my daughter about her breasts. I reminded her that Dad was violent and that we wanted to keep her safe. She would call me at work and tell me she didn’t have any food. I would leave work to take her shopping, and while putting her groceries away find that everything she bought had a duplicate in the cupboard. I said, “Grandma, if you want me to come visit, I will. You don’t need to say you are out of food.”

“Well, I was worried you wouldn’t come," she said.

Dad spent sixty-two day in jail before they released him. The trial was still to come. I had been subpoenaed. We didn’t want Grandma to testify because she was so frail. The first court date would decide if we would be allowed to testify on her behalf. I was scared to death to testify, but I mustered up my courage – I didn’t want to be put in jail for not showing up. I was mentally prepared to see Dad in a courtroom with bailiffs and officers as protection. When I stepped off the elevator at the courthouse, there stood Dad. I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach; I actually lost my breath. I stepped back into the elevator, closed the doors and went to a different floor. I was shaking and crying. I hurried to a bathroom to try to compose myself. My plan was to leave the bathroom, see if my cousin had arrived – if she was there, I would stay and testify. If she wasn’t there, I would leave the courthouse and go home. I was not strong enough to do this on my own. Damn the consequences – I couldn’t face him by myself.

When I left the restroom, the first person I ran into was my cousin. We were not allowed to be in the courtroom while other testimony was being given. At one point as we sat in the hall waiting to be called, Dad walked out to have a cigarette. His beautiful white hair was shaved off – he looked like an old cancer survivor. He did not make eye contact with either of us. She testified, and then I was called in. I was shaking so badly and trying not to cry. They asked me what Grandma had told me. Then they asked if this was hard for me to do. “Yes,” I answered. I told them that I had always tried to give Dad the benefit of the doubt. I had previously tried to maintain a relationship with him. I had thought my love for him would be enough, so yes it was hard. I didn’t tell the court about my memories, but the nightmares and flashbacks made me feel like a small child again – scared and wanting to hide from him.

The judge asked Dad’s attorney if he had any questions for me. The attorney began to speak, but Dad pulled on his hand, whispered something in his ear, and the attorney said, “Not at this time.”

The judge ruled that we would be able to testify on Grandma’s behalf. We were thankful. I received another summons to appear to testify. The only way I wouldn’t have to testify again would be if he entered an Alford plea which meant without pleading guilt, he acknowledged that there was enough evidence for the prosecution to convict him. We arrived at the courthouse ready to testify. I was a nervous wreck, but I didn’t want to see him get away with another crime. The jury was there. Dad was in a room with his attorney. At the last minute he took the plea deal. The jury was dismissed and we were allowed to go home. He only served the original sixty-two days for beating Grandma. He had to behave for eighteen months. I thought he should have served more time. He deserved more time. He quietly left the courthouse, went back to the apartment he had previously shared with Grandma, and did only God knows what.

I have not spoken to him since he called me from the jail. I wrote him a letter before I testified against him. I told him what I remembered about my abuse. I asked for clarification about his sickening friend. He wrote a letter professing his love for me, but peppered it with how mad he was that he had to spend sixty-two days in jail. After I testified against him, he wrote me a horrible letter cursing me and hoping for my demise. I think he wrote the nice letter hoping that I wouldn’t testify against him. The second letter contained his true feelings.

I talked to the DA about my memories. He said I had three years to press charges. He was very kind and allowed me to cry, but he said the chance of a conviction so many years after the fact was next to nothing. I opted to let it go. I wasn’t strong enough to face him in court again and watch him get away with everything he had done.