I’d just gotten up after working online all night and saw that I had a voice message from Tammy. My first thought was that if she were asking me to call her again, I would simply scream. Tech issues or not, I hate it when people try to get me to do things I’m just not into doing. But then I remembered that I did tell her to decorate my machine with all the VMs she wants since she’s not big on typing.

Anyway, she didn’t call to ask that I call her. Instead, she called to tell me Larry died last Saturday on the 22nd. He would have been 59 next month. I guess Norma called to break the news to Tammy who was a bit hurt that we weren’t mentioned in the obituary, but as I told her, that’s fine with me. I wouldn’t have mentioned him in mine, and siblings aren’t mentioned half the time anyway. It’s usually spouses, parents, kids and grandkids that are mentioned as opposed to siblings, cousins and that sort of thing.

Although I can think of a few instances where my brother really pissed the shit out of me to the point that yes, I did wish he would drop dead a few times, I have spent most of my life rather indifferent toward him or toward what he may have felt for me. I know he never really gave a shit about me. That was no secret. Larry didn’t care about most people. Being 12 years older and two very different people with two very different lives, we basically regarded each other as strangers. He had a good sense of humor but was otherwise a very selfish and insensitive person from what little I did see and know of him. He lived for weed and sex with young girls more than he seemed to live for anything else.

To say there was a curse on his children is an understatement! They lost Sarah a month before she was born when Sandy was in a car accident in 1982, and then his teenage son died when they were on the road together in 1997.

He wasn’t an abusive parent in the way our parents were but I often felt bad for Sandy and Jennifer. First he was always on the road when he was driving, then he made his wife and daughter seem like second best when his son died and then abandoned them altogether for Stefanie, a child-woman with God only knows what kind of daddy issues.

Although undoubtedly poisoned against me, I also feel bad for his wife (yeah, they did get hitched in the end) and newborn Jason. To be widowed at just 21 has got to be rough. And there I was thinking it a shame that the kid probably wouldn’t be out of college when his dad died. Now he won’t even be out of diapers. Instead, he is left with a mother that’s too young and who knows what problems he may’ve inherited from his dead father.

Loss is loss whether it’s assholes you’ve lost or not. Still, Anna’s passing hit me much harder than the others. I hope she will keep them away from us if their spirits could possibly bring any harm our way. I wonder if I’m next, but as Tom said, if we are, you can’t change destiny. We don’t think so, though, as we’re both healthy. My parents and Larry weren’t. Even Andy’s not worried and pointed out that I’m healthy. He talked to Judy too, who said to give her condolences.

If it’s true that we meet up with loved ones in the afterlife, Mom and Dad are going to be in for a real WTF? moment when they find their son has come to join them so soon after they died.

Tom says death happens in threes, though I’ve never heard that. I’ve heard that bad things happen in threes, but not death. It makes me wonder, though. Especially since I did lose 3 grandparents relatively close to each other. One died when I was 17 and the others when I was 19, just 6 months apart.

Anyway, and like I told Tammy, at least she doesn’t have to clean up after him, so to speak, and deal with his send-off. This one’s going in the ground, though, not to the toaster.