Apologies for the past two incredibly personal funeral/death posts, but, as you may imagine, I have had some unbelievably complicated thoughts I needed to put into words. Not sad. Not angry. Just…complicated.

This post’s title references this Tweet.

As I walked past my chain-smoking relatives the irony hadn’t yet set in for me that the woman whose death had brought us all together had died at the age of 69 from complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease brought on undoubtedly from her constant cigarette smoking for the majority of her adult life.

That’s because I didn’t know what had actually led to her death, but it was also because I was trying to approach the entire funeral experience with tact. I wanted to be open-minded to the woman and family that never seemed to embrace me, if only for my mom’s sake.

But then I met my aunt/cousin Rulinda (see previous post for explanation) and she walked toward me smelling of smoke and tears. She hugged me and said as she was pulling away “Thank you for coming.”

And I think I gave her the most horrid face that I’ve ever made at a woman above the age of 50 (who wasn’t an educator), saying with my expression “Why the fuck wouldn’t I be here? This woman was related to me through blood. It’s a matter of respect and she and I were family.”

She was taken aback and I immediately regretted my expression. Sheepishly she said “I don’t know what to say, I just say what I think,” showing she knew exactly why I had scowled and, unbelievably to me (the asshole) that she was human.

I vowed to be more understanding from that moment on because, in truth, no one ever knows what to say at funerals. “It was a lovely ceremony.” “He/she looks great” referring to whoever’s in the casket. What? And that brought me back to the truth I’ve always adhered to concerning funerals: the fact that everyone ends up going to more funerals in their lifetime than they ever want to.

So I adjusted my tie and prepared to meet and speak with family members, because lo and behold, it turns out I am related to the deceased! My name was listed first as her grandchildren (nearly solving the mystery of whether I should follow legal or biological genealogy to know my place in the family), and I was expected to stand and receive friends and family.

And so began a parade of people that used to know me when I was this big. The fact that these people live less than an hour from where I’ve lived my entire life and haven’t seen me in more than 10 years only compounded my anger that these idiots were assumed relatives of mine. Some gems:

“Are you a rock star?” – from an uncle(?) who lives in Raleigh, no less. Clearly he wanted to say something about my hair, but he just choked.

“I haven’t seen you in a long time. We’ll have to do something about that.” – from a great uncle that used to visit us twice weekly when my granny was alive but since 1999 has visited my mom perhaps a dozen times. Oh and he married a woman who was accused of killing her husband, lives 10 minutes from my house and my mom changed his gauzes daily for him following his surgery in the early 2000s.

My response? “We just did.”

Then Rulinda comes by with a friend of hers to introduce to my sister. “This was her…granddaughter…I guess…”

What the fuck? You can’t read the program? Let’s just go with what’s printed there to keep things clean today…

So after hugs, handshakes and two trips to the bathroom to wash my hands because the idiot pastor insisted on shaking my hand after my first sanitation trip (even as I shoved my hands into my pockets and made it clear I didn’t want to shake) it was time for the ceremony at which the idiot pastor preceded to talk about how hard Faye worked for her family.

I laughed. Silently, of course, so I didn’t disturb those grieving, but it was hard to keep it quiet as I leafed through the program, complete with a bio indicating that Faye graduated in 1959…yes, a year before my mom was born. She began her work career as a high school graduate (no college) to begin saving enough money to provide for her other three daughters while my mom was being raised across town by her biological grandmother. (Though, as noted in my previous post, I have accepted this was for the best).

So my complications with that side of my family were compounded today though my ride back to Raleigh with Taylor let us both vent.

Big surprise: we were thinking the exact same thing at every stage of the funeral.

The closest we came to crying was when we imagined our other grandparent dying. We got pissed off every time someone brought up how long it had been since the last time we had been together. We talked about how disconcerting the entire affair was and which songs we wanted played at our funeral. (Friends: please assure this is played).

And so while the entire weekend has muddied my emotions about my mom’s side of the family and complicated further my understanding of my family tree, I came out of it with even more understanding about my connections within my immediate family: my sister is my best friend.

Last night, something happened that I’ve been thinking about since I was 11 years old: my mom’s mom died.

You may be wondering if she’s been battling an illness for the past 12 years. Nope, it was kind of sudden as far as I could tell. You’re probably also wondering why I didn’t call her my grandma, or some variation of that word, but that’s what has made this moment in my life something I’ve wondered about since 1999.

It all started in 1960 when my mom was born. Her biological mother, Faye, felt she was too young to raise a child, so my mom’s grandmother, Myrtle, (Don’t you love these old people names…) drove my mom home from the hospital. She completed adoption papers for my mom a few days later, and just like that my mom’s biological granny became her adopted mom while her biological mom became her sister legally.

All of this was kept from me when I was younger so I wouldn’t get so confused, but in 1999 when Myrtle died, my mom explained it all to me.

I had always called Faye “grandma” and had always called Myrtle “granny,” and also had a great aunt that we grandkids always called “granny Fox,” but in a year when I learned Faye was legally my aunt and granny and granny Fox died, I felt like a kid who had lost three grandparents in a single year.

But beyond that, Faye and her other daughters never had anything to do with my family except for Christmas, so I grew very resentful of my mom’s side of the family. I remember one time when I mentioned my birthday was the following week and Faye hadn’t even realized while she spent most of her time with my “cousins.”

And so it happened that I began to wonder what would happen when I learned what I heard yesterday about my aunt/grandma. Would I cry? Would it even matter to me? What emotions were going to take hold of me when I learned of her death?

It’s a morbid thought, I know, but with such a weird family history, it was something that came up in my mind countless times throughout adolescence.

And so when my mom delivered the news last night between Taylor’s volleyball match and my Wake Christian football game, I was speechless.

I had since come to terms with my grandma’s absence in my life thanks to my mom, who pointed out that within her side of the family (the portion that spent the most time with Faye) there were three teenage pregnancies out of wedlock, at least two jailbirds and exactly zero college ATTENDEES.

But with learning of Faye’s death, all I could feel was regret over the grudge I held for so many years.

I would have liked to have said goodbye, or at least to have seen her within the past five months, but it’s not so much about missed opportunities as much as I was just ashamed of adolescent Ty’s grudge against a family member.

Do you guys have any regrets concerning relatives or weird family tree stories?

The appeal for spicy foods had always eluded me, somehow.

I love to try different things, but anytime there’s a chili pepper logo or flame attached to a dish, I tend to stay away, preferring to err on the side of mild.

I just felt I had burned my tongue too many times on hot coffee to want to put it through pain on purpose, though I appreciated the flavors of hot stuff. Jalapenos sometimes would sometimes make an appearance in my diet, and sometimes I test ed myself with wings and hot sauces, but mostly just to assure myself again that spicy foods weren’t for me.

And then something happened. I was at Sammy’s for trivia one Tuesday night and Brent and Kate got the idea to order ten super-hot boneless wings. I can’t remember what Sammy’s calls their hottest…nuclear or inferno or something…I’ll find out sometime, but the idea was we would race. The first person to eat all three of their wings would eat the final, tenth wing to signify their winning of the contest.

And so I shoved hot, spicy chunks of meat down my throat as fast as possible. Of course I lost (Brent finished first, then Kate) after a lot of water and an unscheduled tearful lap around the restaurant in case I vomited, I celebrated quietly inside. I had eaten hot stuff on purpose and survived.

Then I received instructions to eat something spicy to help me get through a rough spot from Obi-Wan KelseySchnellobi. I never told him that he was insane and that I hated spicy food (mostly fearing another patriarchal tongue-lashing) and decided to push the thought of spicy food from my mind.

But it wasn’t long before peer pressure (from a very large man) had me staring down spiciness again.

I was interviewing Lamar Adams, a former Garner High standout and recent inductee into the Elon sports hall of fame, at Buffalo Brothers, a sports bar on Capital Boulevard. I had arrived late (as usual) and he had already ordered appetizers.

I got a beer (Sam Adams Summer Seasonal…ahh…) and we started talking about the NFL. Before long, there were eight jalapeno poppers in front of us and he TOLD me to eat.

I tried one and he made me eat another. Before I knew it, the waitress was asking if I needed another beer. I realized that if the spicy food continued, I would be too plastered to ask any questions.

Next came the hot wings…I was sure to eat slowly and drink even slower, but Adams had ordered 20 and was insistent that 10 of them were mine. They paled in spiciness to the Sammy’s wings and the jalapeno poppers, but it still kept me on my toes as the interview continued and I fought to appear manly before one of the Triangle’s all-time most feared defensive tackles.

So that was twice I conquered the sinister of spice, but there was another challenge to come. Outside of spicy mustard at The Flying Saucer and helping my mom with Asian Zing wings from Buffalo Wild Wings, my next heat against heat came Sunday when an old friend took me out for sushi.

I allowed her to order, since I knew nothing of sushi and only offered her distinct instructions not to order anything too spicy.

Sure enough, everything the waiter brought had spicy in its description. Spicy tuna, spicy mayo, spicy whatever…I don’t remember, but I decided to grin and bear it. Or, as Kelsey would put it, I “manned up.”

And that, my friends, was the greatest sushi experience I had ever had. The spices played off the tunas and seaweeds and whatever the hell else I ate perfectly.

It was a taste explosion, and that’s when I realized that despite of all of my liberal food explorations that had ranged from alligator to snails, I had built up one rule: nothing spicy – a rule that needed to be broken before understood that it was one meant to be broken.

With the final barrier broken, now I’m finally free to explore any foods that tickle my fancy, not matter that there’s a biohazard logo beside it. I won’t go overboard by any means, but it feels good to open up a menu with no encumbrances.

Was it the guiding force of Kelsey that led me to this awakening or just a series of peer-pressure-riddled situations? I don’t care either way, really. Just get me two glasses of water with whatever I order and let’s eat.