Business comes first?

Nov 27 08:31 UTC 2000

A couple weeks ago my grandmother, my mother's mother, was moved from
her apartment in an 'elder community' to the other (clinic) wing of the
building on account of she had pneumonia (not enough flu shots to go
around for some reason) and as it turned out had 'congestive heart
failure' - she'd never had any heart problems prior.  My folks flew in
to 'help' her get back up on her feet and move back into her own
apartment.  That was a couple weeks ago.  Last weekend I was scheduled
to fly down with whats-her-name and Mary Wilson (Wilson among other
reasons for her husband, not to mention _the supremes_ and it being a
family name on both sides) but instead a customer wanted to do a system
upgrade that friday night instead of the friday over thanksgiving as
originally scheduled with somebody else of my cohort so I agreed to
cover it, business comes first.  I missed the 'tailgate' party where
from her clinic bed dressed in a UM sports jacket my grandmother and kin
watched UM beat OSU (IN Columbus I must add).  She kept asking when I
was coming down and they explained, business comes first and that I just
had to work instead.  She was doing great so it was no problem to
schedule to come down for the thanksgiving weekend, except for the fact
that naturally by that time at the last moment the only flight I could
get was that there 7AM thanksgiving day arriving an hour later (two
hours on account of the time zone).  She crashed on tuesday and was
taken to an actual hospital as 'unresponsive' and promptly woke up,
freaked out the docs, and had a great and active day on wednesday
enjoying the morphine and chattering away, among other things asking
where I was and was assured I was on the way and wanting to know if bush
had been proclaimed president yet (a life long democrat and free thinker
she hated clinton and his spawn).  She died in her sleep about 4AM or so
EST thanksgiving day with her son and daughter holding her hands and
their respective spouses.  I arrived four hours too late - business
comes first doncha know.

Mary Wilson in an amalgum of pentacostal chinese christianity and daoism
explained to my mother that 'its just the way life is supposed to be'
'Grandmother dies, mother dies, daughter dies' and made a nice
centerpiece at the table at the Embassy Suites where we all got together
for thanksgiving brunch - out of the two very expensive beanie babies
(purple princess and the white angel or something like that, a gift from
her great aunt - 500$ or so 'on the hoof' as it were or something near
that) - explaining that the purple baby was 'sweetie' dead on earth and
the 'angel' was 'sweetie' in heaven with her husband, Wilson, watching
over us.  Out of the mouth of babes.  (not a dry eye except for her)

Back to our hotel to go swimming and hot tubbing while my father waited
until late to call the clan in hawaii so as to be giving them the news
after the thanksgiving day feast was over - no reason to spoil the good
meal.  Me bro, best man at me wedding dress blue uniform showing the
finger at the protesters at UC going into and coming from -1990- hopped
a series of military and civilian flights to get there for the funeral
celebration (me sister's hubby although a senior officer couldn't pull
strings the way an 'old guard' NCO can).  On account of the HMO (thank
you Bill Clinton and your wife's aborted 'national health plan') we
don't have a body - can't get it signed out until monday (this morning)
we have no body or casket (sokay, cremation and an honest mortician who
said we didn't have to have embalming before nor the box) (350$US total
cost) and we had the funeral mass (a female methodist preacher on
account she 'had the duty' and at that had a wedding two hours later...)
saturday.  We held the funeral while 'sweetie' was stuck on a slab
someplace, nice image... Nice do at my uncle's house afterwards, all the
ohio clan -a whole passel of them suckers- dozen or so grandkids and a
couple dozen great-grand kids (grand kid (me)) playing 'monster' and the
herd of great grandkids playing 'hide-go-seek' over a huge rambling
house (which is currently for sale on account my uncle can see two
neighbors now from his front porch - he's gonna retire someday and
commute between Drummond Island and Hilton Head).  Sunday a rush to the
airport and home to chicagoland (takes longer to get from the airport to
home than to fly from Columbus to Chicago - go figure).

And the bottom line and the point of the item.  In my 'family culture'
'business comes first'.  It is 'the business' that generates the income
that allows for the family activities.  My 'step-aunt' says that
'sweetie', my grandmother ('Sweetie' because I apparently named her that
as that is what she called me being as I was the first grand child was
holding out and waiting for me to get there.
(Now you know more about my family than you ever wanted to. Two
generations of people, adults in their 'mid life crisis' refered to
Myrtle Johnson Funk as 'sweetie' for half a century or so) waited for
me and asked for me the last few weeks she was alive.  My aunt Becky who
I dearly love and think was the best thing that ever happened to my
beloved uncle john after he got divourced (first time in the history of
la familia) might just be trying to lay a 'guilt trip' sort of thingy
being as how she is a Roman Catholic in a desire to make it easy for
me to do the grief thing by crying a lot. (Uncle John divorced his first
wife and then met her years later - she's the first 'bead rattler' in
la cosa nostra since that bugger Henry VIII)  (Uncle John's first wife
actually came up to me prior to the funeral and tried to introduce
herself as "you probably don't remember...etc." and I cut her off and
said "Carol, how could you think I wouldn't remember you (not having
seen her for at least a decade)" - and despite the fact that I never
hated her, I just hated her shrill voice - hated that voice!!!

But the fact remains, I didn't take my family down to Columbus, Ohio the
week before thanksgiving the way I had originally planned on account of
'work'.  To see my grandmother one more day/hour/minute before she died. 

This year alone I have missed the wedding of my niece (a forensic
accountant, a whole different front page WSJ story altogether) where my
daughter was the flower girl, a number of
weekends and a road trip to baltimore 'on account of work'.

'Business comes first' has sort of been a mantra in my family and in
whats-her-names for a long time.  It is 'the business' that funds
everything else.  Does 'business comes first'?

What do you think?

response 2 of 9:

Nov 27 18:07 UTC 2000

No, business doesn't always come first.  But you certainly are free to choose
differently.  But don't be surprized if someone wants to know why it always
comes first to you, if you make that decision in certain situations.

response 4 of 9:

Nov 27 18:26 UTC 2000

buying into other people's agendas is not a requirement.  if you make
different choices for you and your family, you might hear the bleetings of
the self-righteous, but you are not required to buy into them.

response 6 of 9:

Nov 28 01:25 UTC 2000

  I'm sorry to hear about your grandmother's death.
  What more can one say?

response 8 of 9:

Nov 28 03:20 UTC 2000

Business came first because it could.  Only in hindsight is the need to make
a different choice apparent.  We do the best we can with each day as it comes.

"No regrets" is for suckers.