One Last Drag

The whole saga should have ended with Diane's passing but, of course, it wasn't going to be that easy. As he is convinced her brother is going to keep the proceeds from her estate sale and not give her a proper Catholic burial, Al is busy calling my Uncle Ray, hoping that he'll use his money and influence to insure that Diane gets a just sendoff. He is also busy calling me, telling me the same stories about all the good times he and Diane had enjoyed and how happy she was when they did things together, all the while still not being able to grasp how she pissed away all that money. Then I have sister-in-law Leigh Ann calling.

I tell her about the feelings of the Catholic side of the family, and point out that I don't give a shit what they do at this point since, as far as I was concerned, Diane was already with George. Think she got a little upset with the idea they wouldn't give Diane a decent funeral and, as she's talking it through with me, shares some other tidbits along the way. Things like how Diane visited once or twice a year and how she always sent gifts for their kids (odd considering Diane told us her family had nothing to do with her). Or that Diane gave them the official State of Oklahoma ornament for Christmas every year. This was notable, since we made sure we always got one of the very same ornament for Diane each year...

Fortunately, Leigh assured me they were going to have a proper Catholic funeral for Diane. It took a bit of arranging but it did happen about three weeks after Diane's passing. It was mostly uneventful and sparsely attended (since they didn't pay to publish an obit), but where it got weird was seeing Al conducting his own little wake service for Diane in the back of the church, greeting people as they arrived, and pointing them towards book of photos of his travels with Diane. While I thought that was in bad taste, I got over it and hoped to get through the funeral mass as fast as possible. But no, even this wasn't going to be that easy.

Afterwards, Diane's brother Michael and Leigh ask us to come to the cemetery for the committal of the remains. In the Catholic world, this is a ceremony where the mourners travel to the grave site for a five minute or less ceremony where the priest says final prayers over the casket or urn. Easy, right? Not so much this time...

Before we can ever get out of the church parking lot, Al crosses paths with Leigh and Michael and says something under his breath. I didn't hear it but Michael and Leigh both swear he called them assholes and suddenly I thought I was going to have to break up a fight between a 55-year old and a 70-year old. Fortunately, it didn't come to that...

So now we're ready to go to the cemetery, except we're going to follow the priest who moves at a snail's pace and we don't leave until 45 minutes after the service was over. Then, as we're proceeding toward the most expeditious route to the cemetery (about a 15 minute trip), the priest turns left to take 36th Street. This is fine, except it's much, much slower. Turns out Father Howard isn't real keen on NW Highway and it's 45 mph speed limit, so instead he takes 36th and it's 40 mph speed limit, less traffic and stoplights every half mile or so. OK fine, except Father Howard had trouble topping out at 35 mph and what should have been a 15 minute journey turned into a tortuous, 35 minute death march (no pun intended). But the end was in sight!

We get to the cemetery and there were Diane's cremains, in the same box they were shipped in from D.C. It was covered in some ornamental velvet, but no fancy urn here. Just the shipping box!

My wife and I, Michael and Leigh, and a friend of Leigh's who lives in OKC sit for the five minute service and it's over. Or so I thought...

We get a call from Leigh that night, upset that no one said anything to them at the service and thinking Al had trashed them to everyone in the church. While I couldn't say that wasn't the case for sure, I did at least try to get Leigh to feel better and got her talking about other things. And this is where the biggest clues to the Diane puzzle came to light.

First, Leigh mentions that in Diane's paperwork, they found documents indicating Diane had taken a loan against the house as early as 2001, just two years after George died. My guess is, rather than ever having the temerity to repay it, she just kept spending, refinancing, and upping her debt load until she finally maxed out the value of the house to the point that she couldn't get any more out of it, couldn't refinance it, and suddenly was faced with actually having to pay off all the debt she'd accumulated.

Then, in talking about Diane's family history, she mentioned that Diane was somewhat estranged from her father after he'd remarried and started a family with his new wife. Then Leigh said something that might explain it all. That was, "Her stay at Vinita probably didn't help her standing in the family either." I let it slide the first time she said but when she mentioned it again, suddenly, a lot of things made sense. You see, there's a state mental hospital in Vinita, Oklahoma, and apparently Diane had a little stay there.

Everything else is conjecture but it sure does explain a lot. Given the time period, one might guess that whatever mental problem Diane had might have been treated with electroshock therapy. And, as awful as it might have been (and the thought of some untreated or undiagnosed depression is even worse), that sure as hell would have explained the incomparably stupid spending, mindless grin, the slack jawed stares, the simple-mindedness, the inability to grasp reality, the blurting out of any question or thought the instant it came to mind, and the utter devotion to my Uncle George. Maybe it was The Big Zot that sent Diane into the quasi-lobotomized state she seemed to be in...

But in the end, the question of what made Diane the way she was, like all the other questions raised in this saga, (such as Where did all that money go? What were you thinking? How dumb are you? and What the hell's the matter with you?) can only be answered thusly: We'll never know...