Excelle

Never have I been involved with physically assaulting a family member. Never have I been witness to another family member physically assaulting another. In my extended family (which is quite large), none of that behavior would be tolerated for any reason- sober, drunk or whatever the excuse. Unbelievable.

 In my family we were born fighting I guess but were never allowed to fight in the house.  Since we were toddlers we had duked it out at one time or another.  I thought I had outgrown the phyical confrontations but was proved that is not the case.  We have never been able to be in the same space for more than an hour without one of us getting defensive.  I was surprised that I slapped her first.  I do not slap.  If I take a shot at someone it is normally with words or a fist.  I have called my sister, emailed her, tended my apology but she is mad at the whole world over the death of our brother.  She is not coping very well.  I left after the funeral and came back a week later to discover she had taken what she wanted of our brother's things while our mother was gone and burned the rest in the ditch next to our mother's house.  I managed to save a wooden trinket box from Germany and his pictures from Nam and a pocket knife.  It may be hard to understand what happened for some of you who are not from a highly explosive and violent family, for us it is second nature like breathing.  I have often wondered if this was her way of cremating him since that is what she had wanted and did not get her wish.

Thank you for your condolences on our brother's passing, cbhendersa.  He is very sorely missed.  As for physically assaulting a family member, that depends on a person's point of view.  We were raised fighting by our Father.  Mom was the pacifist and we were not allowed to fight in the house, take it outside.  Our Father is gone now and we broke the cardinal rule of fighting in the house.  I was more upset about breaking the rule than smacking my sister.  We are speaking now and life is moving forward but my poor sister is having a real problem getting over the loss of our brother.  We don't have hard feeling towards each other now, moved past that.  I don't think we were raised like most families as some of the responses seem a little shocked by the aggreciation in the family.  To us it is normal.  I even had one person at the wake say "Some things never change, fighting since the cradle, a true children of your Father."  Dad was a Golden Glove boxer and drill instructor in the US Army.

Gardentigress - My condolences on the loss of your brother.  I am, fortunately, from a very passive family.  When my mother died 3 years ago, I was truly amazed at how well my brothers and nieces all chipped in to help set everything up.  My next older brother has always been the "rabble rouser" of the family and he showed up at the funeral home with many wonderful ideas for the funeral.  I do know that funerals are EXTREMELY stressful even in the most even keeled families.  I was so distraught at my mother's funeral that I was ready to fight any and everyone who disagreed with me.  My brothers may have known that because they all deferred to me during the arrangements - but then too, my mother had lived with me for the past 5 years before she died, so they knew that I knew what she wanted.

Others - I feel that people should be more understanding of the differences in people.  We are not all raised the same way - thank God.  It would an awfully boring world if we were - we wouldn't have anyone to talk about!  None of us are perfect - we all have something in our lives that we are not necessarily proud of and because of that, we do not have the right to judge/condemn others who are not as "perfect" as we are.  Please be careful of what you say to Gardentigress.  She has feelings too - she is simply looking for the answers as to how many people have actually had fights (or not) at funerals.  She is not looking for your approval (or disapproval) - she already has enough of that.