Ma Knudsen

Me Ma had her own song you know, 'oh oh here she cums, run off boy she'll knock you out, oh oh here she cums, she's a man beater.'

I used to watch her bare knuckle fights from the top of the stairs, she really did not like Jehovah witnesses or Mormons. Every Thursday night was her extreme Bingo night, you could shout 'HOUSE' or 'BINGO' but unless you survived the trial by badger, all you'd get fuck all.

She was small but plucky and was seldom without a cigarette in her mouth that growing up I thought ash was a special seasoning on me dinner. Her favourite brand was Smoking Kills. 

You know who smoking kills? .... the weak, that's who. Smoking never killed her though. While hunting griz in the Mourne Mountains she tracked doon Old Ned the meanest biggest bear you never wanted to meet. She took doon Old Ned but he got her before he went. Old Knudsen's mother passed away just after Christmas.

Ma Knudsen may have had Dementia and Alzheimer's but she never forgot how to kill bear or where her cigarettes where. 

I'm writing this as a part of my grieving process and to tell my little story of a fucked up family. I know that many of my friends around the world have a similar fucked up families full of abusive manipulators who get more than their fair share of second chances just because they are blood. It's actually maybe because you think that's all you deserve and it's what you know so yer kinda used to it.
In some fucked up way it has become normal for you so you put up with it.

Here is Old Knudsen's family, no not really. Smiles ... who does that? What's next hugging? If there was any hugging going on in my family it was merely to check for weapons and a friendly smile meant there was company. You have to keep up appearances for fucks sake.

Old Knudsen was always different from his family, in fact he'd go as far as to say he has never fit in anywhere and still doesn't. Being the youngest of a family of ancients it was easy to dismiss him and as long as he knew his place there wasn't a problem .... but Old Knudsen became an adult, then the shit hit the fan.  

This is more like my family.

Old Knudsen's three sisters are famous, you may recall them from the Shakespeare play Macbeth. I'll no mention the mean hippy one or the Ballymena cougar one, I'll be talking about my Nazi sister.

Patricia was always Old Knudsen's favourite sister, she was always off traveling in foreign cuntries so maybe that's why I got on with her so well .... she was never there.

We did write letters and then e-mails. She worked for many years in Germany and was fluent in German, it seemed to suit her working there. For some reason she moved back to Northern Ireland, maybe since she was getting on a bit she couldn't take all that walking up mountains that the Germans did.
One thing I noticed about Patty was that she was very glib and superficial. You could tell she had issues that she wasn't dealing with. She didn't like males very much, unless she could control them, if a male was older and an authority figure she'd instantly turn into a brown nose, giggling at their every witty word and taking what they said as being the ultimate truth that you couldn't question.

She also had very little patience and a mean, stubborn streak. She was the type to accuse you of things that she was actually guilty of doing herself. A control freak who was a manipulative abuser.

Years ago my aunty was in a rest home in the Knudsen ancient homeland of the north of Scotland and Patty made sure to visit, she even became in charge of her pension giving out money for the odd hair do until my aunty died. She has visited her on her death bed but me aunty didn't go until a week later when Patty had already left.

Patty was there when Pa Knudsen died. No hospitals even though he was ill for a week, he died at home. I was in Callyfornia and got an e-mail the next day. I always thought that Patty had done her best, sure forcing him to bathe to clean up for the doctor's home visit may have been too much since he collapsed in the bathroom but not being there I couldn't really question it.

I didn't question it until I came back and saw how Patty was caring for Ma.

Anyways there was a little friction between myself and Patty with me other siblings falling in line behind her, it was how it's always been, them against me. I was the fly in Patty's ointment for then she could no longer hide Ma's dementia .... since I noticed it and mentioned it I automatically got the blame for it.  

Old Knudsen never fires first, he always gives the other person the chance to not be a cunt. It's amazing how many people will go straight in for the attack and be the cunt. All their accusations mean nothing as I know that it's never me who starts it.

So I quit with the family visits, I'd see Ma the odd time when I knew that Patty wasn't there (she'd leave Alzheimer's Ma alone in the hoose for hours) but when Ma started to wander the streets the neighbours started to talk and Patty couldn't have that so she stopped working at the hospital as a brain surgeon to stay with Ma.

Patty was all about keeping up appearances and had a martyr complex. You couldn't help the woman as she would only take help from the siblings who bowed to her will. Old Knudsen tried and extended his hand many times to only have it bitten off. If you said anything to Patty about anything at all she'd reply with a negative comment.

So and so is having an operation on his back today ...... ach they'll probably leave him paralyzed or he'll die from infection as that hospital is filthy ...... so yer not sending a get well soon card then?

Like a black hole she'd attempt to extinguish any hope or positivity you had. She'd buy Ma ciggies and tabloids full of sensational stories of rape, murder and abuse, was it any wonder that Ma was imagining pedos and killers around every corner?

She'd tell Ma about the cost of everything and worry her about having enough money, even though Ma had a few thousand in the bank which Patty was in charge of. Yes Ma's ATM was often used but not by Ma.

So Old Knudsen has a crappy cell phone. It cost  £15 at Tesco. I don't like talking on the phone and don't live on my phone. I'm not one of those people who check their phone every 5 minutes and why should I? It doesn't have the Interweb. 
Maybe if I had a decent phone I'd be on twitter and not leave my phone neglected for days at a time, the Interwebs have enough of my opinion and amazing wit I think. 

I do check my e-mail on me computer. For 10 years I corresponded with Patty via e-mail and my other siblings have contacted me on it too. 

At the start of January I noticed my phone buzzing and I looked at it but it was an unknown caller who didn't leave a voice mail .... probably a sales lizard. I noticed I had 2 texts on my phone. 

The texts were from patty, her texts are always snarky and start off with Ur mother. It seems that just after Christmas Ma was ill .... no mention of her being on her death bed in the short text. 

The next text was Ur mother's funeral is .....

The funeral was actually that same day in which I checked my phone. I'd missed everything. During the day I got strangely and inexplicably clumsy and hurt myself a couple of times. It was as if I couldn't be careful even if I tried. 

It was so odd that now I think it was Ma from the other side annoyed that I didn't show up at the funeral and that I wasn't listening to her at that moment. Spirits can be angry and confused when they pass over. 

I replied to Patty with a sarcastic thanks and how I must have missed the e-mail (that was never sent) and she replied with a text saying how she sent them in good time and that I was welcome. 

No, it wasn't Old Knudsen's fault that he didn't check his phone, it was his bad luck. Patty probably thought he was ignoring her so why make sure. 

Something as important as a parent dying you make the effort to get that message received right? 

No matter what her issues were with me the decent thing to do would be suck it up and ensure the message got there. 

I had to Google Ma's name to find out when she died, how fucked up is that? Ma's ashes will probably sit in a box in a cupboard as Da's have done since 2008. Her house will be emptied with anything of value going to my siblings and any thing of sentimental value getting thrown out.

I'm not going to speak to my siblings ever again, I am happily done with them. I doubt they'll try to get in touch with me anyway. Never have they done the decent thing and they are too old to start now. 

That empty void of losing a loved one sits in the pit of Old Knudsen's stomach and is often over taken with rage towards Patty. Both will lessen over time. 

Ma had stopped living when Da died, ever since 2008 Ma has been marking time and just existing until she herself died. 
Depression, Dementia and Alzheimer's turned her from a mother who made broth and stew into a frightened, crazed agitated person who couldn't even make a cup of tea. It was no existence and while Old Knudsen grieves the loss of his mother he is glad that she has finally died and her tortured life is ended.         

I would have liked to have seen her one last time while she was still alive but she was not the same person that I knew. I was her son but the other siblings came first, I was that person who was a blood relation from her very own womb but I wasn't family .....  unlike them. The curse of being different.

I am angry at the Alzheimer's and at Patty and at my useless siblings and maybe at myself for not having won against them.  An official next of kin can do as they please it seems ... nicely played Patty. 

Life is short and people like Patty waste yer energy, it doesn't matter that she is blood, what kind of excuse is that to accept abuse? I will waste my thoughts and anger on her until the hurt has dulled as it tends to do over time. 

May my Ma be at peace in the great cosmic soup with Da and may Patty get everything she deserves in this life.