Crazy

I'm in Grinnell right now helping the high school kids not suck at painting their set for the spring musical.  I'm staying with Mom, and since we've both been sad lately we ended up talking for a long time about Dad.  Maybe it's because I was watching Ghost Adventures.  She told me my piece of trash of an aunt was high and left this message on her phone saying Mom and us girls were going to be damned to hell for not having a tombstone put on Dad's grave yet, and we were going to hell for putting "the family" through this.  We had other bills to pay before we thought about getting a tombstone, including insurance for the house that my aunt is living in illegally.  And we've already picked out a stone.  (As far as the house is concerned, there's this thing with the title 19 stuff she gets.  They paid to redo her house or something.  You're not allowed to have bills in your name at a second property and you have to live in the house.  Well, she's been living at my grandma's house for a few years now, and has someone paying her rent to stay in her house.  Not cool and very illegal.) 
Anyway, she went to the cemetery and pulled out Dad's grave marker so we wouldn't be able to find his grave.  RETARD, he's right next to Grandma and Grandpa, and we all already know where his ashes are buried.  Fucking moron.  Regardless of that though, I'm pissed.  First of all that's theft.  Secondly, he hated his fucking cunt of a sister.  She's fucking evil, and so is my cousin.  I hate them both so much, sometimes it consumes me.  At least I don't have to have anything to do with them anymore.  They deserve all the misery they live with now plus more.
After Mom relayed this story to me, she asked, "are you ready for another shock?"  Well duh, yes.  So Mom was having lunch or something with Dad's "girlfriend" Deb.  She's pretty nice and she loved my Dad.  Awhile ago my aunt lost part of her fingertip, and she had told all of us that Deb turned on the garbage disposal while she was digging something out and it chopped her finger.  Deb told Mom that's not what happened.  Dad and my aunt fought all the time, and one of the fights I know about he punched the shit out of her face.  Dad was worried for a long time that us girls hated him because of it and lied, saying she fell or something stupid like that.  I wasn't mad.  I didn't give a flying fuck.  If I had to live with her I would have broken her face too.  Well I guess they had been fighting again, and my aunt was doing this thing where she was jabbing her fingers into Dad's chest, over his heart.  Mom said she's seen her do it to John, my aunt's boyfriend, and it hurt him bad.  Well she did it to Dad and it pissed him off.  He grabbed her hand and fucking bit the tip of her finger off.  Deb said she saw it, and she saw him actually spit the tip of her finger out of his mouth.  Afterward he went to his room and locked himself in, and my aunt went to the garage and curled up in the fetal position and just mumbled to herself.  This doesn't make me mad either.  I wish he would have chopped her goddamn arm off, BUT, it's just so clear how far gone he was before he died.  Now that I'm studying the human body more in depth in school, his insanity and his cruelty make more sense.  Bipolar disorder, brain damage from a car accident, brain damage from years of ignoring his sleep apnea, brain damage from his pain medication abuse, brain damage from his heart attacks. 
Now that he's gone, I feel protective of him.  I've bad mouthed him more than anyone throughout my life, and I think I was justified, but my little sister said it best when she wrote, "he was a terrible person, be he loved his kids ferociously."
It's easier to see that now, so I feel like I have to defend the Dad I knew when I was little.  The Dad that knocked a goddamn bull off its feet when it pinned my older sister.  The Dad that held my little sister's head to keep it from moving when she fell off the hay elevator and cracked her skull.  The Dad whose lightning reflexes kept a tamping post from falling on my head when we were doing chores.  The Dad that gave us rides in the tractor bucket and gave us all the money in his wallet when we wanted to ride the heart flip and the sidewinder at the county fair.  The Dad that brought me back a hammock from Austria because he knew I wanted one so badly.  The Dad that taught me not to take shit from anyone.  The Dad that was so proud and bragged about his daughters to anyone who would listen throughout his whole life.
Dad's lawyer/our lawyer told us that Dad would come into the office sometimes, fighting mad and red in the face about one thing or another.  His will, Grandma's will, whatever.  The lawyer said he knew exactly how to calm him down.  He just had to ask about his daughters.  It was like a light switch would go off, and he'd calm down and start smiling while he talked about us.  I have to stop, I'm crying and can't see the computer screen.