It is a great day to be alive

As opposed to the alternative, everyday is a great day, huh? As almost all of you know, I had to postpone my birthday breakfast ( I really didn't want to) because my mom requested my presence at Vernes funeral. I really don't know what I think of the whole thing. TO give ya'll a synopsis, when my mom got together with him in July of 1988, he was a very proud lil man (he was only like 5'5" or something like that). He always had the pressed jeans, pearl button cowboy shirts, highly shined boots, neatly shaved and hair slicked back in that old man styling fashion. He moved to Colorado with us and turned out to be a crazy, violent alcoholic. He accused me of sleeping around when I was Chick's age, physically threw my mother across the room, tried to stab me once, covered her in lighter fluid and chased her around the house with a lighter, tried to punch me in the face for having the audacity to have a black friend just to name a few high(low?)lights. So it is with little wonder that when I graduated in '92, I moved out the day after graduation. He and my mom moved back to Mo.Valley when my grandpa passed away to look after my grandma. She will refuse to talk about it but I have my theories about violent men not just suddenly losing their tendencies. Sometime in the late 90's ( I was in Germany by then) mom had told him it was over and he tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide. He later told Mike that he was looking for my mother and couldn't find her so he decided to shoot himself. When Mike and I saw him after we came back from Germany, he was wearing dirty old sneakers, untied, no socks, sweat pants, a dirty white tee and his hair was too long and all over the place. By then he was living to drink and drinking to live. The deterioration was just horrible. He basically had no pride left. Mom got him moved into a retirement place up in Mo.Valley and he lived there till he died. While he was there, he told everyone who would listen that my mom was his ex wife and he still loved her deeply. Which was a little confusing for some people since when Art died, she was listed as his wife of 26 years. Anyway, the funeral home called her and she had to see who she had in her phone book from 10 years ago when he was a part of her life. She finally managed to track down a sister. Turns out he has 3 sisters, 5 children and an ex wife from 35 years ago. Who knew?
SO the only reason I am postponing my birthday breakfast is because my mother says she needs me, not because I have any affection for this man. I am having an internal argument. 'you should feel something like bad because a person died' vs. 'he was an asshole that doesn't deserved to be mourned, that is for his children, you know the ones he abandoned 35 years ago, to do'
Yeah, a therapist would make a small mint off me.