Last Thursday, we’ve been on the funeral of my uncle who died two months ago. Yes, you did read that right, he died two months ago and the funeral was just now. Quite late. His wife left him after he got the brain tumor diagnosis, and I never really wrote about it a lot. Mainly because it’s material for a whole book, and it would take me a long time to write about it in detail. You can’t imagine how much trouble she caused him and us. Today we talk about the things that happened on a way, that if this would have been a movie, you and everyone else would have said “What a dramatic story, but it’s a movie, stuff like this doesn’t happen in real”. But oh, it does happen. We had to deal with a narcissist, his wife. Excuse me if I made you curious and if I don’t tell you the whole story yet, that’s not what my post will be about, because as said, I would need to write the amount of words you are used to in a book. It might happen that I write about this in more detail, or maybe not if I think I am just done with the whole story. Writing is for me also about processing things that happened. But sometimes you just want to close a file. With that said, it might happen or not that I will write about it in detail, it depends. For now I just want to speak about it in general without much details, and then close the file for a while.
What I want to say in this post again is that his narcissist wife caused so much trouble, it’s unbelievable. It would really be a book, believe me. Even if she left him prior to his death, her last act was to delay the funeral as long as possible. But somehow the pastor managed it to make it happen. That day was last Thursday and of course his (not divorced) wife wasn’t present. We actually hoped that she wouldn’t be present, but she caused so much trouble that it would have been bad for her either way. If she would have had the courage to come to the funeral, quite a lot of people would have pointed with the finger at her. Not being there was equally bad, because it reminded every one of her evil actions prior to his death. It’s not her fault that my uncle got the brain tumor, but the sad truth is the way she treated my uncle was equally bad. The sad truth is, he had to fight cancer two times at once, the brain tumor in his head, and the cancer that is his narcissistic wife.
Fortunately my uncle lived with us in the last year because she threw him out of the apartment. It sounds sad, but when I look back I see how this was good, because she had zero empathy and whenever I visited them, I just realized how bad she treated him. The brain tumor caused him not to understand what just happened. But we made sure that his last time was as good as possible.
I knew for quite some time that he was unhappy with his wife, but now we all know why. I think sooner or later they would have been divorced, he even thought about this. It’s just that the brain tumor diagnosis was suddenly there. No matter how much trouble his wife caused, I know life is not just about one person. He met a lot of good persons, his friends, his family. He lived his life to the fullest, from holidays, to driving motorcycle with his friends, starting his own small company, camping in the nature and so much more. What happened in his last years is sad, and it’s haunting, but I know before that he had a really good time. I remember him as a very happy person who was in love with life. Everyone liked him and it took him just minutes to make everyone around him wanting to know him. He was outgoing, he offered help when he noticed someone needed it. He loved dogs and even if he always smiled, his dogs could make his eyes blaze. He taught younger kids in the family things he was interested in. He was as curious as I am and tried photography, played computer games with me together and there was almost nothing that he didn’t want to check out. It’s just that at the end, literally, he had the wrong life partner on his side. But he had us, the family, we never left his side, the disease just took him away from us.
It’s a paragraph and in no way will I do him justice with a few sentences, because his life was exciting. Some day I will write a separate post about him, talking about his good moments, because I want that people know who he was. It’ll make me feel good, because he will not be forgotten. We will always have him in our heart. Even a super long post will not explain his life, but my blog is about my life and he belonged to my life. He actually inspired me in many ways. There are things in my life I might not have found interest in, if I wouldn’t have known him. As I always said, he was my uncle, but also one of my best friends. Despite the tries of his wife to exclude people from the funeral she didn’t even want to visit on her own, there have been many people. I was so happy that so many people thought about him and came to honour him. It’s strange to say this when you speak about a funeral, but in a way it was a beautiful day, because I realized he made so many people happy that they all wanted to be there, honouring him. And then you see they were his friends and they made him happy too when he was still there. It was touching, for example when his best friend Thomas froze when he touched his picture and lowered his head, when grandma started to cry after the music started or many other moments. Including the fact that many of his friends from other cities came too. It was the first funeral I ever been to, but we went through so much that this was the needed closure for me.
Since he died two months ago, and I wrote about this already, you can say that we’ve been over it already. Mainly, because you need to look forward or you fall into a hole. But also because as I said often, when the doctors said he would be terminal ill, that was the real shock we had to cope with early. Not everyone experienced it that close and early. Like one of my cousins who got tears in the eyes during and after the funeral , she said “I was sad whenever you told us what was going on, but today, the moment I saw his picture on the altar, it hit me harder”. They didn’t hang around together often, they met each other during family meetings and they wrote each other regularly, thanks to the mobile world that keeps us all connected. But these aren’t insignificant moments either. As said, in a way the funeral was beautiful because I saw how many people cared but since his wife delayed it for a long time by refusing to give signatures or doing paper work, it was also sad because it prolonged a wound that still needed to be closed. Everyone was upset about her. Yes, you need a closure, and now I understand a funeral isn’t something religious even if it looks like it is, no it is just the closure people need, and the honour the deceased person deserves. That doesn’t mean we will forget him, until our last breath we won’t. We will remember him.
I said it already after he left us, but I say it again. Rest in Peace my uncle, you’ve been a very good friend.
Diary of Dennis 
Dennis I am so sorry for what that woman put all of you through: I understand exactly what you mean, my own mother was a Narcissist from the ground up, and it made life difficult for anyone who knew her. Your uncle sounds like he was a good, patient man, and she probably did him a favor by leaving.
take care, Dennis.
Thank you. That’s a good way to describe it. Narcissist make it difficult for everyone. Before they moved to our city since he wanted to be closer to the hospital, and before she threw him out… I was asked by my uncle to sleep for a few days in his house. It was because, at this time we knew, something caused him to have irrational thoughts like “Someone will (not could) break into the house”. It was a very manifested thought you couldn’t get out of his head. Just later when the diagnosis of brain tumor came, we heard from the doctors that tumors can cause similar symptoms like schizophrenia, which makes sense since things happen in the brain. It turned out, I didn’t sleep a few days there, I was in that town a half year because he almost demanded it, but it wasn’t a problem for me and I stayed…
The first quarter was actually totally fine. I didn’t think she was a Narcissists at that point, I just realized later she must be. Today I learned they are masters in hiding, playing cards (humans) against each other out, lying, creating some kind of relation where you start to think she is an awesome aunt. But gradually, thinks appeared to be totally off, I told my mother “Something is wrong with her”. Later tt became more clear, I was hundred percent sure, she either was one, or she became one, a Narcissist.Temper tantrum every day, lying to Person A with story A, and telling person B a story B, she was flexible in story teeling, always how she needed it. Individual lies for every person, to play them out against each other. At some point, person A talks with person B, and when person C has a story to tell too, it’s becomes very very strange what all three got told, but that’s how her game became evident to more and more people. I got into conflict with her on a regular basis the last quarter in that mentioned town. I would have left the place asap, but it was about my uncle and now we heard the true diagnosis, brain tumor. My uncle wanted that I stay, it was his house. It became blurry why I was there, yeah the fears, but it seemed like I was now there to protect him of her. I gave my best. Since I can become toxic as well when someone gets into me the wrong way, she realized there are no games to be played when I am in the room. That was fine, but then my uncle got attacked when I was on a hike outside in the nature for two hours. One day he called me on my mobile, I was confused because I hear her yelling in the background. And I heard him crying. I had to stop on my hike, went back to them. He hid the phone, so that I can listen what’s happening when I am not there. A cry for help. And even that is just 1% of the full story if at all.
Back in our city near the hospital, the story with her continued. Now she didn’t just cause trouble with me and my uncle or the kids. She did manage it to upset like 20 people. Including people at authorities, hospitals. In some cases it just took a lot of time until people realized what kind of stupid games she played. She was like a chameleon. or should I say like an actress. It was like a puzzle, each tile was a lie a person got, but when you did put the puzzle together a picture became visible of her. First I thought it, then more and more people agreed with me… Today we say, if she is no Narcissist, we would eat a broom. Reading what a Narcissist is, that’s like reading her résumé of the last two years. But you said you have experience with this, then you know… it’s complex, thousands of lies, attacks, a completely distorted picture of herself, no empathy at all, not even about the brain tumor (Like she yelled at him once: “Be a man, you’re like a woman!!”… it barely would fit into a book to describe what we experienced with her. This was a first hand experience of insanity for me. Previously I just heard about it. Now I know what it means.
When she threw my uncle out of the apartment in our city, she called me and wanted to speak. That didn’t happen when I met her, I just received my uncle (yes received like a package) in a wheel chair on a bridge with the sentence “He can’t come back”. Not without a very idiotic story again, that her father would be there to punch my uncleif he comes back and bla bla bla. I even got invited by the police because she said I had stolen her keys. They did question me like a criminal until they understood the whole story is just idiotic. It was so unreal, but as you said, she did my uncle and us a favor with this, because as soon as I went into my own apartment again after they moved there, I had no chance to protect my uncle anymore apart from visits. So, from the time on with the bridge, we could finally give him a healthy home without him needing to break up (which is of course impossible when you just got a brain tumor diagnosis and symptoms get worse).
But it’s still hard to understand what she caused. Forgetting to give meds, lying about appointments so that MRI was not possible for a long time. I think we would have known 1 or 2 months earlier that he got a brain tumor. And also here, I asked her why he didn’t get the MRI, and she had a story again. You call the hospital and hear a different one, the real story. It was so messed up. And we couldn’t help, it’s the wife… you can’t just kidnap him. So, yup, the best thing happened was that she threw him out, because with his tumor he didn’t get what just happened. That however didn’t stop that we sometimes had to have contact with her. That was the funeral, the real closure.. not just with my uncle’s death, but also with this lunatic person his wife.
Up to this day one question is unsolved, and sometimes it pops up again in my head. I try to forget the question, but the question always comes back. Could it be that he didn’t ask me to live with them for some time because of this fear that strangers could break into his house at night, but because his wife controlled him on a way that he was afraid of her? I will never find out. I am just completely sure that he had two enemies, his wife and the tumor. He could have stopped one thing, the relation with his wife, sadly not the tumor. It’s just a sad story.
I am just happy that he had a very lucky life before that time. And at least we could give him a good time at the end too, without his wife.
That is too bad that he had to deal with two problems at once but it sounds like he was better off spending his final days without her. I do not know how people can be so nasty and uncaring but I suspect there is something wrong with her brain too.
Yes, it was a stressful time. At some point we started to think she is a Narcissist or mentally ill in a similar way. Now I am very sure about this. Yes since he couldn’t decide on his own, best what could happen was that she left him. She was so toxic. I am glad we don’t have to deal with her anymore.
This time really tested us. Without counting his wife in, I realized my family is super strong, can go through very taught times, the team spirit is strong. It was not easy but it makes you realize many things.
His wife now lives in a different city and I am glad about this. With the way she treats people, I am pretty sure she won’t get very far in life.
People that treat others badly are alway unhappy themselves. Sometimes they make me angry but then I think I should feel sorry for them instead.
Yes, this is also pretty much how I got through all this stress. I constantly reminded myself that the difference is, that I don’t have to put lies in the world, that I don’t have to treat others badly, that I don’t have to play stupid games to push my ego. I’ve been angry about her for a while, but then I reminded myself that people like her will run into big issues without my help. There are things that we can’t influence, of course, but generally when you just try to get through your day having fun, understanding others, not causing additional trouble, being a help, it’s just less likely that you will attract trouble. This is what I reminded myself, she was different and created her own obstacles, thus it would make her life more difficult in the long run, not mine. Because I would eat a broom if someone with this attitude won’t run into more and more problems in the future.
You’re right, why should you be upset about someone who makes his own path more difficult to cross? We started to put a fake smile or mask on, to get some signatures from her and stuff like that. You just learn how to deal with people like her. It took time, since she was slow and often on power trips. But it’s been an experience, with a clear goal from our side, getting this to a closure with the funeral. Now we can ignore her, there is no reason to stay in contact. I just deleted her contact everywhere. Because she is not useful to us anymore. Her importance shrinked in the very moment we had the date of the funeral set.
We have a saying in Germany if we don’t care about someone anymore. We say “Bleib wo der Pfeffer wächst”. Translated it means “Stay where the pepper is growing”. It comes from times when pepper came from India, without aircrafts at that time, practically hard to reach. Which basically means, the further away the person, the better because you won’t miss the person.
That is a great saying. The point of life is to be happy. Forgot anyone who gets in the way of your happiness.
Exactly Charles. 🙂
During such hardship, your uncle was lucky to have such a supporting family. I am so very sorry to hear, that his wife did not turn out to be that.
Right. In difficult times people grow together, I discovered we have a lot of team spirit. We learned a lot and tried our best. In his last time, there were more problems than there should have been, but I think it was the best he came to us. So, you could say the last year was actually pretty fine because his wife had much less control, could cause much less issues (like forgetting meds or important hospital appointments to mention just 0.01% of what she caused). He never forgot to smile. Small things, when we ate together and he suggested to eat the same dish tomorrow again because he liked it… these smiles, the stories of the past, the good times we had, that is what I will remember the most. 🙂
This wife caused a lot of trouble, but we showed her what counts, and it’s not always one’s own life. We care about others, and since she didn’t, she became the outsider. That’s the irony about people like her, they think they are so important, they don’t need to help and care only about themselves, they try to push their ego by being dramatic and offensive. But at the end they are the ones that do stand alone, without support. It’s her fault.