Life is so unfair! And an unexpected burial... Shit.

A few weeks ago, the son of my favorite guest in the Mühlgasse was reading the paper in the kitchen in the morning, and then just fell over onto the floor and was unconcious.

His mother is a schoolfriend of Peter's mother and his Aunt. Gisela, but no one called her that. Her schoolfriends call her 'Gisi', and Peter and his mother called her 'Giselle', which is a figure in a ballet.

She was always my most preferred Austrian guest in the house Peter and I lived in. Always with us on the high holidays, and in between, when she could get out of the house. Peter flew her to Frankfurt twice to visit his aunt, and they had adventures she can still recount, and it was very nice of him to do that. She spent a lot of time with his mother when she was dying in hospital. So, 'family'. Seemingly all schoolgirls together, you know?

And did I spoil her? Always did. She had one quirk. Would only eat fowl. I turned up so many variations on that that she was always amazed.

And in all those years, there was talk about her son. But until last summer, I never met him. For the past several years, Giselle hasn't been able to leave the one room in her house that she is kind of constricted to. And I went out there with Peter's aunt and his neices to visit with her last summer. She was sort of a recluse, meanwhile.

Her son was working in Vienna, came home every weekend to check on her, not to mention the horridays, and was a very dutiful, caring son. Seemingly shy, nice, from what I could tell, and reticent.

And I was the first person she called. Blew me right out of the water. That was a difficult call...

Gieselle is gonna turn ninety in a couple of days, btw....

Her son was under 65, because he wasn't retired yet.

(A lot of women had children late during WWII, you know?)

Whatever, I was trying to figure out a way to find out how he was, but that was just impossible, as he was intensive care, and he was paralysed on one side, the speech part of his brain was destroyed, and so on. There was no way in hell I could have found out.

Whatever, a friend of hers said she would drive her to hospital on Tuesday, (yesterday), so she could see him. And when she got there? He had died the night before, and they hadn't notified her yet.

How fucking nice. Ninety year old people should NOT outlive their children.

Now she has to arrange everything, and she does NOT want any help. (We offered...)

Now comes the 'fun' part. There was something in her son's past. He was staying with Peter's Aunt and Uncle in Frankfurt when he was young, and got into some trouble in the red-light district near the train station there. We never learned what the hell happened, but it was always a thing... if Giselle got moufy, they referred to it, and she went suddenly quiet. And changed the subject.

For years there have been rumours circulating that he had another life in Vienna, and a life partner. Stands to reason that if had been a woman, he would have brought her to meet her sometime in all the decades.... Tja, BINGO... and how terribly terribly sad.

As for Giselle, she was over-protective of anything at all that concerned her son. We have to remember that she is the product of another century with other values. But on the other hand, when she was visiting us, she got such a kick out of how we interacted, and was fully ok with it. We never pushed it in her face, but she is really no Dummkopf.

Maybe... just maybe... she was upset that her only son didn't have the courage to share the other part of his life with her, and things might have been totally different, have no idea, but maybe....

What FLOORED me? I believe I was the first person she called to tell me what had happened to her son.

That was one of the hardest telephone calls I have EVER had to take.

I hope I did well. I cried inside.... for her.

At least her son never regained consciousness, and they said he wasn't in pain.

I hope that is true.

Another thing that has been running through my mind at the moment.... wtf is going on with his significant other? Can you imagine having your friend go to look after his mother one weekend, and he doesn't come back, and you aren't allowed to call, or find out how he IS, or know what happened? That's been running through my mind these past two weeks.... How absolutely, completely terrible.

Which brings us back to the 'honesty' issue.... Better to be honest and out front. If you get rejected, they didn't deserve you in the first place. And if they do accept you, you sleep better nights, believe me.

So... have been moufing off, mind-surfing on the keyboard, true.

And in the next few days, am going to have to attend a fucking funeral. Again, as so many times before. Only this time, am going to be angry inside that he seemingly didn't have the fucking BALLS to tel the truth.

I have never thought that it pays off to hide in a closet or under the bed, just so people don't get their collective panties in a twist.....

What a fuck-up. And DAMN him for not having the fucking balls to come out.

Does this put a different light on things for you?

Better to tell the truth, hey....