One of the ways I quite like to deal with difficult memories, situations, and even people, is to view them through the lens of how interesting and/or how funny they are. The following situation is both of those, as well as being utterly bizarre.
In the months before Anthony and I were married, I would often come down from Perth via the train. Anthony would pick me up from the train station in the evening and whisk me back to the farm for the best roast chicken I have ever tasted. On one of these occasions, just days after we became engaged, he said he had a crazy story to tell me. “You’ll need a drink, Jules.”
Apparently, the previous day, his younger brother had come over and, again, begged Anthony not to marry me.
“Is it still the gold-digger thing?” I sighed, sipping happily on my gin and tonic.
“No, apparently he knows for a fact that you and Dr X conspired to euthanize Mum.”
My sip turned into a choke: “What?”
“Yep.”
Oh! I was so gob-smacked that I just sat there in disbelief. “So what did you say?” I asked eventually. I couldn’t wrap my mind around how me sitting with Gar in the hospital for those last few days before she died, all those years ago, had been twisted into a murder mystery.
“I just told him to stop being ridiculous,” Anthony said
I was shocked and disturbed by this extraordinary accusation but I also found it fascinating and, yes, well, almost funny. Anthony read my mind and grinned. “Well, did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Conspire with Dr X to euthanize Mum.”
“I think I might have told you, Ants!”
As we ate our roast chicken, one or another of us kept exploding into fits of nervous laughter but eventually we calmed down. “Mum would be rolling in her grave,” Anthony said.
“It’s all pretty sad though, isn’t it,” I said, remembering how profoundly the experience of holding Gar’s hand when she died had affected me.
And yes, of course these sorts of accusations were very sad but they were also very interesting and, strangely, very funny.
I’m pretty sure Gar, too, would be laughing….
Sadly.
jmgoyder 
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