I, 38 F, recently lost my grandpa. (Don't be sad, he was 86 and one day just woke up in Heaven.) My grandma had already passed 9 years ago.
The best way to understand this situation is to explain our family dynamics. My grandma was actually my step- grandma, although we never used those terms. There was never 'step' anything. I'll only use the term to explain my plight. My (bio) grandpa had 4 daughters & 9 grandchildren. My (step) grandma had 2 sons, 1 daughter, & 3 grandchildren. As I said, there was never a separation of anything. My grandparents were married for 40 years before my grandma's passing. We were all just one big family.
Now flash back to grandma's passing. Her obituary read more or less as above. All of her children and grandchildren listed as such. Not a mention of step family.
Now back to grandpa's passing. He passed away and my mom and aunts made the plans for the funeral, including writing the obituary. It was posted online to the funeral home website immediately. The first thing I noticed was there was no mention of anyone but my grandma from that half of the family. It was as if my grandma came into the family as a single, childless woman. I called my mom and said I saw the post and it seemed incomplete. She said it was done as it was supposed to be. I asked if grandpa had ever said he didn't want them mentioned. She said again that's how it's supposed to be. I was shocked. Soon messages started coming to me from my cousin's, both bio & step asking why all those family members were left out. I didn't know how to reply.
Two days later we all were at the funeral. My mom pulled me aside and asked that I read the obituary out loud during the funeral. I said sure. I only had a few minutes to prepare but I grabbed a pen and jotted down notes on my copy. I got up to read it and I inserted all the names that has been skipped. As I was reading I glanced around the room. Tears and appreciative nods came from my (step) family. Harsh looks and daggers came from my mom and aunts. After the funeral I was bombarded by thank yous from my step family. All I got from my mom and aunts was "How could you?" & "How dare you?" I simply said I did what I felt grandpa would have wanted and left it at that.
Now it's been a few weeks and my aunt's are still pissed and haven't said a word to me. My mom has maintained a bit of contact, but each time makes sure I know that I was totally out of line for disrespecting my grandpa like that. I told her I was going to need an explanation as to why they felt it was wrong. I have never gotten anything.
So, now I ask. Since you all have all the information I do, am I the asshole for changing my grandpa's obituary during the funeral?
***Update** As it seems these are the commonly asked questions, I'll clear these up. I really don't think the issue stems around money. My grandparents had money set aside for their funerals so no one was out anything making the preparations. As far as inheritance goes everything had already been decided upon by my grandparents. The life insurance policies and the pension payouts were to be split equally. The other question is whether there was infidelity that got my grandparents together. The answer is no. I actually have no idea what happened to my grandma's first husband. I think he passed but I don't really know for sure on that. I do know that he was far out of the picture before she ever met my grandpa. My bio grandmother was a drug addict that my grandpa divorced when the girls were ages 10-16. So they were very aware of the situations that led to being raised by my grandpa. In that situation no one misses their mother. The only children that lived at home after my grandparents got married were my two youngest aunts and they were age 16 and 17. All of the rest of the children were adults and out on their own.

1. Logic system overhaul/improvements. Current system is tedious and a pain to do, even for relatively small builds. Even just having the ability to filter out logic points that are already connected would greatly improve the system across the board, ideally an advanced filter system would be added, such as creating groups, filtering parts, etc. The need to not only use but also create microcontrollers for instrument panels feels excessive and unnecessary. Simplifying panels, or giving the option of a simplified instrument panel that does not need to use a microcontroller, would go far in decreasing the games barrier to entry.
   
2. Built in GPS maps. The fact that this game does not have a built in GPS map, like those tom tom gps map things you see on older cars is absurd when career mode’s map doesn’t show where you are on the map. And before anyone says that it’s “realistic”, if fishing boats in the Bering Sea can have a GPS map during rough weather, I see no reason why a SAR vehicle wouldn’t have such basic equipment. The current career mode’s starter boat is kinda useless at the starting base for this reason, there aren’t many landmarks out in the ocean, and I shouldn’t have to use the workshop just to make the base boat functional.
   
3. Radio console. A simple premade radio console with knobs and such would also be nice and simplify a decent amount of logic.
   
4. Custom window, wedge, and pyramid dimensions and/or more of these blocks in general, and make them more customizable (ie changing the windows color to green or putting designs on wedges and pyramids)
   
5. Small boats keep water out, don’t need a closed volume to be buoyant
   
6. Sails
   
7. 18th century weaponry
   
8. Life rafts
   
9. Emergency inflatable slides (for planes)
   
10. Gliding
    
11. Oars
    
12. Premade vehicles for every basic need you have in game. There should be basic, cheap, premade cars/trucks, boats, etc that can fulfill most of everything you would need to do in game. Nothing particularly fancy, just simple builds that can easily supplanted by custom creations that can serve as references for your own builds or be stopgap measures until you build replacements.
    
13. Search and Recovery. Unfortunately, not every SAR operation is successful. Missions about recovering remains would be nice and can add a decent bit of variety. For example, maybe a hiker found a body in a hard to reach place in the mountains, and because of that an offroad vehicle or aircraft is needed to get there, diving on a wreck to recover remains, or recovering a car from a lake. Other missions could also be diving for investigation critical components, such as black boxes or voyage data recorders, or even specific components that investigators want to find.
    
14. More in depth rescue/injury mechanics. Stuff like sprained ankles, injuries, pregnancy status, health conditions, etc, requiring different things to heal/stabilize. This would also add a sense of urgency to each SAR mission, as now you can’t solve/delay everything by throwing a first aid kit at it. Maybe the local hospital doesn’t have the facilities to treat a time sensitive, so you have to transport the patient to a bigger hospital. Dealing with things like hyperthermia would also be nice.
    
15. Boat materials (wood/metal/polymer)
    
16. Amenities and furniture in general.
    
17. Logging industry
    
18. Fishing industry
    
19. Debris
    
20. Other SAR teams/companies to have a presence in the world and are able to be called upon if needed.
    
21. Nuclear reactor disaster
    
22. More variety and depth for SAR missions, such as an aircraft ditching in the harbor, an aircraft going missing and having to search for it, recovering lifeboats, a nuclear powered ship sinking and having to deal with the radiation, chemical tankers releasing toxic chemicals into the water, sinking an adrift vessel, stopping an illegal salvage operation etc. A cool idea would be to add in the possibility for major accidents to happen, such as a cruise ship capsizing, a nuclear powered ship sinking, or a military aircraft armed with a nuclear warhead being lost over the ocean. Another cool idea would be to add interviews with accident investigation teams after some accidents, such as when a ship sinks because of poor maintenance about what you saw. Obviously, the interviews should only occur for more major accidents and when the player could actually have relevant information. There could also be complications for missions, such as the ship still moving and unable to be stopped, the whole crew is incapacitated, etc.
    
23. In the same vein as no 22, an overhaul of Search And Destroy as it pertains to the overworld would also be nice. Instead of simply having an AI that fights the player, how about having 2 major factions that fight each other, the local military and an invading military, with the option of creating your own faction to take over the islands. This would differ from the previous system by making it so that you would complete orders issued to you, such as patrolling a specific area, engaging a fleet, mining or demining a waterway, etc. At first, you start out doing gruntwork, but as you move up in rank the more you can do, such as sending grunts to do the gruntwork for you. You could also give the option for the player to make their own faction Another thing that could be added are pirates and pirate gameplay. SAD could also add in new missions and disasters, such as disarming mines from the second world war, serial killers, hijacking attempts, a fire at a munitions dump, etc. You can have a lot of fun in regards to disasters and special missions too, such as cleaning up a munitions dumping ground (like what the Norwegian military did, dumping thousands of tons of munitions into a river) or a sunken supply ship detonating (like that one off the coast of England) and dealing with the after effects of that.
    
24. Hiring AI to do things for you, such as a doctor to administer medical assistance to survivors, a captain to drive a boat, SAR divers to recover people from the sea for you, etc.
    
25. Passenger playstyle. Ferrying passengers around feels like a logical next step in the game, with factors such as reliability, how fast you can get to destinations, feats (ie having the fastest passenger ferry in the world even if it does not operate at that speed regularly or having the biggest ferry, etc), price per ticket, amenities(free or paid movie theatre, comfy seats, concession stands, is the interior a comfortable temperature, is there a barbershop and if so is it any good, etc) and necessities (do you have enough seats, is there a bathroom, do you have enough life preservers, if it’s overnight, do you have any beds etc). Options to run excursions with famous or historic ships, simple cruises/excursions to places around the islands would be nice too.
    
26. Expansion of delivery and miner playstyles. Expansion of these playstyles, such as hiring AI to do parts of the job, either as employees or contracting out another company to, say, transport coal from your mine to the powerplant would go a long way to fleshing out these playstyles. You can even have the option to do smuggling runs of illegal or illicit goods. Smaller deliveries that can be handled with a van, or doing mail runs would be cool as well as oversized delivery missions. Increasing the variety of cargo to transport, such as transporting locomotives and/or cars for export would be cool.
    
27. Terminal loading cranes.
    
28. A R&D mode which would allow for quick and easy analysis of a creation where you get raw numbers on a ship’s current tilt, balance, engine performance, etc with the ability to easily change the weather and conditions of the environment and easily switch to build mode.
    
29. Shipwrights. The idea here would be to overhaul building mechanics as it relates to career mode. Instead of being able to instantly build everything, how you can modify your vessel is limited to what your facilities can do. To get a brand-new ship, you would have to commission it from a shipwright. Before commission, you would have access to R&D mode to fully test out the vessal. Where the fun part really begins is that you can have an entire playstyle built around receiving commissions for ships by the AI (or even other players) for a desired vessel within x specifications at a cost of x amount for x amount of vessels within x timeframe with a bedroom made out of 50% windows at a height of x feet, or even upgrade/modify preexisting vessels as part of a commission or to flip on the market, buying older vessels of varying states and giving them a new lease on life. How many ships you can produce at a given time would depend on your facilities, which can be upgraded. Of course, there would be aircraft and land vehicle equivalents. You can even see the ships you produced doing their job in the world.
    
30. Salvaging. Another playstyle that I feel would be a next step for Stormworks would be salvaging vessels either for scrap, refurbish them for resale, restoration into a museum piece, or simply to clear a waterway. You could even give the option to illegally salvage shipwrecks.
    
31. Survey missions
    
32. Survival suits
    
33. Crabbing
    
34. Flooding disaster
    
35. Hurricane and super storm disasters
    
36. Air conditioning
    
37. Other ships coming to assist vessels in distress.
    
38. Tropical islands
    
39. Blimps, zepplins, and hot air balloons.
    
40. Naming vehicles
    
41. Rogue waves
    
42. Supernatural phenomenon. My idea for this is that you would have two categories of phenomenon, explicable and inexplicable. Explicable phenomena would be phenomena that have scientific explanations for them, things such as ghost lights with scientific explanations behind them, maybe have some missions where you disprove the supernatural. Having everything be explicable, however, can be underwhelming so actual supernatural phenomena, such as fleshgaits (especially with SAR being the core theme of Stormworks), ghost ships, or alien encounters, especially if mechanics, such as SAR, are incorporated in it. Like, imagine a seemingly normal SAR mission turning out to be the rescue of aliens from a crashed spaceship and you have to transport them to a drop off point where the MiB is waiting, or a mission where you first set out to debunk the supernatural to then be assailed by the flying dutchman.
    
43. More doors, buttons, ladders, stairs and hatches (ie: a traditional house door, car doors, glass hatches, etc)
    
44. Panels that can be used as signs or “hatches” for otherwise external equipment (ie in order to access a fire extinguisher you have to open a hatch first, im sure there is a better word for it but I can’t think of it)
    
45. Moonpools
    
46. Pools
    
47. More buildable/modifiable properties, especially for terminals. Could be expanded with the ability to flip properties.
    
48. Races
    
49. Competing manufacturers of equipment and engines that have varying strengths and weaknesses that improve as time goes. This would also make the game more accessible by giving new players the ability to easily access better engines while also rewarding those who learn how modular engines work by allowing them to jump ahead of the AI. Perhaps a system where you can lease or even produce your own engine designs could be implemented to further reward and encourage using modular engines.
    
50. If the game becomes comprehensive enough, the ability to change which era you play in (1700s, 1800s, 1940s, etc) would be a really cool addition by adding in technological challenges of older eras. Additionally, there could be supernatural phenomena that isekai vehicles to and from different time periods, which could add in a whole variety of interesting missions and challenges.
    
51. Built-in couplers for trains
    
52. Wind having an effect on the player (exiting an aircraft and standing on its wing should result in you being yeeted off the aircraft)
    
53. Pressurization
    
54. Ingame tutorials like what From The Depths has
    
55. A better openworld, NPCs, and RP experiences. The world of Stormworks feels very much dead, which is a shame because that is it’s biggest selling point for me over other building games like simple planes. It gives a reason for all the vehicles being built beyond simply being cool, you can actually DO things with it. I would recommend solving this by:
    
56. Create actual population centers. Not huge cities, but small towns dotted across the islands with actual businesses and populations would go a long way to improving the game world, maybe have one or two cities on the island itself so we can do stuff with skyscrapers.
    
57. Global traffic of personal, commercial, and government boats, aircrafts and land vehicles would go a long way to making the world feel less empty. Having npcs use a dedicated radio channel for chatter, and which you can interact with them through would be great. This traffic responds to ingame events, for example increased outgoing road traffic when a disaster is about to hit
    
58. More realistic roads
    
59. Navigation signs, buoys, etc
    
60. NPCs operating gas stations, bridges, and industries in general.
    
61. Relating to one, make NPCs not only interactable beyond being glorified money bags, but also interact with their environment. Such as trying to move away from fires, calling for help when they see a vehicle, moving towards a stopped SAR vehicle and climbing aboard, getting inside a vehicle of their own volition or swimming to shore when they are literally meters away instead of staying in the water and/or burning boat. Having NPCs interact with the player as well would also be great, such as thanking you for saving their lives, buying the player a beer as thanks if they meet in a bar, etc would be nice. Ideally, there would be a number of persistent npcs who have names, personalities and backstories. Such as Joe, an old sea captain who’s vessel is painted pink in memory of his 6 year old daughter who disappeared, and, if he thinks his vessel is about to sink, will desire to go down with the ship and be resistant to his personal rescue.
    
62. Consequences for your actions visible in game. For example, if a casualty becomes a fatality, there is a funeral service held at the graveyard.
    
63. NPCs having varying fluencies in English
    
64. Missions with storylines attached to them, such as an archaeologist searching for Atlantis, or a group of sailors looking to raise the cargo ship they worked on after it sunk.
    
65. Radio music channels
    
66. TV channels, can also have a gameplay effect through amenities
    
67. Newspaper with an obituary, some fluff news stories, generic articles, state of the economy, ships launched, details regarding the SAR missions you did or didn’t do, in game events, etc.
    
68. Unmarked missions, for example lets say Captain Joe’s ship sinks, but Joe survives. Joe is depressed, but if you go out of your way to salvage and repair Joe’s ship and give it back to him he will be happy.
    
69. NPC backstories being more then just a text in a box, perhaps a mission leads to you finding Captain Joe’s daughter, alive or dead leading to either a heart warming reunion or somber closure.
    
70. News interviews
    
71. Points of interest, such as abandoned buildings, natural wonders, historical locations, museums, heritage railroads, businesses etc with lore surrounding them and special missions for that location. For example, lets say there is a hot air balloon tour operation. There would be a few special missions pertaining to hot air balloons in that location. Or for the heritage railroad, their engineer called in sick so they need someone to fill in for the day.
    
72. Flavor for missions, for example maybe a family of four reported in the burning boat and watch you put out the fires
    
73. NPCs react like real people in the sense of physiological reactions, such as grieving, becoming frozen in shock, mental breakdowns etc.
    
74. All disasters have effects (when applicable) in the overworld, such as destroyed homes, ships transported inland, etc. Having missions pertaining to the aftermath, such as removing large debris from roads and tracks to recovering missing persons.
    
75. Visual deterioration of abandoned/sunk/crashed vehicles
    
76. NPCs may try to take advantage of disasters, such as by robbing people on a sinking ship, looting buildings after a disaster, etc
    
77. NPCs may panic and act irrationally when in a disaster, such as taking life jackets away from women and children, releasing lifeboats/liferafts early, etc
    
78. Skills and attributes, such as consoling, leadership, physical fitness, bartering, etc
    

That’s my wishlist for now. I know it’s a lot, and some of it may seem to be a bit much, but I don’t think any single thing is out of the realm of reasonable possibility. The biggest appeal of Stormworks, at least to me, over competitors such as Simpleplanes is that there is a purpose behind what you build. I think that if Stormworks were to expand on RPG elements it would not only greatly elevate the game as is, but also expand the audience while enhancing the core experience.

Please see my previous post for the whole story, but tl;dr my estranged dad left me a note in my mailbox that my estranged mom died.
I never contacted my Uncle (NMom’s brother) as the note instructed. A few days later he showed up AT MY HOUSE. I was caught off guard and didn’t answer the door. I figured my silence would’ve sent the message that I wanted no parts of this. When he left, there was another note to tell me to call the funeral home for her arrangements. I called the funeral home directly and was informed that they needed me to sign off on her cremation forms. Medicaid covered her cremation, but her family also wanted a viewing and a service (which is what they needed my permission to do and also pay for).
I wouldn’t have been contacted otherwise. Shitty, but not surprising.
The funeral home was wonderful to me and said that her family “isn’t entitled to anything” and they are not “the decision makers” I am. I said no to the funeral and everything else and they informed her family for me. They called me when her ashes came in and I picked them up. If anyone thinks I’m being petty here, yes I am. The audacity to not just leave me alone. When my younger brother died, my Nmom and her family went to the funeral home and made all the arrangements without consulting my dad and I- but had them send my dad the bill. Spelled my son’s name wrong in the obituary too. None of them including Nmom paid a dime, my dad and I did. So this was my payback.
I’ll be sending her ashes to my estranged Aunt in another state. What I was told from her son (also doesn’t talk to anyone like I do) was that none of my NMom’s brothers even called her to inform her that she had died. Hence cementing my suspicions they only contacted me to do something for them. My aunt will get her ashes and if the rest of her shitty family wants to see them or ask for some they’ll have to call their sister and probably explain themselves. From what I hear she’s really pissed. Whatever, it’s off my plate now and not my problem.
I found out where she lived and contacted her landlord to ask if anyone has been in touch to clean out her apartment. He said that my uncles have been but he needed my permission. My uncles haven’t contacted me any further because I’m assuming they’re pissed off I shit all over their funeral plans and we’re trying to figure out a way around this without informing me. I did give the landlord permission for them to clean out her space. They’re greedy but what they don’t realize is that my mother didn’t have anything of value, she sold anything for drugs years ago. They can do the legwork and pick the scraps and fight amongst each other. I don’t want anything of hers anyway. I am listed on her death certificate and I’ll be closing her bank accounts tomorrow. There’s probably very little if anything in there anyway, but they won’t get to have it. I’ll be using it for the shipping fee for her ashes.
I’m doing okay though.

I’m 9 weeks FTM, and we hadn’t told anyone yet. The only reason she knew is because I passed on wine and charcuterie at a family dinner two weeks ago and she guessed. We confirmed her suspicions, but told her under no circumstances should she tell anyone else. At the time, I hadn’t even been to the doctor to confirm.
My husbands aunt passed away not unexpectedly on Saturday, they posted the obituary (that MIL wrote) today and in the section talking about family it says “aunt to XYZ, and soon to be great aunt to the child of husband and jonesinjosie”. I was at work, hadn’t seen the obituary, and had no idea until his family’s group chat and the Facebook post started blowing up with people congratulating us and asking if we’re pregnant. Then (because people were tagging us in the comments on Facebook), all of my family and all of our friends saw it and now they know as well.
I’m just so sad. I had a cute way planned to tell my parents, and instead they found out from a social media post. It’s our first and the first grandchild on both sides, so I was really excited and looking forward to telling people in person and seeing their reactions. I’m also just not comfortable with people finding out this early, I’m terrified that something is going to happen, we haven’t even had our dating ultrasound yet. My husband talked to his mom and told her that really wasn’t okay, and her response was sort of “I didn’t realize it would be a big deal, but there’s nothing we can do now”. I don’t even feel like I can be upset with her because she is grieving the loss of her sister, but I also feel like she took something away from me that I can’t get back. How big of a deal do I make about this?
Update: I can’t possibly reply to all of you lovely people, but thank you for validating my rage 😅 all of your kind words make me feel not so alone. This has definitely been a wake up call to who my MIL actually is.
She is NOT normally like this, she is normally so lovely, which is why I was trying to have a little grace with her. I was able to talk to my husband after he came home from work, and he is just as devastated as I am. He lost his dad when he was really young, so he’s very close to mine and was so excited to tell him. We decided to call her together and explain exactly why what she did was so hurtful. She sobbed the entire phone call and tried to claim that she didn’t know we hadn’t told my parents, which neither of us believe and we told her as much and that even if she really thought that, it was still not her place to announce it. She asked us repeatedly if we could forgive her, to which we gave a resounding no and told her not only can we not forgive her, we can no longer trust her. We basically ended the call by telling her we don’t really want to talk to her right now, and to please not contact us until we reach out.
My husband also sent this text to his family’s group chat, which obviously his mom is in: “Hello all. Thank you so much for all of the love and congratulations. We are expecting, but it is still very early in the pregnancy and this is not how or when we wanted everyone to find out. To be very honest, this is how jonesinjosie’s parents found out, and we are both quite upset about that. We so appreciate and love all of you, but kindly ask that we be given a bit of space for now and at the funeral this weekend, as we are still processing the disappointment of not being able to tell everyone in our own way.”

TLDR: I’m in the UK I don’t know how to find any of this out. I don’t remember his birthday or the know the date and cause of death. I only have his name and address. No one will tell me anything and it’s making my grieving process so so much harder I don’t know what to do.
The relationship with my Dad has been frosty. I was being abused by my sisters so I stood my ground with them and refused to attend family functions until they acknowledged their behaviour was abusive. My Dad wasn’t happy with this and felt I should retain my place as the family scapegoat. He stopped talking to me meaning I couldn’t easily retain contact with my Uncle as we live far away. He was sick and a boomer so didn’t use social media. I lost his phone number. Now it’s too late.
The last time I saw him we were supposed to hang out after my Grandads funeral but again - my sisters were being abusive, fighting screaming. I ended up leaving in tears without keeping my promise to him. His face lighting up when I asked him to come with me is the thing I remember.
My Dad answerd the phone to me for the first time in years. We had a conversation like o was a normal human. I said I wanted to grieve and go pay my respects at his home with him as someone hid my uncles death and has stolen his remains. My Dad agreed to see me for the first time in years. Me - a moron I messaged my sisters to ask if they were coming? Suddenly my Dad won’t answer the phone to me. My sisters are telling me I’m “interfering” and I’m not welcome and specifically told me I’m not allowed to know anything that’s happening. I sent my Father a text letting him know I’m still coming to visit him and the grandchildren. I asked when is a good time? After a week of ignoring me his tone suddenly changed back to being aggressive and nasty. He told me I’m not to come see him nor am I allowed see any of my family. I said again - I’m very upset about the death of my uncle, I also had an old friend die too and I’d already booked my (expensive) travel tickets and accommodation to visit. He’s ignoring me again. I feel like it’s only me & Dad that cared about my Uncle at all. They didn’t care at my grandparents funeral and used it as another opportunity for abuse. I’m upset on so many levels right now and have to grieve for him alone.
I’ve been looking for funeral and obituary announcements in his local newspaper and can’t find anything. I know he had friends and a girlfriend but they’re all kinda addicts so - I don’t know how he was treated while he was sick? what cancer killed him? did he know? Did he have a funeral? My uncle and grandparents were the only adults in my life I have happy memories of. They’re the only ones who treated me as a normal kid and not a scapegoat. My sisters were put on a pedestal so don’t appear to really care about them as they weren’t a big part of their life but they meant everything to me and I’m deeply cut up my Uncle died suffering, neglected and alone.
I’m partly writing this just to get it out. I don’t know anyone else that can understand how I feel right now. Also - if anyone knows how can I find out something by myself without any help please let me know. I live about 12 hours away but I’m thinking of going and knocking door to door asking about him to try and find out what happened. I can’t even find a photo of him. I looked on Ancestry.com and couldn’t find anything. All the people who would’ve been able to help me now are dead. I just want some closure.

I did a full rewatch of the first three seasons in preparation for season 4, and while I was doing it I decided, for my own amusement, to attempt to track the passing of time throughout the show based on time references, context, weather and wardrobe. I was handwriting these notes in a notepad and I wasn't strictly planning to share them, but I transcribed them a few days ago in a reply to u/joe4645, who suggested that it may be interesting to share them in the sub for everyone. So, here's that.
Methodology: As I said, I paid extra attention to stated time references, weather, trees, wardrobe choices and context as I was watching. However, I did not watch every minute of the show specifically for this reason and it is possible that I missed something. Additions, comments and corrections welcome.
Conclusions: Provided that my math is correct, I've determined that 1x01-4x01 take place over precisely two years to the day, with the rest of season 4 unfolding over approximately two weeks immediately following that period.
Show my math:
Season 1:

• Logan has celebrated two birthdays onscreen, and we know from The Munsters that his birthday is ten days from the first Tuesday in November, when the US general election is held. Logan's birthday is in late October, specifically October 22-29. This timestamp is also consistent with the weather shown in both episodes where Logan has celebrated a birthday, cool but not bitter cold, and no snow yet.
• The series starts on Logan's 80th birthday in late October.
• Shiv was on somebody's midterm election campaign in the first several episodes and was beginning to consider candidates to work for in the presidential election, so this is about two years into the Raisin's presidency.
• We had Thanksgiving dinner in I Went to Market, so that's the fourth Thursday in November. The first half of the season took place over a month.
• Trees were naked and everyone was wearing heavy suits and coats outside throughout S1. I assume that the second half of the season took place throughout the winter.
• Shiv got married in the S1 finale in England in winter-ish weather. It was wet and dreary and there was frost and light snow on the ground, but the snow wasn't significant, and her wedding wasn't at all Christmas or holiday themed, nor were there any holiday decorations displayed at the castle, which leads me to believe that the wedding takes place after New Year's. I decided to make an educated guess that this would be February-ish.
• Season 1 spans ~4 months.

Season 2:

• When the family gathers in the Summer Palace in the Hamptons in S2 premiere, the weather looks somewhat better but Roman and Shiv arrived wearing coats and scarves. I think this would be that slump in March where it's not quite winter anymore but also not really spring yet.
• The corporate retreat in Hungary would be not long after that, as the weather seems about the same as it was at the Summer Palace, with no geographical reason to be unseasonably cold. They still had to wear warm coats to go outside in Hunting.
• Safe Room is tracking more firmly towards spring, the sun is out, the corporate clothing is trending lighter, but it's still crisp enough that we got a truly fabulous red coat moment from Gerri, and the attendees at Mo Lester's funeral wore light coats. We are also told that Roman's management training program is six weeks.
• Tern Haven looked like more definitively spring. The weather was nice when they arrived and they wore lighter clothing, but it got chilly after dark. Also, it was implied that Roman stepped out of management training to come here, so it can be no more than six weeks after Safe Room.
• And then the rest of S2 is more difficult to track because it involved a lot of travel to different or undisclosed locations, but it's high summer by the death cruise in Croatia so I assume Argestes-This is Not For Tears took place over May-June-July.
• Season 2 seems to span 4-5 months total.

Season 3:

• S3 picks up there exactly, with Kendall walking away from the same press conference that S2 ended with. Mass In Time of War also takes place immediately after they come back from the cruise, so that's still high summer.
• By the time Ken and Logan go to visit Josh Aaronson in Fuck Nowhere, it's looking more like fall. The weather is starting to turn, the leaves are losing leaves and color, Ken and Logan arrive in light jackets, and this weather blessed us with the hilarious bit where Josh Aaronson gains an additional layer of clothing in each scene. This is like early-mid fall.
• This is about a full year since the series premiere. Logan's 81st birthday would have taken place thereabouts, offscreen.
• Then Logan starts a rumor about the Raisin's declining mental state, the President announces that he will not be seeking reelection, and the family travels to the Republican event in Virginia to "pick the next President". Virginia has a milder climate than New York and wardrobe doesn't say much, but the timing does. It is my understanding that this was rather late in an election cycle for a new candidate to join the race, but I could not find any reason to believe that this event would have taken place any later than Super Tuesday. Super Tuesday is in February or March, so I assume that What It Takes took place earlier than that, but perhaps not significantly earlier. In my notes I decided to guess that it would have taken place in like January-ish, but really it could be at any point between Logan's birthday and February.
• Kendall's birthday weather seems to be vaguely spring. I think I saw that his guests were popping outside, Roman arrived in a sport coat, and Connor's jacket that he refused to take off seemed appropriate for spring.
• And then it is again distinctly stifling high summer for Caroline's wedding in Chiantishire. I think this is about a year after the death cruise, give or take a month
• Since s3 started and ended in summer, it spanned a whole year.

Season 4:

• S4 again opens at Logan's birthday party, which would be his 82nd if my timekeeping is right, so that's again the week of October 22-29, exactly two years after the series premiere. We get two distinct time references in this episode. We are told that the election is in ten days, and that the Gojo sale is 72 hours away.
• When the kids are having their bidding wapissing contest with Logan-via-Tom, Logan's birthday party is still going on in the background. The kids buy PGN on Logan's birthday, the entire season premiere is a single day.
• At Connor's rehearsal dinner, Roman receives a text from Logan which appears to be in response to a happy birthday text from him, so we can assume that Connor's rehearsal is the very next day.
• Before Connor's wedding, Logan sets off to Sweden for a last-minute deal renegotiation, so the deal hadn't been signed yet. According to the 72 hours away from sale marker that we were given, Connor's wedding would be taking place the day after the rehearsal. So far, we're following the Each Episode Is a Day theory.
• The gathering in Logan's apartment also seems to be immediately the next day after his death. We see the kids getting ready in their apartments and none of them look like they've slept. At the end of the episode they're still there, so we have no reason to believe that this episode is more than a day.
• Time warps from this point forward. Kill List took place over at least two days, but Roman made a reference to his dad having died literally three days ago, so it does seem like they flew out directly after the gathering at Logan's. They arrive to Norway at some point in the afternoon, then they have breakfast there the following morning and fly home in the evening. They would have slept there one night, but I think they flew back before their second night there.
• Living+ is also two days, and I'm not sure that they're the next two days after Norway. The opening scene is Shiv flying into LA alone. The plane from Norway would have landed in NYC, they all went home, slept, maybe had a day or two before Living+. And then Kendall's deranged idea to build a Living+ house on the stage is one day and the crew asked him to confirm that he wanted it for tomorrow. That's two days in LA.
• Tailgate Party does seem to take place the next day after the presentation. Roman and Kendall make a reference to it in Living+. This is dead heat to the election, the last 24 hours, as Tom repeatedly says that he hasn't slept and he needs to be fresh for the election night coverage tomorrow.
• The entirety of America Decides clearly takes place over a few hours on election night, exactly ten days after Logan's birthday.
• From the protests brewing on the way to Logan's funeral, we can assume that Church and State is the next morning after election night, and then obviously the whole episode is the day of Logan's funeral.
• I don't think the board vote is immediately after the funeral. At least several days have to have passed. Roman still has stitches and scabs on his face, but they're not super fresh and he doesn't have any other visible bruising. He also said his eyes were a mess when he arrived to Barbados but they're fine by the time Ken and Shiv get to him. NYC and Barbados are also in the same time zone, and it was nighttime when they were making the meal fit for a king. So Ken and Shiv spent the day there with Roman and then they all flew back together the next morning. This episode is two days, but there was a small offcreen gap between them and the funeral.
• All told, I feel like S4 is two weeks in late October and early November. The entire show is two years + two weeks.

This is my second attempt. My first was made on impulse a few weeks ago, but this time I'm insuring it'll work.
I figured I'd leave some kinda record about myself so here it is. It's gonna be pretty long, but it's for me so can't say I'm sorry about that. Though I will say one thing if you're someone near the edge and about to be where I am get help. Get all the damn help you can and then some, talk to your friends, family, a camp counselor, the fucking guy at the 7/11. Watch a Jordan Peterson or David Goggins video(I don't like either guy but I couldnt give a shit what will help you), watch a haha funny video to relax a bit, or just go for a walk until you get tired enough to be sure where your heads at. There's beauty in life and it's worth at least trying to find it.
Now that that's out of the way I can be a selfish narcissist and focus on me. Growing up I had a cartoonishly abusive dad. He had the Burt Reynolds stash, hawaiian shirts, pack of cigs a day, always gambling variety douchebag dad. Kinda funny visualizing him now funny enough you get the sense that he smells like overly pungent cologne to cover up the cigarette smell. He would beat me and my mother, and basically drain her of money to gamble it all in a weekend. I think my most pronounced memory of the man is of him beating me and my mother with a chair, and then using me as a prop to hustle money from strangers on a really hot summer day.
My mother? Well as bad as she took she dished it out well herself. She was physically and emotionally abusive herself. She'd blame me for all her relationship failures. She blamed me for my father and any other man for that matter who didn't want her. One day after a particularly bad separation from my father since he disappeared for years at a time out of nowhere she took me to the top of a parking garage. She looked me right in my eyes and said "We should both jump". That sorta behavior from her was pretty common throughout my entire life around her.
Fast forward to 12 years old and I'm being fed a nice hearty diet of McDonalds and other really great for you food. So I end up being a fat kid for a big chunk of my life with hormones that probably have more in common with the ingredients of a Burger king oreo shake than a regular young man. My mother did her role of making fun of my weight too regardless of the fact she was fat as well.
When I hit highschool my mother, her new partner, and myself moved into my grandparents. I lived on the couch and they got their own room. They chose to not work for 6 whole years. I went into the worst depression one could imagine, I don't even remember the faces of anyone as I slept the entirety of most of my classes because I couldn't sleep at home. I hit 17 and I was expected to get a job to help my mother and her partner move out. I couldn't even finish school, and here I was paying off two grown adults lives like a slave.
So after 6 months of work I pay off the down payment of their apartment, pay half of the rent, and am now living in a town where I knew no one. And after a few years of this I began the biggest redemption arc I could possibly do. I got in shape, I moved out, I went to culinary school, I got with enough people to satisfy the lack of relationships I didn't have when I was younger, lived in Europe for a few years, I got married(didn't work out but whatrya gonna do), and I had some money in my pocket.
But I wasn't happy. I was not happy? What the fuck why? I did everything I'm supposed to I got out why am I not happy? Well I went to a therapist to find out why, and the man turned out to be a convicted drug peddler. The guy was caught because he was playing up peoples fears in order to hawk drugs onto them. In my case I told him I was having nightmares about an asteroid hitting the Earth and assassins trying to kill me at night yknow goofball shit. He told me "Oh my that makes a lot of sense!". So yea great guy.
Then at 24 I my now ex-girlfriend. Don't worry this isn't going to be a big diatribe about how my hearts been broken as it's a bit more complicated than that. When we were first around each other on a date I had a panic attack a severe one, and you know what she did? She took me to In N Out to talk about it. What the fuck? Who does that? Some spaz guy you just met is having a panic attack and you decide to take him to get food and just... listen? Nobody I have ever met in my life had ever done something even approximating that who I even knew for a long time. I was recently going through heartbreak, but I felt something strangely quickly with this person.
Fast forward a few months and we're madly in love. I truly deeply loved this person, and I needed to be sure before I told her and when I did it changed both our lives. After a year give or take we moved in together to her parents home(rich kid which was really a big trip for me because I had obviously grown up in far less than affluent circumstances). She wanted to be the bread winner and I'd be the "house husband" in her words. Well we make this work for a good long while, and we were happy. Yes there were problems and neither of us were either now or then idealized people, but we were happy and were making it work. I was in the greatest shape of my life, I was motivated, and I was forgetting the past.
Then the sadness came back. It was like it was telling me "Hey brother remember me? Sorry if you didn't". I was going to fix it this time. I was not going to allow this nonsense to break everything I had achieved, and I would do it for her. I had to try. I went to another Psychiatrist and when I only began telling my story to her and that I possibly had PTSD she held a hand up to me and said "Stop, if it was that easy to get PTSD everyone in Africa would have PTSD". After I finished my story she said "You may have PTSD" so you gotta imagine the topsy turvical state that put my brain into. She prescribes 3 drugs at once for me which was terrifying, but I wanted to trust the system for my girlfriend. I needed to.
The drugs gave me an adverse reaction and it put me in the mental hospital for a week because I had suicidal thoughts. I know its ironic to say it now, but I did not have suicidal thoughts. At least not really feeling like it. Well I get out and I'm in a bad way for a few weeks after and began going on a massive recovery spree. It took a few months but I was back to it, and I was hitting the ground running again and even taking college classes. This was in March 2020. I hope you all remember that date because that's the month COVID hit.
Things began to rapidly unravel. My girlfriend got her first job at Walmart and I could see her mental state deteriorate before me not just due to the job but also what was happening to the world around us. It was also the beginning of her physical abuse. She came home from a particularly bad shift at work one day and punched me in the gut. I was mad, I was furious, but I also forgave her. On some level I wanted to understand because the world was going to complete shit and I told her as long as she got help I'd forgive her. It kept happening. The second time she attacked me I told her I was leaving, but she went into our closet banged her head against the wall and said she would kill herself. She would hit me with pad locks, serrated edged spatulas, hair dryers, fists. I didn't leave I needed to protect her and beyond that I loved her more than life itself.
The years go on and she began becoming truly abusive especially since she hadn't achieved her dream job yet. Then one day she did. And things were good again, they were like the old days. But then things started to fall apart for her. Her job began to resent her and feel like she didn't fit in, and her old habits of abuse were back with a vengeance. During this time period two of my friends had become drug addicts and one killed themself. So I was feeling more and more alone and broken.
We're in mid 2022 now and I'm a severe depression, I wasn't taking care of myself, playing videogames every day, resenting my girlfriend for her actions, and feeling truly alone. I retreated from the world and everything around me just seemed like some sort of dream. I was the rock for both of us in our relationship and I had stayed strong for her, every time she failed, every time she hit me, every time I was there for her. I was far from perfect, but something that can never be taken from me was I took care of the both of us.
It felt like everything I had worked for was falling down apart around me, and I'll be frank it was. Fast forward to May this year and I had truly degenerated from all of my progress. My girlfriend had lost attraction to me, and wanted me gone. Well this itself would've been fine despite the fact that much of this was due to her actions towards me. For example when I told her about one of my friends suicide she made it about herself, and didn't listen to me whatsoever. And even tried to refuse taking us to my grandfathers funeral.
Well what she chose to do was to project her abuse onto me. She claimed I was emotionally abusive for having not been on top of chores after the severe amount of depression I had gotten into in the past year. I became extremely depressed from this and while I was leaving we had a massive fight where both of us yelled at each other, and then well I had to leave. I had to leave the home I had for 4 years. My cats, my fiancee(she asked me to marry her in april which is another kick to the balls), everything. I had no money to my name because she threatened suicide once if I got a job because she wanted me to be home to take care of her, and she did ask me to get work in the last 6 months but I was beyond depressed.
Then after I had left the home I had found out she got a restraining order on me for yelling at her. I'm serious even I couldn't believe it was over there I felt gaslit to shit. And for an entire month I was already dead. I just couldn't believe this was happening. We get to the court date and I tell the judge how this was an attempt to obfuscate her own physical abuse to me and to give her credit she admitted this was true. That she was the abusive one towards me. I appreciate that she at least gave me that. I was able to at least have a cleared name of something I didn't do and say my piece.
The happiness I felt for winning lasted exactly 10 minutes. It was in that moment I realized "Well, it doesn't change anything. Your life is over". It is over. I'm already dead. I don't mean I'm just a bit sad I mean I am dead. I've done the lets start over thing before, and I don't have it in me anymore. I just don't. I lost the person I loved to a world that warped her into someone she wasn't and maybe that's my idealized view of her, but it's how I see it. I still love her, and I still know there's good in her. End of the day though is that I'm penniless, homeless, and basically waiting for death to come to me anyway.
Well that about wraps this up. I hope that anyone who reads this doesn't interpret that motivational shit I said at the beginning as a cynical thing. I had a beautiful life at many times, and if someone as idiotic as me could do it? I'm more than certain you can too. I was born broken, I don't know if it was my environment, my genes, both? Hell. maybe a fair amount of bad luck. Who knows. But I couldn't be happy and every chance I had to be happy it was taken away from me.
Well that's it. Goodbye, and if you get the chance watch the show "The Terror" Season 1. Wonderful show it is probably the best piece of media ever made. It's a lot more positive if you look at it from the angle of "Look what we can achieve when we trust and work together".

First off, I've (31m) never posted anything on Reddit before, I've only ever been a phantom browser (or listener for the few of us who listen to Slash), so if there are formatting errors, or if I've mucked this entire post, forgive me; but that's not what I'm here for so get bent, I'm dying to unload all of this. There's a lot to unpack here, so please bear with, and without further ado:
I'm currently dealing with the loss of my best friend James (27m) who successfully completed suicide a few weeks ago. I'm so unbelievably angry at his loss as he was one of the brightest most intelligent people I've ever known. A person who was too smart for his own good regularly led him down a dark path that I've talked him out of several times in the past. Before we get into the heart of the matter, I'd like to provide some insight to when it all started.
I've known James from our time in the Service together, when we were both assigned to perform military honors for veterans. We met back in 2016, and I'll admit, at first I was standoffish as I am with most new people I meet. After a few weeks we bonded over our disdain for the training regimen and requirements for new Honor Guard(HG) trainees. I wouldn't say we became fast friends, but we deepened our relationship over time with big dreams and even bigger goals. Talking about cars, preferably JDM, guns, technology, games, anime; actually, just everything. This man knew a lot about everything, and we found in eachother kindred spirits. Although he was much better at knowing what the best (in his opinion) of the best was, and what I should focus my efforts or should buy, and I trusted his knowledge. He really was the best.
We maintained a pretty good relationship over the next few years when I left the service in 2018 and moved back home to Ohio and he was left back in Illinois to finish out his service commitment. And during that time, we talked regularly, if not every day, then every other day. With some spotty communication between, we're guys, talking all the time isn't always necessary, and it got to the point of regular check-ins and talks about life and the bullshit going on. Mine being the transition from the military to civilian life, and his, just regular bullshit within the service, and whatever car he was dealing with at the time.
It wasn't until 2019 when things started to unravel, and he decided he wanted to be in a relationship with a woman Brenda (27f) that he'd met at the airport. I'm not sure when he had, but it might've been a few years to a few months prior to the autumn of 2019. The only significance of Brenda was that James had managed to hook up with her AT THE AIRPORT. I dogged on him for being such a smooth talker and having the ability to do that. To my knowledge, it was a one and done thing, but he maintained contact with her, which led to them developing a relationship, and being "official" the autumn of 2019.
After three months, a total of 90 fucking days, this man was smitten. To the point of which he was so torn up about her getting cold feet and breaking up with him. Something I've never seen before from this man who basically had a revolving door with women in the past. I had to talk him off of the figurative ledge because of how much he felt he gave her. Nonetheless, they ended back together, and he moved her into his house to live with him and a long-time roommate Neil (25m). James introduced Neil and I and we've been pretty good friends, but nothing as significant as James and I. Either way we were all pretty close, and both Neil and I advised against staying with Brenda, as she was, as far as we could tell, unbalanced. That was putting it lightly.
This cycle of being together and not being together, and getting angry over petty things, begins to impact the relationship between James and I. To the point where I can't just talk about the bullshit between him and Brenda. So I stopped talking to him for a few months in 2020 and tell him off about how I can't listen to him bitch about his girl anymore.
Either way, we begin talking later on in 2020 and things are friendly as usual, with the exception that we don't really talk too much about Brenda anymore. Which is a nice change of pace. Anyway, from the time I was in the service, my experience translates to driving trucks. So what did I do when I got out? I drove trucks, which sucks, but pays well. So I've always nagged James for what I should do as far as getting out of trucking, and in to computers and IT. I've tried my hand at it in the past when I tried to get my BS in Comp. Sci. in 2019, which I failed miserably.
So back to trucking I went always looking for a way out, as I've got a wife and two sons, it makes it hard to raise a family and be present. So he maintains his relationship with Brenda and keeps it on the backburner for conversations, rarely bringing it up, all the way up into 2022 when he's been out of the service for two years, and has made a name for himself in the IT community. He came out to Ohio in Nov 2022 to buy some big ticket items for his own racing setup. He convinced me (without too much arm pulling) to drive out to St. Louis with him to visit our old digs. During this 6 hour drive we catch up on all the old bullshit and what's going on in his love life. The constant fighting, bickering, and me doing my best to cheer him up and let him know, that outside of what he's failing at in his relationship, he's got a pocket full of spades and is exceptionally successful at every other aspect of his life. I mean, what other person do you know who goes from making less than $40k a year to making over $600k in two years? Nonetheless, we also spent that entire time talking about what he currently does, and he set me on a pathway of learning, specifically books, that he said I should read. After I got back to my daily life, and read them; We talked about them, and he made sure I understood the concepts held within them, and oddly he said he'd get back to me.
This is just the surface stuff, what makes James an outright amazing person, is that he's always looking out for those close to him. He had so much pull at his current company, that he was able to make a special position just for me, as a "loyalty program" to get people to train who otherwise didn't have experience in his career field. The books he had me read were primers to see if I had the aptitude to take on this kind of training. The company signed me on at my current monthly rate (as of Dec. 2022) to come on and train exclusively and meet my commitments by the end of January. From then on, it was daily talks of knowledge this, or what experience you have in that. And daily life in general. I came to find out just how little I knew about how knowledgeable and smart James was, and a new appreciation for our friendship,
Where I was once his mentor in the service, he was now my mentor in the tech world. And he was brilliant. Things that would take a whole team months to do, he was capable of doing within a week. I saw him work magic, and was excited to see how I could graft his knowledge and experience into my own. In March, we had a work requirement to meetup at the work site (because IT is remote, duh) and meet with the team that our company supported. There was a whole fiasco and we got up to some of our old shenanigans, but everything was great with the exception of one thing: her. I hadn't asked the entire trip, and he had mentioned that this was the best he'd felt in years. I just didn't want to ask what the problem was, until the day we left to go back to our respective states. I'd come to find out, that the day before he'd left to come out for our trip, his now wife, had locked him out of the main portion of the house (luckily he has over 5000sq/ft house, so he made do with the "other half" as he called it) and I just listened as he lamented about all the garbage that happened prior to his departure. How he gave up everything; his interests, his desires, just to be around her more. How after everything he's sacrificed, he just wanted it to work. That he'd do anything for her, and all she did was spit in his face and shit all over his effort. This last argument he'd had with her before he'd left was all because of him wanting to go get tacos with some of his local friends. A simple disagreement that turned into a 3-day argument.
So things like this progress and he's talking to all the people he needs advice from. His pastor, his therapist, and they're all telling him to run from this woman. These things I've been telling him for years are all starting to come together, and I feel like I can finally take a breath. From hearing stories of how he's slept under his desk to avoid confrontation with her, how he works endlessly because she won't bother him while he works. I was so excited that divorce was now finally an option for him. Until finally she was moving out, and everything came crashing down.
Friday, May 12, 2023. It was work as usual, and he'd spent a little longer at work, and was talking about going out to play pool with a friend. So I ended up talking to him later that evening asking him how things were going, mostly just because I was bored and wanted someone to talk to. When he replied that he was "big sad" and I asked him what was going on. He told me that he was tricked into going out with his friend by Brenda. That the friend was convinced to ask James out by her, so that she could come by their house and move her things out. Which she had never done before, but was prone to leaving at the drop of a hat and going to her sister's house 1.5 hrs away. I expressed that I was sorry for what he had to go through, as I had also gone through a divorce years prior. That regardless if it was for the best, that it is still a painful process. The last thing he said to me: "Can't be mad about a loss that costs me the wins when I'm the one who made the bet" I replied, "Maybe not, but I can understand the loss still hurts."
That was the last thing I said to him at 0016. I'm so fucking mad, at him, at her, at everything. The entire situation, that I would be out there to help him, I joked about moving my family out there with him in that big ass house. That we'd buy property, hundreds and thousands of acres just to bullshit with, and do "hoodrat things with my friends." I texted him and called him Saturday to check on him, but figured he had a hangover, so I didn't want to bother but let him know that I would call a wellness check on him if I didn't hear back. So I called him a few more times on Sunday, which eventually lead to me calling the wellness check at 1421 on Mother's Day. Two hours later, at 1621 exactly, I get a phone call from a detective asking me questions about James. I thought he was in a snag with the police and was doing 180 on the freeway or something, or pulled some Eminem nonsnense. Did I fail to mention that Brenda claimed to be pregnant, and would use getting an abortion as a way to control James? No? Well it was one of the first things I told the detective after they asked me about him being depressed. I didn't understand why the questions were being asked, but they eventually came to tell me that upon their arrival, he was dead. The world snapped to a startling clarity, and I broke out into a cold sweat. I didn't think it could be possible, and my brain reeled at the rushing reality of it all. The sickening reality of it, that she didn't even care because she had already given up, had pulled her claws out of him. It was done, no new memories, no grand dreams, no future plans to conquer the world. But as we know, this is only just the beginning, the aftermath is where it all hurts more.
So his body had to be transported to his hometown on the other side of the country near the coast, from the OTHER side of the country. 3000 miles just to be put in the ground, all for his parents' sake. Which was nice, and a kind gesture, that Brenda allowed and a relatively beautiful ceremony. We show up the day James shows up, a 10 hour drive with no AC and the windows down. My wife and I both knew and loved James, so we were going to be there no matter what. I meet his dad for the first time, a topic James and I regularly talked about. How his father is the best person he knows, and would do anything for. I can see that now, and James' wife had sent a picture to my wife of one of their conversations, about how I reminded James of his dad. That shit broke my heart, and was hard to see, but I appreciated it. Although I think she reveled in twisting the knife. Anyway, come to find out from his dad, that Brenda allowed him to write the obituary, and as James' dad was finalizing it with his wife and James' sisters, Brenda took it and made changes and deleted the things she didn't like.
James' dad took us all around his hometown, showing us where he went to school, where they lived, and what he liked to do. He also took us out for lunch to a local place James liked. I've never felt so at home while not at home. We even got haircuts at James' dad's favorite barber. I met James' mother and sisters, and found that they share a lot of gestures and nuances that were just uncanny. It was good, although, terrifyingly sad. I'm so fucking glad Neil was there, dude was a rock.
The day of the funeral and memorial We got to say our final goodbyes, and there was a line of James' next of kin. Starting with his mother, and ending with his youngest sister. His wife sat separately and was laughing and joking before people started showing up. She adopted a somber and sorrowful set, when we locked eyes, I saw the poison, vitriol, and hate she had for me, and anyone else who cared about James. Her eyes looked like that of Bellatrix Lestrange. She didn't cry, once. It hurt to see someone James cared about so much, not care one lick at his loss. She didn't plan anything for this funeral, didn't appoint pallbearers, nothing. Fortunately, me, Neil, another roommate James had--Jesse, and some other close relatives of James, we raised him one last time. Everything was executed by his parents and was done wonderfully. At his burial site, he was given military honors, which he and I would joke as being terribly done, but for the masses, was acceptable. For military ceremonies like this, the next of kin gets the flag. And unfortunately, they were still married at the time of death. Which she received and treated like nothing so much as a burden. James' parents knew how vile she was and STILL invited her to attend a remembrance party in Honor of James. To which she ran off and never attended. This, this is still the easiest part of the entire process.
James parents are trying to file an injunction, but Brenda hasn't even filed the proper paperwork to begin the probate process. So there isn't even anything to file an injunction against! They want to be able to handle his estate, but can't. There's nothing to do, no memories to take. We fear that everything will be repossessed, foreclosed, and she will laugh her way to the bank to cash in on James' demise. I wish he'd had a will, or started the divorce process. I wish even more, that he was still here. For anyone out there who thinks you won't be missed, you will. For those who think no one will notice them gone, you will be noticed. I would rather talk to you for hours, than be at your grave. Please, reach out, ask for help, or just to talk. I'm sorry things get tough, but you have love and support here if you need it. I'm sorry I couldn't be more help, or talk you out of it. I love you man. Til Valhalla.

I’m an artist. Not one you’ve heard of, though that may be changing soon. Being an artist is about creation, not about commercial success. I wouldn’t mind getting the occasional acceptance mixed in with the constant stream of rejection, of course, but it’s a process.
A long process. They say that most artists don’t become famous until after they’re dead. I’d always hoped that I’d make it slightly before that.
I graduated last year with an MFA from a relatively prestigious institution, along with a dozen other folks who convinced themselves that an insurmountable pile of debt was the best way to jump right into the starving artist lifestyle. We were, as mentioned, a small class, so we all went to each other’s showings and were generally supportive, but I was only really friends with two of the others, Jerrod and Albina.
The three of us ended up rooming together for the last year of the program, and we kept that going post-graduation. Having other folks in the house who look through the mail with the same mix of hope and trepidation is surprisingly helpful. Alone, it’s easy to simply look at everyone else’s filtered life and assume that you’re the only one failing. When you come down in the morning to find your roommate crying in her cornflakes because her last eleven submissions haven’t even gotten the courtesy of a rejection letter, it’s a little easier to see that this is just how life goes sometimes.
One of our favorite Friday night activities was going to local galleries to see who they had on display. There were a few reasons for this. One, it gave us a good idea of what they liked to show, helping us hone our own submissions. Two, it was very cathartic to be catty about what had been picked. Three, a lot of the galleries had free hors d’oeuvres and wine.
I guess four, we liked art, but honestly it was hard to remember that sometimes. Sometimes looking at other people’s finished canvases just made me angry. What made them able to decide that they were done? What made other people agree that they were worth hanging on the wall? What justified the astronomical price tags next to them?
I’m not saying that this was anything but jealousy. I’m just saying that art and I are in a complicated relationship.
About a month ago, we went to a newly-opened gallery, Souhait. It was the usual setup: tall glass windows in front showcasing the art placed strategically on bright white walls within. It had the standard mix of oddly angled separators allowing the patrons to wander slowly through the room and discover the paintings one at a time. Basically it looked like every other gallery, but as it was a new opening it had better wine than most.
I was taking a casual tour of the perimeter when Jerrod appeared at my elbow.
“Hey, congratulations!” he said. “You weren’t going to tell us? I can’t believe you managed to keep this a secret.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Oh, yeah, ‘what’ indeed.” He steered me around several corners to where Albina was admiring a painting. “‘There’s a new gallery opening, we should all go, no reason.’ Congrats!”
I stared at the painting in disbelief. It was one of mine.
I was certain that I hadn’t submitted to this gallery. I hadn’t even heard of it until Albina had mentioned that it was opening. I would have remembered receiving a letter of acceptance, and I definitely would have remembered delivering a painting. None of these things had happened.
And yet there my art was on the wall. It had my signature, and my name displayed next to it on a card. I knew the piece. I’d done it two or three years ago. It was good, very representative of my style at the time, but I’d moved on and had stopped trying to get it displayed a while ago. The last I had seen it, it was six or seven canvases deep in a stack of pieces that I had nowhere else to put.
It was fairly obvious that that was not the case now. The proof was on the wall in front of me.
Albina and Jerrod were both praising me, so I just smiled and made vaguely humble comments. I must have submitted it. It wasn’t like someone had broken into our apartment and stolen a single piece of my art. It was both confusing and concerning that I couldn’t recall offering it to this gallery, but it was the only explanation that made sense.
I was still trying to puzzle this out when another familiar piece caught my eye. I nudged Jerrod. “Oh, so I’m the one keeping secrets?”
He raised an eyebrow at me, and I pointed across the floor. His eyes widened as he saw the same thing I had: one of his paintings neatly framed and prominently displayed.
“I didn’t even know you’d finished that one,” I said. “I swear I saw you working on it like two days ago.”
“Yeah,” he said, sounding a bit lost. “I was.”
“How’d you get the gallery to take it before it was even done?”
“Oh my God, look!” said Albina.
In the back corner of the gallery, occupying an entire corner, was a small collection of Albina’s work. It was expertly curated. I’d watched her develop her style for years, and the eight paintings chosen here perfectly encapsulated the entire range. Clusters of people kept gathering in front of them, and I saw more than one slip off to speak to the gallery owner about purchasing a piece.
“Albi, these are amazing,” I told her after we finally managed to get close enough to see them all properly. “This—some of these are absolute perfection. I don’t think I’ve even seen all of them.”
“Seriously, when did you do all of this?” asked Jerrod. “Some of these are definitely new. Unless you have a secret studio you’ve been hiding from us?”
He narrowed his eyes at her in mock suspicion. She laughed, shoving him lightly, but behind her smile I saw the same confusion that I’d heard in Jerrod’s voice, the same that I’d felt myself. None of us knew that our work was going to be on display here. Something was very odd.
We didn’t talk about it then. Oddity or not, our art and our names were on display, and there were free drinks to toast with. We refilled our glasses, congratulated each other effusively, wandered the gallery for a bit and then did it all again. By the time we were walking home, all concerns had vanished from all of our minds. We were successful! We could figure out how and why later.
The next morning, Albina was dead.
I woke up late with a hangover. Jerrod woke up later, looking even rougher than I did. There was nothing resembling breakfast anywhere in the apartment, so we sat and sipped our coffee silently. Albina’s door was open, and I think we both hoped that she’d gone out to get bagels or something and that we would shortly be provided for.
She wasn’t answering texts, and Jerrod and I were just starting to get concerned when there was a knock at the door. We opened it to find a policeman asking if we knew Albina Shevchenko, and if we had contact information for her family, and if we could come identify the body.
It had been a hit and run. She’d been dead by the time witnesses had gotten to her. No one had seen the car’s license plate. The police didn’t even pretend that there was a chance of justice.
They gave us her effects, including what remained of a bag of bagels. Somehow that was the worst part for me. She’d gone out to get something to celebrate with us. It made us complicit.
At the funeral, the priest spoke about her giving spirit and her wonderful personality, but most of all he spoke about her massive artistic talent. He went on at length about what she could have created if she had not had her span cut short. The entire gathering nodded along with him.
Jerrod and I exchanged looks. It wasn’t that he was wrong. She was amazing, and eventually the world would have known about her. It’s just that that hadn’t happened yet. The three of us were, as far as we could tell, the only ones really aware of how much potential we had. If everyone knew this about her, why had she been scraping by in a dingy apartment with us, trying to get enough money together to buy more art supplies?
“We should go back to Souhait,” Jerrod said after the funeral. “The gallery owner probably doesn’t know. We’ll need to get her pieces back before he trashes them when she doesn’t respond.”
Our trip was unnecessary. The gallery owner had Albina’s obituary blown up to large size and prominently displayed next to a tremendous collection of her work. It covered entire walls of the gallery, each piece with an explanatory card discussing when and why she had painted it. Where the prices had been on the cards, every single one was marked “SOLD.”
I was looking around for the owner to ask where he was sending the money when Jerrod grabbed my arm.
“Look,” he said, half-whispering.
Arranged in a neat circle on one wall were a dozen of his paintings.
“I don’t know that I want to be on display here,” he said. He sounded frightened.
“Then take them back. They’re your pieces.”
“Are they?” He pointed. “I never finished that one. That’s how I wanted it to look, but I couldn’t get it right. I swear I never completed it. And there! I never painted that. I thought of it, I knew it in my head, but I have never put brush to canvas for it. Not even to start it.
“How could they have any of this? How could anyone?” His voice was rapidly rising toward hysteria.
“Hey, let’s get you out of here,” I said, putting an arm around his shoulders. “We’ll come back tomorrow and get them taken down if you want. We’re all running on fumes right now.”
Privately, I thought again about the piece that Souhait had of mine. I’d never gotten around to looking for it at the apartment. Things had been a blur since Albi’s death. I wondered how this gallery had so much of our stuff. I wondered what else had been taken.
Back at home, Jerrod rummaged through his artwork, hunting for something.
“See?” he said finally, holding up a canvas. “I told you. It isn’t done.”
He was holding up something that could have been an early attempt at one of the pieces we’d seen in the gallery. It was the same general idea, but the colors weren’t right and the composition didn’t gel. Also, as he’d said, it was clearly incomplete. Parts of the canvas still showed through in some areas. It wasn’t what was hanging on the walls.
“I told you,” he repeated. “How can they have art I never finished?”
I tried to get him to calm down. I sat him down on the couch and poured him a drink. We’d go back in the morning, I said. We’d find the owner. We’d sort all of this out. It was a problem for tomorrow, not for this evening. Not right after a funeral.
I thought I’d gotten him to agree with me. I poured us both another drink. Somewhere in the middle of that one, I fell asleep on the couch.
When I woke up, Jerrod was gone.
Just one of those things, the police said. Wrong place at the wrong time. He’d been mugged. His credit cards and phone were gone. He’d bled out in the street. He was almost halfway to Souhait.
I went there to get his art taken down, like he’d wanted. They’d already expanded the collection. His photo smiled down at me from the main wall, next to an obituary lauding his talent, his bold innovation, his novelty. The rest of the gallery was plastered with his work. I recognized some of the paintings he’d been rifling through at the apartment the previous day. Most had already been sold.
And on the back wall, in a small but well-lit section by themselves, hung six of my paintings. The one that I’d seen the first night was there, along with two others I was particularly proud of. If I’d been asked to pick three pieces to best represent who I was and who I had been as an artist, those might have been them.
The other three bore my signature, but I did not paint them. Not yet. Like Jerrod, I knew the subject matter in them. I had thought of them, conceived them, and even made some attempts to put them to canvas, but they had never come out like I’d imagined. I’d set them aside to try again later, when I had better supplies, when I was better.
Yet here they hung, complete and perfect, exactly as I had pictured them. It was a triumph of my craft.
It was beautiful to see what I could become, given enough time.
It’s just too bad that I don’t have it.
Most artists don’t become famous until after they’re dead.

I’m an artist. Not one you’ve heard of, though that may be changing soon. Being an artist is about creation, not about commercial success. I wouldn’t mind getting the occasional acceptance mixed in with the constant stream of rejection, of course, but it’s a process.
A long process. They say that most artists don’t become famous until after they’re dead. I’d always hoped that I’d make it slightly before that.
I graduated last year with an MFA from a relatively prestigious institution, along with a dozen other folks who convinced themselves that an insurmountable pile of debt was the best way to jump right into the starving artist lifestyle. We were, as mentioned, a small class, so we all went to each other’s showings and were generally supportive, but I was only really friends with two of the others, Jerrod and Albina.
The three of us ended up rooming together for the last year of the program, and we kept that going post-graduation. Having other folks in the house who look through the mail with the same mix of hope and trepidation is surprisingly helpful. Alone, it’s easy to simply look at everyone else’s filtered life and assume that you’re the only one failing. When you come down in the morning to find your roommate crying in her cornflakes because her last eleven submissions haven’t even gotten the courtesy of a rejection letter, it’s a little easier to see that this is just how life goes sometimes.
One of our favorite Friday night activities was going to local galleries to see who they had on display. There were a few reasons for this. One, it gave us a good idea of what they liked to show, helping us hone our own submissions. Two, it was very cathartic to be catty about what had been picked. Three, a lot of the galleries had free hors d’oeuvres and wine.
I guess four, we liked art, but honestly it was hard to remember that sometimes. Sometimes looking at other people’s finished canvases just made me angry. What made them able to decide that they were done? What made other people agree that they were worth hanging on the wall? What justified the astronomical price tags next to them?
I’m not saying that this was anything but jealousy. I’m just saying that art and I are in a complicated relationship.
About a month ago, we went to a newly-opened gallery, Souhait. It was the usual setup: tall glass windows in front showcasing the art placed strategically on bright white walls within. It had the standard mix of oddly angled separators allowing the patrons to wander slowly through the room and discover the paintings one at a time. Basically it looked like every other gallery, but as it was a new opening it had better wine than most.
I was taking a casual tour of the perimeter when Jerrod appeared at my elbow.
“Hey, congratulations!” he said. “You weren’t going to tell us? I can’t believe you managed to keep this a secret.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Oh, yeah, ‘what’ indeed.” He steered me around several corners to where Albina was admiring a painting. “‘There’s a new gallery opening, we should all go, no reason.’ Congrats!”
I stared at the painting in disbelief. It was one of mine.
I was certain that I hadn’t submitted to this gallery. I hadn’t even heard of it until Albina had mentioned that it was opening. I would have remembered receiving a letter of acceptance, and I definitely would have remembered delivering a painting. None of these things had happened.
And yet there my art was on the wall. It had my signature, and my name displayed next to it on a card. I knew the piece. I’d done it two or three years ago. It was good, very representative of my style at the time, but I’d moved on and had stopped trying to get it displayed a while ago. The last I had seen it, it was six or seven canvases deep in a stack of pieces that I had nowhere else to put.
It was fairly obvious that that was not the case now. The proof was on the wall in front of me.
Albina and Jerrod were both praising me, so I just smiled and made vaguely humble comments. I must have submitted it. It wasn’t like someone had broken into our apartment and stolen a single piece of my art. It was both confusing and concerning that I couldn’t recall offering it to this gallery, but it was the only explanation that made sense.
I was still trying to puzzle this out when another familiar piece caught my eye. I nudged Jerrod. “Oh, so I’m the one keeping secrets?”
He raised an eyebrow at me, and I pointed across the floor. His eyes widened as he saw the same thing I had: one of his paintings neatly framed and prominently displayed.
“I didn’t even know you’d finished that one,” I said. “I swear I saw you working on it like two days ago.”
“Yeah,” he said, sounding a bit lost. “I was.”
“How’d you get the gallery to take it before it was even done?”
“Oh my God, look!” said Albina.
In the back corner of the gallery, occupying an entire corner, was a small collection of Albina’s work. It was expertly curated. I’d watched her develop her style for years, and the eight paintings chosen here perfectly encapsulated the entire range. Clusters of people kept gathering in front of them, and I saw more than one slip off to speak to the gallery owner about purchasing a piece.
“Albi, these are amazing,” I told her after we finally managed to get close enough to see them all properly. “This—some of these are absolute perfection. I don’t think I’ve even seen all of them.”
“Seriously, when did you do all of this?” asked Jerrod. “Some of these are definitely new. Unless you have a secret studio you’ve been hiding from us?”
He narrowed his eyes at her in mock suspicion. She laughed, shoving him lightly, but behind her smile I saw the same confusion that I’d heard in Jerrod’s voice, the same that I’d felt myself. None of us knew that our work was going to be on display here. Something was very odd.
We didn’t talk about it then. Oddity or not, our art and our names were on display, and there were free drinks to toast with. We refilled our glasses, congratulated each other effusively, wandered the gallery for a bit and then did it all again. By the time we were walking home, all concerns had vanished from all of our minds. We were successful! We could figure out how and why later.
The next morning, Albina was dead.
I woke up late with a hangover. Jerrod woke up later, looking even rougher than I did. There was nothing resembling breakfast anywhere in the apartment, so we sat and sipped our coffee silently. Albina’s door was open, and I think we both hoped that she’d gone out to get bagels or something and that we would shortly be provided for.
She wasn’t answering texts, and Jerrod and I were just starting to get concerned when there was a knock at the door. We opened it to find a policeman asking if we knew Albina Shevchenko, and if we had contact information for her family, and if we could come identify the body.
It had been a hit and run. She’d been dead by the time witnesses had gotten to her. No one had seen the car’s license plate. The police didn’t even pretend that there was a chance of justice.
They gave us her effects, including what remained of a bag of bagels. Somehow that was the worst part for me. She’d gone out to get something to celebrate with us. It made us complicit.
At the funeral, the priest spoke about her giving spirit and her wonderful personality, but most of all he spoke about her massive artistic talent. He went on at length about what she could have created if she had not had her span cut short. The entire gathering nodded along with him.
Jerrod and I exchanged looks. It wasn’t that he was wrong. She was amazing, and eventually the world would have known about her. It’s just that that hadn’t happened yet. The three of us were, as far as we could tell, the only ones really aware of how much potential we had. If everyone knew this about her, why had she been scraping by in a dingy apartment with us, trying to get enough money together to buy more art supplies?
“We should go back to Souhait,” Jerrod said after the funeral. “The gallery owner probably doesn’t know. We’ll need to get her pieces back before he trashes them when she doesn’t respond.”
Our trip was unnecessary. The gallery owner had Albina’s obituary blown up to large size and prominently displayed next to a tremendous collection of her work. It covered entire walls of the gallery, each piece with an explanatory card discussing when and why she had painted it. Where the prices had been on the cards, every single one was marked “SOLD.”
I was looking around for the owner to ask where he was sending the money when Jerrod grabbed my arm.
“Look,” he said, half-whispering.
Arranged in a neat circle on one wall were a dozen of his paintings.
“I don’t know that I want to be on display here,” he said. He sounded frightened.
“Then take them back. They’re your pieces.”
“Are they?” He pointed. “I never finished that one. That’s how I wanted it to look, but I couldn’t get it right. I swear I never completed it. And there! I never painted that. I thought of it, I knew it in my head, but I have never put brush to canvas for it. Not even to start it.
“How could they have any of this? How could anyone?” His voice was rapidly rising toward hysteria.
“Hey, let’s get you out of here,” I said, putting an arm around his shoulders. “We’ll come back tomorrow and get them taken down if you want. We’re all running on fumes right now.”
Privately, I thought again about the piece that Souhait had of mine. I’d never gotten around to looking for it at the apartment. Things had been a blur since Albi’s death. I wondered how this gallery had so much of our stuff. I wondered what else had been taken.
Back at home, Jerrod rummaged through his artwork, hunting for something.
“See?” he said finally, holding up a canvas. “I told you. It isn’t done.”
He was holding up something that could have been an early attempt at one of the pieces we’d seen in the gallery. It was the same general idea, but the colors weren’t right and the composition didn’t gel. Also, as he’d said, it was clearly incomplete. Parts of the canvas still showed through in some areas. It wasn’t what was hanging on the walls.
“I told you,” he repeated. “How can they have art I never finished?”
I tried to get him to calm down. I sat him down on the couch and poured him a drink. We’d go back in the morning, I said. We’d find the owner. We’d sort all of this out. It was a problem for tomorrow, not for this evening. Not right after a funeral.
I thought I’d gotten him to agree with me. I poured us both another drink. Somewhere in the middle of that one, I fell asleep on the couch.
When I woke up, Jerrod was gone.
Just one of those things, the police said. Wrong place at the wrong time. He’d been mugged. His credit cards and phone were gone. He’d bled out in the street. He was almost halfway to Souhait.
I went there to get his art taken down, like he’d wanted. They’d already expanded the collection. His photo smiled down at me from the main wall, next to an obituary lauding his talent, his bold innovation, his novelty. The rest of the gallery was plastered with his work. I recognized some of the paintings he’d been rifling through at the apartment the previous day. Most had already been sold.
And on the back wall, in a small but well-lit section by themselves, hung six of my paintings. The one that I’d seen the first night was there, along with two others I was particularly proud of. If I’d been asked to pick three pieces to best represent who I was and who I had been as an artist, those might have been them.
The other three bore my signature, but I did not paint them. Not yet. Like Jerrod, I knew the subject matter in them. I had thought of them, conceived them, and even made some attempts to put them to canvas, but they had never come out like I’d imagined. I’d set them aside to try again later, when I had better supplies, when I was better.
Yet here they hung, complete and perfect, exactly as I had pictured them. It was a triumph of my craft.
It was beautiful to see what I could become, given enough time.
It’s just too bad that I don’t have it.
Most artists don’t become famous until after they’re dead.
X

Hi all,
I (34F) just found this subreddit after googling post-grief brain fog and am very much looking forward to reading your stories. My mom (57) passed away unexpectedly last Wednesday and I have been a bit of a wreck. When I first found out, I went into hyper-oldest-daughter mode and made my dad stay with me for a few days to take care of him. He was quite emotional but I was more of a robot than anything. I only cried when no one was around, so mostly in the shower. Since then, I made the appointment with the funeral home, did that meeting and paid for the services, made phone calls to let people know, posted on Facebook, started planning the memorial for late summer, and now I still need to write the obituary.
But I can't write it. I actually can't do anything that involves my brain. After my dad went back home, I dove into anything physical I could get my hands on. Cleaning the house, building some built-in bookshelves, gardening, running, anything really. But now that I'm back at work I find that I can't put a single thought together. I can't make myself do work. I just locked myself in my office with a Do Not Disturb sign up, but I'm just surfing the internet.
When does this get better? I'm a professional that many people rely on. I have no real boss, so I self manage, but I can't manage anything and no one is forcing me to work. I had to drop out of a funding opportunity, and everyone 100% understands, but I'm just beating myself up over this. And the obituary is looming over me. I have to write it. But how? I read articles about how to do it, but those are all about the content, not how you can move past the grief enough to just write. Damn it, I've written a book and a dissertation and I can't push myself to write 2 paragraphs!

On the morning of February 6th 2021 I received a call that my best friend(29) had been shot and killed (rumor is weapon is a high caliber assault rifle) at her home in Union City, GA. I had moved across the country and we had not talked since the end of November as we had gotten into a spat. Occasionally we would disagree and for awhile both would be too stubborn to reach out but we loved each other and would always make up. Id give anything to have been able to talk to her those last few months. Since I learned of the news I cannot find anything about her death. There was no funeral or viewing just a memorial as I was told her mother donated her body to science. There is no obituary, no reports of shootings, nothing. I’ve done my best to search for any information on what happened but I have been unsuccessful. After joining this sub I was amazed at how helpful everyone is and figured I would shoot my shot. I just want to know what happened to my friend.
Edit: None of our friends know anything (there are a lot of us and we all have the same information) other than the info that I have provided. I spoke to her baby daddy and all said was she was shot in the house but I have been unable to verify any of the information as it is all hearsay.
Edit again: I will not be contacting her family. I am more interested in police reports, death certificates etc not your “theory” of what happened. I’m very much a facts person and I’m hoping it would help with closure as it’s something I think about every moment of every day.
Thank you everyone for your kind words and suggestions. Please feel free to keep them coming! I just really appreciate all the feedback and am hoping this will bring me some closure.

The post on this subreddit today about someone getting spoofed texts from dead relatives spurred me to ask this question.
So my mother died about a year ago. She was an extremely private person, so private she did not even want people to know who her relatives were. When she died, the funeral home director contacted me about an obituary asking for a call back. I called him back, and he sounded as though he was asking questions from a form, and they were benign questions of the sort often answered in an obituary— who were her parents, when was she born, where did she work, what clubs was she in..
Then he asked a question that just didn’t fit. I can’t remember exactly what it was, perhaps where her parents were born or when, I don’t remember. I politely explained to him that she was a private person and would not want any of this in her obituary. I asked if I could write one and send it to him instead and he agreed.
So I wrote it and sent it in to him as he requested within a few weeks of her passing. It was polite, short, complimentary and devoid of any useful information (“she enjoyed lunching with her friends and watching old movies”).
It was never published anywhere and he did not respond to any follow up emails I sent about it. Otherwise he was pleasant. It seemed as though he was a bit upset that I refused to answer the battery of questions. To me, it is not normal or expected for a funeral director to be annoyed by that.
Are they able to sell that information/do they get some kind of kickback for it?
EDTA: the person I talked to on the phone was definitely the funeral director. I went to high school with him, I’d know his voice anywhere— small high school, small town.

Welcome to Palm Royale Funeral Home and Cemetery

Palm Royale Funeral Home & Cemetery's mission is to be dedicated to every family we serve and hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards.
We will always abide by our industry's best practices and treat every family with respect, fairness, and sensitivity. Your comfort, peace of mind, and the trust that you have placed in us will remain our staff's top priority and our commitment to help you will be expressed in everything we do.

Why Choose Our Funeral Home?

At Palm Royale Funeral Home & Cemetery, we pride ourselves on serving the Naples community and surrounding areas with dignity, respect, and compassion. Our experienced staff is available to help you select funeral, burial, or cremation services and design a special place of permanent memorialization that acknowledges and celebrates your loved one’s life in a way that will be meaningful for generations to come.
What We Offer?
Palm Royale Funeral Home was built on the beautiful grounds of Palm Royale Cemetery to offer the community a funeral home and cemetery co-located on the same property to provide families with a continuity of care and services.
Palm Royale Funeral Home & Cemetery is the newest funeral home in Naples and offers burial, entombment, and cremation service options that range from highly personalized to time-honored traditional. Our brand-new facility has a light and airy feel to it and was designed to offer a serene, yet uplifting and supportive place to gather and honor.
Inside is a contemporary chapel, reception room, and catering café that are adjacent, yet separate, providing flexibility in the types and styles of services we can offer. There is also easy access to a covered, wrap-around veranda, that provides additional seating in an open-air setting.
A high-quality digital platform enables us to offer sophisticated services such as recording and live streaming, allowing distant family and friends the opportunity to “stay connected”, “say good-bye”, and view services either “live or later”. To learn more, please visit our Recording & Live Streaming page. You're also welcome to call and speak with one of our funeral directors to learn more details, have any questions answered, or to arrange for your loved one's service.
If selected, our state-of-the-art audio-visual system will showcase your loved one’s themed and personalized Life Tribute pictorial throughout our facility, making the time and space feel truly dedicated to celebrating their special life. This Tribute will also be available for viewing on an online Obituary Page we will set up in honor of your loved one at no charge. This page will have its own link and capture condolences and cherished remembrances shared by others. In addition, a Life Tribute DVD will be provided to you as a keepsake. We are also able to produce custom playlists, play special songs, accommodate live musicians, and much more.
Our advanced technology also enables us to make virtual and online arrangements so that those who are out of the area or are confined to home are able to plan, make selections, E-sign documents, and E-pay remotely.

Funeral & Memorial Service Options

Many families feel uncertain or burdened by the notion of planning a tribute. They anticipate that arranging services will be cumbersome, complicated, or overly sad. But setting a unified time and place to gather, share, and pay one’s respects is an important and worthwhile step in the healing process.
Many also don’t know where to start or what they “should” do. But we know that families prioritize and find meaning in different ways, so we embrace originality and strive to make every remembrance special. For some, the traditions and rites they are accustomed to offer comfort and stability, while others feel inspired to plan something that reflects the unique personality of their loved one.
Our staff will help you determine the best way to tell your loved one’s story, memorialize their legacy, and bring comfort to family and friends. We will also coordinate with other parties on your behalf, arrange any ancillary services, order items, place obituaries, set up, clean up, and more.

Contact Our Funeral Home

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to submit a message to our funeral home, cemetery, and/or preneed staff and we will contact you as soon as possible.
PALM ROYALE FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY
Address: 6790 Vanderbilt Beach Road
Naples, FL 34119
Phone: (239) 354-5330
Website: https://www.palmroyalecares.com/

30 years of this Motormouth
On three decades of cars, controversy, and cow dung at the Sunday Times (May 28)
By Jeremy Clarkson
Thirty years. That’s how long I’ve been writing for The Sunday Times. When I joined the paper, back in 1993, John Major was in power, Neil Kinnock was a fan of Ford Sierras, they were still digging coal out of the ground in Yorkshire and other columnists on the paper included AA Gill, Michael Winner and, not long afterwards, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson.
I’m the only one left now. Still here. Still bashing away at the keyboard. And still feeling like a fraud. I went recently to a party celebrating the newspaper’s 200th birthday and during a film that had been made to commemorate the milestone, I was left reeling at the amount of truly important stories it had broken over the years. And the journalistic colossuses who’d translated these shapeshifting events into readable, punchy prose.
Me? Well, I got a job in journalism — on the Rotherham Advertiser — simply because my grandfather, a doctor, had gone out during an air raid in the Second World War and delivered the editor’s first baby. “I’ve always wanted to pay him back,” he said, “so you start on Monday.”
He sent me on a block release course to learn the tricks of the trade and I was terribly shit at everything. I only managed to pass my 110-word-a-minute shorthand exam by using a two-speed tape recorder and very long hair to cover up the secret earpiece. But while there I did meet a chap from the Harrogate Herald who told me about a great gig. If you could get a motoring column in the newspaper, carmakers would send you a brand-new model every week, fully insured and brimmed with fuel. All you had to do to keep the gravy train running was say how brilliant it was.
So I became a motoring journalist — that’s the profession’s bottom rung, just below being a travel hack. And that was fraudulent too because I had no clue how a car works. Back then my peers and colleagues in the specialist motoring press would talk about gear ratios and steering racks and tread shuffle, and I had literally no clue what they were on about. In my mind you turned the key, witchcraft happened and you moved about. The gearbox? That was pure sorcery.
In some ways this ignorance helped, because if you know how a car works you aren’t all that surprised when it does. With me, I always have a boyish, tinkle-grabbing excitement when I push the throttle pedal and the whole car moves. It excites me. And I don’t think that excitement would be there if I were on some kind of a know-how par with the engineers who’d made it possible.
To get round the problem of not knowing what I was talking about, I wrote mostly about how a car made you look and feel. And that seemed to go down quite well, so pretty soon the gravy train became a foreign junket jus train as carmakers started inviting me to product launches. A lot of product launches. In the mid-Eighties I spent more time in Cannes and Barcelona than I did at home. And all I had to do in exchange for all the private jets and champagne was write a piece saying that the car made me feel and look very nice. And that it would do the same for you too.
At one of these product launches — for the Citroën AX, in case you’re interested — I bumped into a BBC producer who asked me to appear on Top Gear, and pretty soon I was so busy doing that, I didn’t have time to go to Cannes and Barcelona any more. Which meant I had nothing to lose and could say what I liked.
Many of the carmakers didn’t like me saying what I liked, so an association of car industry press officers despatched a chap from Ford called Harry Calton to speak to my bosses. They told him that my directness was bringing more viewers to Top Gear and that this was good for the motor industry. Which in turn was good for Ford. He agreed and pretty soon I was rushing about, refusing to review the Vauxhall Vectra because it was too boring. And likening the new Toyota Corolla to a fridge-freezer. And saying that the Ford Scorpio looked like a slightly melted waxwork model of Marty Feldman.
This brought me to the attention of The Sunday Times, which asked me to do something similar in print. Which is quite an achievement if you think about it. Being asked to write for one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world, on a subject about which I knew nothing.
I couldn’t even drive very well back then. This was a bit of a hindrance, because to write about how a car behaves “at the limit” you have to be able to take it to the limit, and to find out where that is you have to go beyond it, which meant doing some kind of skid. It was my old colleague Tiff Needell who taught me how to do that, at Kemble airfield, in a Lamborghini Murciélago.
I still don’t do it properly. Instead of using power to break traction at the back, which is what the professionals do, I use too much speed. I arrive at the corner far too quickly, lift off the throttle to pitch the weight of the car forwards and therefore reduce traction at the back, and then turn the wheel while rubbing some rosaries. It’s messy and smoky and scary sometimes, especially when you’re doing it three feet from the back of a camera tracking car. But it looked good on television, and it convinced millions of people that I was some kind of cross between Ayrton Senna and Adrian Newey, all wrapped up in a sandwich filled with idiotic metaphors and similes.
Soon The Sunday Times asked me to start writing about other things as well, which is how I ended up with Adrian Gill, in Baghdad, in 2005, reporting on the Iraq War. I was useless at this as well, choosing to use hyperbole instead of actually finding stuff out. “There were a hundred million soldiers” is so much easier than calling the MoD and finding out how many there really were.
I also had a terrible nose for news. Back in the autumn of 2013 — I did look that up — I was in Kyiv doing some kind of Top Gear live show when I received a call from a different editor of The Sunday Times, asking me to go down to Independence Square to see if the protests were as big as he’d been led to believe.
I was thrilled because this was my big chance to be a proper hack, at the pointy tip of a breaking story. So off I went with a notebook and no pen. No journalist ever has a pen. And having talked to the lone policeman and signed autographs for the six rather bored-looking protesters, I called the editor and said the whole Russia/Ukraine thing was a nonstory.
Incredibly, after 30 years on the paper, I’m still here. But will I still be kicking around after 40 years? With cars I think not. I recently borrowed a 2005 Ford GT and, on a beautiful spring evening, I took it from Chipping Norton to Badminton House, along some of the loveliest and quietest and fastest roads that Britain has to offer, and I truly loved it. But in the not too distant future drives like that will simply not be possible. And cars like that will be gone. It’ll all be 20 mph and giving way to cyclists and pulling over for 60 hours to fill up the batteries. And I want no part of that.
I may not know how proper cars work. But at least they interest me. The new breed? I have even less of a clue what makes them move along and I find them all to be more boring than Jane Austen giving a four-hour talk about Chaucer.
When I began doing this columnism lark you could say that the combustion engine was brilliant and that men can’t have babies. These days, though … you can still say those things. It’s just that now people get very angry with you. And I like that because I’ve always liked throwing rocks in ponds. It’s all I’ve ever done, really. Tried to mess things up. It’s been fun.
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Does the red trouser mob speak fluent nimby? You better you bet
By Jeremy Clarkson (Sunday Times, May 28)
I have some experience of not getting planning permission, and what I’ve come to understand is this: whether you want to build a conservatory, or a funeral home, or a nuclear power station, you’ve got to get the language right. Sustainable. That’s an important word. Your conservatory may feature window frames made from depleted uranium, but that doesn’t matter if you describe it as sustainable. And mental health. That’s critical. You need a sustainable sun room full of eco-plants because it’s good for your mental health. Plus you will empower the local building trade in a way that will be “transformative” to the low-income “community”.
Sadly, however, no matter how well versed you may be in modern government-speak, you will come up against a neighbour in red trousers who knows the even more powerful language of nimbyism. And he’s going to say that your new conservatory will cause more “pollution”, “traffic” and “noise”. That’s the holy trinity for those who worship at the altar of Laura Ashley. And if that isn’t working, they’ll wheel out the trump card: dark skies. They’ll argue that your new conservatory will cause light pollution, and then, I’m afraid, you’ve had it. Especially if there’s even a suggestion that you might harm a bat.
All of which brings me on to the Duke of Beaufort. He recently applied for permission to stage two summer concerts in the agreeable grounds of Badminton House — the Who and Rod Stewart, in case you’re interested. And I’m sure his representatives used all the right words.
They’ll have glossed over the fact that it’s bloody expensive to run a big house and new income streams are necessary, because that sort of argument doesn’t sit well in a country where anyone with a big house is wrong. That’s the law. So the duke’s advisers will have relegated the business angle to page 12 of the application and concentrated instead on how the sustainable, low-impact, green events will empower the low-income rural community and boost the mental health of the region’s bats.
Sadly, though, the duke’s neighbours are not just well versed in the language of nimbyism. They are fluent — they are past masters — in the art of objecting. So they started by pointing out there’d be increased traffic in the area and that noise would “reverberate” in nearby villages — presumably causing many bat deaths and “mental health issues”.
Naturally, they also said the concertgoers would engage in “rowdy behaviour”, even though it’s the Who and Rod Stewart we’re talking about. Most of the audience will be in their sixties, and when Roger Daltrey sings, “The kids are all right”, they’ll turn to one another and say, “They really are. Henry’s a commodity broker now, and Harriet is doing ever so well at Freuds.” Then, when it’s all over, they’ll go back to Stanton St Quintin in their Teslas, and Keith Moon will not head over to the local hostelries to blow up the lavatories because he died 45 years ago.
Fearing perhaps the council might cotton on to the fact the audience are extremely unlikely to drive their cars into the nearest swimming pool, the red-trouser people decided then to open up with sustained machinegun fire. Crime. Disorder. Public nuisance. Emergency services. Road safety. Pandora’s box. This was the Middle England playbook, and if they’d stuck to it, they might have got somewhere.
But they got high on their own supply and became silly, saying, “With 11 to 12 hours’ drinking licences, drunks will camp overnight . . . increasing the potential for a major fire incident.”
Right. I see. So this 65-year-old reveller overdoes it on the noon balloons and the Whispering Angel, puts up a tent he’s somehow smuggled into the venue and then, using some of the kindling he’s brought from the wicker basket in his snug, gets a fire going, which, despite the constant rain that goes hand in hand with British summertime concerts, somehow turns into a major Australia-style inferno that completely engulfs three neighbouring villages and ruins the dark skies for miles.
It’s the most preposterous argument I’ve ever heard. There was, once, a fire at an outdoor gig. It was caused by a faulty light on the stage and was quickly extinguished using stamping and a blanket. No one was injured and Bruno Mars was back at the mike eight minutes later. So the fire argument doesn’t wash.
And I’m delighted to say the duke’s local authority saw it for the nonsense it was and gave the gigs the go-ahead. And before you write in saying, “How would you like it if your neighbour invited the Who to perform in his garden?”, I’d say: “I’d like it a lot. Especially if they bring some lasers and do 'Baba O’Riley'.”
I fear, however, that this is not the end of the story, because now “sustainable” has been balanced out by “traffic”, and “empowering” by “light pollution”, the red-trouser brigade is going to become increasingly desperate in its constant battle to keep Britain as it was in 1957.
Mr Sunak announced recently that planners will be encouraged to look favourably on rural schemes, but they’re going to be up against a tub-thumping army that will quickly recognise that the fire argument was a bit of an oxbow lake and will start to argue that the new housing estate for the low-income community will cause a plague of luminous locusts that will spoil the dark sky. Or that it will attract immigrants who all have ebola. And that your longed-for barn conversion is actually a Russian missile silo capable of turning all of Chipping Sodbury into a nuclear desert for the next 10,000 years.
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The Driving website of the Sunday Times has also published a freely accessible interview with Clarkson, on his 30 years at the paper. It's part of a larger feature that also reproduces several old columns.
And here's the Sun column: "Three things bother us in the UK..."
Clarkson's columns are regularly collected as books. You can buy them from his boss or your local bookshop.

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TLDR: I just need to vent becuase I'm so heartbroken right now. I just want some support. My friend/ex died and before he died he told his other friend that he didn't ever love me.
My friend's celebration of life was a few hours ago and I can't stop crying. I loved him so much. We met eachother in kindergarten but weren't close until after high school. I grew up around him. He was just such an amazing, unique person but he really struggled with alcoholism. It was like I met the person of my dreams. When he was sober he was so charming, funny, intelligent, creative, passionate, energetic, and loving. We had such an intense connection and I've never had butterflies like that before. But I broke up with him only after a week of being official becuase he wasn't very reliable. He was blacking out, canceling plans to get drunk and then lying about how much he had been drinking. We took a break and then started being friends again and I would hear from him from time to time. I moved on to other relationships after that, but I still cared about him deeply as a friend. I just couldn't tolerate his alcoholism anymore as a girlfriend.
I had a dream about him saying goodbye, so I tried to reach out to him but I couldn't becuase all his accounts were deactivated. After that dream I would wake up comforted just to the thought of him and memories of him just kept popping up everywhere. there was one moment it genuinely felt like he was hugging me and resting his head on my shoulder. Until one night I get home from work and I start feeling an intense sense of grief and dread without reason. I could almost hear his name in my room, even though I live alone. So I google him and the first result is his obituary. It says his funeral happened just a few hours ago so I didn't make it. But I still went to the celebration of life. At the celebration of life one of his friends told me that they called him before he passed, and he was talking about me and how much he never loved me. That really broke my heart. I saw his mother too and she said he wouldn't stop talking about me in a good way and that he really loved me and cared. He just wasn't in his right mind to continue a relationship when he isn't sober. His best friends told me not to look too much into it becuase he wasn't well and before he got to that point in his alcoholism he really did care. I'm just so sad that he is gone and I just wanted him to care becuase I cared. I still care.

So I’ve been down the rabbit hole, trying to chase every off-the-cuff reference, stray allegory, allusion, comparison, and tangent. I’m going to need you to bear (hug) with me for a bit because I think I’ve stumbled on some truly insane parallels between this show and the myriad of references it makes and it will take a lot of text to justify to you that I'm not crazy (or that I am, but at least I do my research).
This is a show that employs a ton of intertextuality and what the poet T.S. Eliot (someone quoted frequently throughout the series) calls “the mythic method”: essentially using historical, literary, and mythological allusions to draw parallels between characters on the show and characters throughout history (real and imagined).
This method helps the audience to build both conscious and unconscious associations with each of the characters and, ultimately, underscores the Roys’ (and humanity’s) damning commitment to making the same mistakes over and over again. The show seems to draw a lot from Greek mythology, Arthurian legend, biblical parables, Shakespearean tragedy, and modernist poetry (among many other things).
These networks of symbolism span from the earliest recorded history to modern celebrity culture and yet they reveal frighteningly unchanged elements in the stories they tell. The parallels of these references throughout the show serve to highlight the cyclical (the illusion of progress) and deterministic (the illusion of free will) nature of existence.
While I will be dipping in and out of the existing references, I want to call particular attention to the poetry of the aforementioned T.S. Eliot (who champions the mythic method) and John Berryman’s poem Dream Song 29 because I believe much of their work has served as a foundation for characters.
In the show, Frank makes mention of his poem “The Long Song Of J Alfred Prufrock” more than once. Outside of the show, Matthew McFayden (the actor who plays Tom) references the same poem to describe his character. Jeremy Strong (the actor who plays Kendall) says Eliot’s work The Four Quartets is a huge inspiration to his acting and character. A line from this particular work did strike me as being quite on the nose, which is why I continued to comb the poem for more (which it does deliver on):

"In my beginning is my end. In succession Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires, Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth Which is already flesh, fur and faeces, Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf."

This will probably be a monster of a post, so I will attempt to break down the following sections between poetic parallels, visual and dialogic symbolism of eternal recurrence, and an exploration of the historical and mythological allusions. Ultimately, I believe all of these clues point to the overwhelming conclusion that we will end where we began, in some way or another.
Circles & Cycles: Endless Recurrence & The Futility Of Progress
The show toys a lot with the philosophical concept of eternal recurrence, which postulates that “time repeats itself in an infinite loop, and that exactly the same events will continue to occur in exactly the same way, over and over again, for eternity.”
These eternal loops are symbolized visually with mirrors, water, fractal reflections; in the “uh-huh” and “mhmms” of repeated, near-palindromic dialogue; and in the show events that echo and repeat: in-air death scares, asynchronous business deals, family betrayal, weddings, retreats, implosions, family reunions, trauma bonding, baptism, funerals, etc.
In this understanding of time, there is no linear progress — or even progress at all. Time is cyclical. People are cyclical. As are the events that transpire. This is particularly interesting in a show like Succession whose title alone implies the phrase “line of succession.” Viewers would expect to see what comes next — who comes next — but as Logan himself yells, “Nothing is a line. Everything is moving all the time.”
Logan consistently evokes the circle shape in his speech, “Put a circle around him” he tells Shiv. “We’ve been circling for an hour, tell them we’re out of gas,” he complains in a moment of grim foreshadowing on his plane. “Crawl in a circle and close your eyes,” he shouts during the game of Boar on the Floor.
And he is the bright, burning nebulous center of this circle. He’s described as “carr[ying] his gravity. He's not a man, he's a f*cking planet.” And the people around him are described like satellites and moons. Characters exist in his orbit. And every complete orbit (or “revolution”) leaves characters in exactly the same place. There are motions, there is the illusion of progress, but the result is the same. Eliot again:

“every attempt Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure”

With this understanding, the show may just end where it begins. Not only in “nothing” happening, but in repeating the same events ad infinitum: A kid tries to take over the family business, they try to align with their siblings, they eventually backstab their siblings, they end out in the cold, and then they reunite, swear not to do it again, until it all repeats.
As most of us are aware, the show has made very direct mention of the John Berryman poem Dream Song 29. The names of the past three season finales (as well as the name of the upcoming fourth) are all direct excerpts from the poem, which deals with grief and sadness and the guilt of killing someone when you can’t even confirm there’s been someone killed at all.
Berryman consistently wrote about the guilt and grief he experienced from his father’s suicide. Berryman himself would eventually end up taking his own life, which on its own is a brutal reminder of the cycles of trauma. It also doesn’t feel insignificant that Berryman jumped off a bridge.
What’s really interesting is how each subsequent finale is named for a line that comes earlier and earlier in the poem. It also toys with this concept that things come full circle and end where they begin. This echoes Eliot’s essential thesis of the poem:

“What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

But while the speaker of the poem comes to realize he has not murdered “nobody” by the poem’s last line; Kendall, moving through the poem backward, must reckon with the idea that he may have killed somebody even if they were a “nobody.” And while we may encounter this as a moment in which Kendall is genuinely despairing over his season 1 inadvertent murder, I believe we are far more likely to see Kendall embrace this moment.
We see "nobody" and "no one mentioned" a lot when it comes to Logan, who believes most people are "fungible as f*ck," and "pygmies" while he's "1,000 feet tall." When Kendall is involved in the accident, we see him echo "NRPI" or no real person involved.
The reason Kendall couldn’t live up to his father’s expectations is that he couldn’t be the killer his father needed him to be (even if his morality or basis of being a good person is off). This retroactive movement through the poem could be Kendall realizing he is, in fact, the killer his father always needed him to be, enabling him to take the necessary steps of seizing the crown on his own.
Allegories & Allusions: Mythic Comparisons & Determinism
It’s Shakespearean, like Roman says, “I kill Kendall, get crowned king, like we’re in f*cking Hamlet or something.” But it’s not just Hamlet, it’s King Lear, King Richard III, Coriolanus, Macbeth. And it’s not just Shakespeare, it’s Oedipus Rex, The Odyssey, The Waste Land, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Cronus devouring his children, Romulus killing Remus, Noah cursing his child for looking upon him naked.
The concept of the monomyth was popularized in "The Hero With 1000 Faces" and discusses throughout history, throughout different times and places, different cultures, different religions, different people have developed stories with relatively similar fundamental elements. The show is rife with allusions of stories that follow that same thread. Logan is Cronus who is King Lear who is Romulus who is who is. This is another form of endless recurrence: the inability to break the cycle. Or, in a very Hamlet reference, "maybe the poison drips through."
The themes of patricide, fratricide, and incest in particular are rampant. Rhea (like Rhea Jarell) in Greek mythology is both sister and consort to Cronus. Both are part of the first generation of aptly named Titan gods. Cronus overthrew his father Uranus and learns his children are fated to overthrow him. So he eats them as soon as they are born. Logan does refer to people as food a surprising amount throughout the show, varying from red meat to vegetables. He outright calls for blood sacrifice, which evokes the language of the gods.
Logan is referenced specifically as one of the last real American titans in his obituaries and eulogies. The language around him is frequently god-like. He's known as "the big man" or even "the big man upstairs." Tom tells Greg to "be his representative here on earth"; Roman asks the audience, "who is going to climb Mt. Olympus and be the next Dr. Zeus?" And that's where the myth gets interesting.
The only child not to be eaten is Zeus, who does end up killing his father and was surprisingly interested in marrying his mother. We're familiar with this plot formula through a different archetype: the Oedipus Complex, which we see referenced in the show with “Oedipus Roy,” “Oedipussy,” and “stabbing my eyes out.” The same story is repeated again in Hamlet with brother killing and brother and son yelling at his mother about her milky breasts (something Roman does to Shiv more than once). In the show when Logan says to Roman, “You may want to f*ck your mother but I don’t.” We know none of these stories end well. As Connor muses, “It’s not right to kill one’s father; history teaches us that.”
In the story of Romulus and Remus (whose mother’s name is also Rhea), the two brothers were initially chased out of their city as potential threats to the King (yet again). They were left by the river to die and were saved by the river god (important). After successfully overthrowing the kingdom that left them for dead, they agree to found a new city. They ultimately disagreed on which hill to found it and decided to have a bird-watching competition to see who could see the most omens indicating they had divine approval for the hill. Remus says he saw 6 auspicious birds but Romulus claims to see 12. Romulus kills Remus over this.
It should remind you of Logan visiting his childhood home with Ewan: “I saw a mistle thrush at the bandstand,” and the log book he kept as a child of birds he “saw” that Ewan would cross out if he didn’t believe him. It may also echo a part of The Four Quartets, “Other echoes/ Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?/ Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,/ Round the corner. Through the first gate,/ Into our first world, shall we follow/ The deception of the thrush?"
There is much to be said about the themes of warring brothers. Also the themes of fathers worried their children would one day overthrow them who take action to thwart or murder their children, which inadvertently sets into motion the very outcome they fear. It happens over and over again in stories old and new. As Panhandle Pete says, “I push him, he pushes me, and around and around we go.” Or as Eliot puts it, “that the wheel may turn and still / Be forever still.”
Much of these works touch on a sort of determinism, or the slow crushing reality that every action you take — even if that action is an attempt to thwart your fate — will ultimately lead to the same inevitable ending. This is the illusion of free will on top of the illusion of progress. And Logan, in fearing his children would usurp him (and also disparaging his children for not being able to), set into motion his own death and his own messy succession.
It’s also a reminder that the greatest men in life are all the same when laid to rest:

"O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark, The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant, The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters, The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers, Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees, Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark…"

Structure & Symbolism: Water As Rebirth & Destruction
The show has very much been structured around Kendall, and we watch him move through bodies of water with what feels like different symbolism each time. Is he drowning, is he reborn? We witness Kendall at his lowest point face down in a pool and at one of his highest, splashing into the Pacific ocean. We watch a man drown. We watch Logan beg Kendall for water as they walk through Adrien Brody’s maze. We watch Roman clamor for water at the funeral when he needs to calm down. Poetry has long played with this life and death dynamic in water, like the sailors dying of thirst in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner who cry:

“Water, water, every where,. And all the boards did shrink;. Water, water, every where,. Nor any drop to drink. The very deep did rot: O Christ!”

This sub has noted Kendall’s connection to water, which has been represented over and over visually. But once you realize every metaphor, analogy, and simile he uses is water-based, you can’t unhear it. He calls his father “a tsunami of corruption” and describes things “as more precious than water”; he calls deals “choppy” and “dead in the water,” and asks to “help steady the ship”; he offers to “row back” on business deals, says timing is “high tide,” and that he has “bigger fish to fry.”
Logan is apt to use similar water symbolism, even telling Shiv that she’s marrying a man “fathoms” beneath her. As Rhea tells him, fearful of his own monstrosity, “I can’t see the bottom of the pool. I don’t know if you care about anything. It scares me.” ATN’s major scandal was “death cruises.” Even his operating nemesis is called “Sandy.”
In fact, there is mention of all elements and seasons — in particular, fire from Shiv, air from Roman, and earth from Connor. T.S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets confront these same themes and share some surprising similarities with show scene locations, dialogue, and plot points.
That’s because Succession is an allegory for the micro and the macro: the rise and fall of families, civilizations, monarchies, dynasties, and empires. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, the cycles rinse and repeat. Eliot modeled the four quartets on the 4 elements and the 4 seasons. And you can see even in Succession a similar manifestation of 4 elements. And, well, 4 seasons of the show. (And what occurs after 4 seasons? A full revolution around the sun, bringing you to where you began.)
Water seems to be at the root of it all. Even Ewan’s eulogy meditates on his and Logan’s journey on a boat. Even their abusive uncle is named Noah. In the show, we watch our nobody die by water, we watch our main character nearly die by water, and then we watch him revive in the ocean. As Kendall and his father wind their way through Adrien Brody’s circuitous Long Island home, Kendall remarks, “I think this leads to the ocean.” Because every path leads to the sea in some way or another.
The overarching narration from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is the Arthurian Legend of The Fisher King. This story is told a million different ways with a million different outcomes, but always boils down to an injured or maimed monarch ruling over a dying land. Or as Ewan refers to his "empire of shit": “He’s built a wasteland and called it an empire.”
He’s looking for someone, anyone, to heal him, rescue the kingdom, and ensure the dynasty survives. This is the myth of the holy grail, which, in this show, can be seen as the throne: The original stories of the holy grail were not Christian/religious but they do employ a lot of the same mythmaking from earlier religions and mythologies to tell their stories and thus construct their new realties. As Eliot says in The Four Quartets:

"The whole earth is our hospital Endowed by the ruined millionaire, Wherein, if we do well, we shall Die of the absolute paternal care That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere."

I believe Kendall (and the other children) represent the grail knights who try to save the king. (On the same level they stand in for the gods, the elements, or anything at all). When Christianity became more popular, these myths adapted to Christian overtones, but they still had the Celtic and pagan myths at their core: the grail becomes the chalice from the last supper.
That’s why Kendall’s easy comparisons of himself to Jesus feel less blasphemous than revelatory. Jesus is another hero archetype in the show’s mythology. He is willing to sacrifice himself, which Kendall must do in order to become the successor his father wanted. As he says, "this is a culmination of my life's journey to be crucified for you morons."
(It’s worth noting: In some legends, the knight saves the king; in others, he inadvertently destroys him. We know Logan dies, but it does feel less likely that Waystar Royco survives.) Drowning is a constant feature of Eliot's poems, but so is baptism and renewed life. It is difficult to determine the meaning of water in either instance, except that it doesn't discriminate as a life or death bringer, which is both beautiful and terrifying.
Parallels & Predictions: Piecing The Plot & Poetry Together
To repeat again, as this show is wont to do: “Crawl in a circle and close your eyes!” Logan Roy shouts during a game of Boar On A Floor. It’s an allegory, like many games on the series, and proudly says the quiet part out loud: Logan always wins. Here’s a little boar on the floor reference in The Four Quartets:

"We move above the moving tree In light upon the figured leaf And hear upon the sodden floor Below, the boarhound and the boar Pursue their pattern as before But reconciled among the stars."

We’ve seen the L.O.G.A.N. system at work many times and with many people. He dangles a carrot, a morsel of love, as each character attempts to play the game over and over while expecting different results. They are doomed to crawl in that circle, to play that blind game, as Logan angrily shouts, “It’s fun!” And this game doesn't end in death. The children still ask. "What would dad do?"
Games on Succession (which are a consistent refrain), it turns out, are rarely fun and are often designed to humiliate or inflict pain. The same goes when characters say “I’m just kidding” after an eviscerating remark. Logan thinks life is a game, and as he says, games should be taken seriously. And because Logan explicitly makes the rules, there is no winning, just trudging around the board, passing Go, and collecting $200. The games are essentially Sisyphean tasks that the kids wouldn’t be able to win even if they were actually competent enough to run the company. And yet they keep rolling the boulder. It’s endless. The repetition. It ends where it begins.

"Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, Every poem an epitaph. And any action Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start. We die with the dying: See, they depart, and we go with them. We are born with the dead: See, they return, and bring us with them. The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree Are of equal duration. A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments."

Please also note the use of “the rose” and “the yew tree,” which are the names of Logan’s siblings Rose and Ewan, which derives from yew-tree. Other important name comparisons include Kendall’s association to spring/river valley; Siobhan’s nickname either a knife (Shiv) or Pinky (a variation of the name Rose); Roman’s connection to Romulus/Corialanus; Tom’s name meaning “twin” because there was already someone named Judas in the bible HELLO; Logan’s name meaning little hollow, which recalls another Eliot poem, The Hollow Men.
We know this show is a game, one that isn't fun at all, and one whose rules Logan made up. Even when there's a winner, there's no winner. So it's almost futile to play at all. That said, it’s impossible to make sense of any of it all without the ending — to confirm this ball has been rolling toward an inevitable conclusion, but given the show’s ending has probably occurred already, here are my thoughts:

• Kendall drowns

This may feel a bit on the nose given we’ve already seen this almost happen to “the Kurt Cobain of floaties,” but it would certainly be poetic. This could be sad (launched from a bridge); empowering (a la The Awakening); or metaphorical (a drug overdose). At some point Kendall says, "If dad didn’t need me right now I wouldn’t know what I would be for." The kids exist with Logan as their sun; they are moons, satellites, in orbit. And when their sun dies out, they repeat the motions in the cold, slowly losing their patterns and motions. The term is science is a rogue planet and the following lines from the poem remind me of Kendall and his broken, hollow stare.
“It would be the same at the end of the journey, If you came at night like a broken king, If you came by day not knowing what you came for, It would be the same, when you leave the rough road And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for Is only a shell, a husk of meaning From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled If at all. Either you had no purpose Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured And is altered in fulfilment.”

• Kendall is king of the ashes

Any victory feels like it will be a Pyrrhic victory regardless when you've had to systematically take down everyone you love to achieve it. The same lines above can echo here "the purpose is beyond the end you figured/And is altered in fulfilment." A hollow victory. The Fisher King question Logan poses is, "Who can replace me?" Logan wanted each of his children to display the killer instinct. Kendall’s backwards journey through Dreamsong 29 may very well see him realize he is, in fact, the killer his dad always wanted — with open eyes. This will probably involve taking down his siblings. In this version, winning is a lot like losing, which feels very Succession.

• Mattson wins it all

These Shakespearean histories and tragedies rarely end well for existing houses. With Richard III (the-multiple-lineage-ending war of the roses) and Hamlet (the-whole-house-dies-but-a-norwegian-king-swoops-in-to-take-it-all dynastic struggle) references abound. We may just see a new house rise up and rinse and repeat. This would probably also occur if the kids take each other down and leave it open for another party. We saw last season that Roman thought he had an in with Mattson until it didn’t serve Mattson anymore. I see the same thing happening between Roman and Mencken. This puts Mencken and Mattson in a position to take over, which may make Mattson win it or…

• Mattson destroys it all

When Mattson is introduced, he is referenced as a trickster. Generally, in mythology, this character is quite intelligent or in possession of secret knowledge, and he uses it for trickery and commandeering situations. (Is that blood thing real???). Hamlet concludes with every major character killing the other with their own tragic flaws until a third party Scandinavian comes in to take the crown with no necessary action or bloodshed at all. We already know he's unscrupulous; what is his end game? It reminds me of one of his early lines to Roman, which would be an eerie foreshadowing:
“Success doesn’t really interest me anymore, it’s too easy. Analysis + capital + execution. Fucking, anyone can do that. But failure, that’s a secret. Just as much failure as possible as fast as possible, burn that shit out, that’s interesting.”

• Tom betrays Shiv

We’ve seen it happen before (which is why it should happen again). We’ve also seen Tom remove the thin veneer of his ambitions to the point where he almost feels like Richard III. He has played the fool, which is Shakespearean estimation, is often equivalent to the trickster. This would be a fun and distorted parallel to Shiv offering this job to him for Logan to offer it to her. This would probably happen in conjunction with Mattson winning. As I mentioned earlier, the name Tom means “twin” and the apostle Tom was only called as such because there were already one too many “Judas” in the mix. He's also from Minnesota (the twin cities!), so this is becoming very real, you know???

• Greg betrays Tom

While we know Tom has betrayed Shiv before, we also know Greg betrayed Shiv and Tom when he spoke to Geri in the first season about Tom having a press conference on cruises. He leads Tom to believe Shiv has betrayed him, getting one over on both of them. There may also be something with the Rule of 3 and being betrayed 3 times that feels biblical. The show also makes TONS of references to holding on to blackmail for opportune moments. Will we see something like this?
I’m not a big believer that Greg will fail so far upwards that he will win (this would feel like a betrayal in its own right), but do I believe there’s a world where Greg gets himself on a piece of paper with a question mark. Maybe???

• Geri finally beats Tom

This is my personal hope because I want the Tom and Jerry allusion to be real more than any other I put together (we love a good cat and mouse game). If Mattson wins, he needs a US CEO. Geri has collected a massive amount of dirt on everyone. And to call back to season 1’s interim CEO discussions, Shiv says, “I don’t like Geri. But I don’t hate Geri either.” It would feel particularly good given how much time and effort Logan spent clarifying Geri would be terrible at the position. Especially as Logan disparaging someone generally means he’s afraid of what they can do.
I’ll end at the ending. Or conclude where Eliot did on The Four Quartets:

"We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, unremembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. Quick now, here, now, always— A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flames are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one."

PS. Given ‘Pinky’ is another name for ‘Rose’ does this mean Shiv wins??? JK let’s just watch the show tonight and laugh at our predictions in the morning.

I was deeply in love my with my ex. He broke up with me 2 days after I lost my best friend to a medical condition. He told me he couldn’t lie to me anymore and he was sorry but he just realized he didn’t wanna spend the rest of his life with me. I went home for the funeral and when I came back he was gone from our place. I moved home and a month later we spoke about getting out of our lease. When I asked him why he got upset, told me it wasn’t a fuxking algebra problem he could give me. I was unattractive to him and didn’t support his struggles as a young man in America and how hard it is for men at that age and said that he was sure I thought he was a narcissist (he’s a big Jordan Peterson fan if that wasn’t obvi). It’s crazy he said I didn’t support him, I moved states so he could pursue career opportunities. Fast forward to now four months on. Im feeling more ok about our seperation, bc right after I was devestated and hated myself. It destroyed my confidence. But now when I go on dates I just feel so disgusted by men. Im not attracted to them, I don’t trust them. I’m not attracted to women at all so it’s not that. But I just can’t get over this ick my ex gave me. I’m sure it has to do with not fully liking myself too. But does anyone experience this ? On top of it all, I feel like there is no way I’ll ever find love again or love Someone how I loved him.

After I (35) confronted my mother (55) about her abuse of me, I went no contact with her. Shortly after, her husband died under suspicious circumstances.
Her husband was a little over 20 years older than her and had dementia and alzheimer's. I had talked her into getting a home health nurse several times to help provide care because it was very obvious that she was not. She inevitability came up with reasons to fire each one and she made a big deal out of it every time. Without the care he needed, her husband continued to deteriorate and I wound up reporting for elder abuse, but nothing ever came of it. I really, really regret not pushing harder.
I had a sit-down with her a couple of years ago to talk about all the medical abuse she put me through as a child and an adult and confronted her about munchausen and munchausen by proxy. It went about as well as one would expect and she became super dodgy and passive aggressive with me after that, but maintained communication. However, it got to a point where I no longer found the relationship worth maintaining and went no-contact. After that, things escalated extremely quickly and very severely with her committing several state and federal crimes in attempt to get back at me for cutting contact with her. I have since moved (no one knows my address), do not own a phone, and have no contact with any members of either side of my family.
During the time she was escalating her lashing out and while I was moving, her husband died, and I know that she killed him. He had one of the most storied lives that I'd ever heard and his obituary is two sentence long. This is it, in it's entirety, with identifiers changed: "John Doe, age, passed away on Day, Month Date, Year. He was born on Month Date, Year, to Jack and Jill Smith in City, STATE. John is survived by his wife My Mom." He was cremated, which was against his wishes, and there was no funeral service or memorial. There are also things like how he had money set aside for donations that didn't get donated but that's not the point.
The last time I saw my mom's husband, I was at her house. He was wearing clothes that were extremely dirty and way too big on him due to weight loss. His hair and beard were unkempt where he used to always shave and get haircuts. It was also very clear that he hadn't been bathed in a very long time like on the scale of months. My mom and her roommate were constantly getting on to him for his pants falling down (talking about how they didn't want to see his body and how gross it was) or dropping cigarette ash/food crumbs on himself and making too much noise. It's like they were watching him just to catch him doing something they didn't like so they could scold him about it. I noticed that he didn't speak at all while I was there beyond a mumbled greeting when I came in. At one point I went to the bathroom and there was poop all over the toilet and sink and around that whole general area. I went to grab cleaning supplies hoping my mom wouldn't notice but she did. She all but physically rubbed his face in it like a shitty dog owner trying to housebreak a puppy. She was angrily chiding and shaming him like he did it on purpose to make her life even harder taking care of him. I left and went to the nearest health and senior services center and again reported what happened and what I saw and made several follow up calls, but I don't know if they ever even did anything.
On the outside, she presented herself as loving her husband and that she was a warrior sticking by the side of and taking on the care of someone with dementia and alzheimer's. Her whole thing was that she wasn't going to be like other people that put their loved ones in care facilities when things get tough. She's better than that.
I don't know if she did some of the same things to him as she did to me like the poisoning and inducing illness, but it's beyond clear that she neglected and berated him and got pleasure from seeing him deteriorate. I'm not entirely sure what happened with the exact circumstances of his death, but he was so frail from the abuse at that point that I assume either her or her and her roommate went too far with some sort of torture while they were all keyed up from doing shit to me that she/they wound up killing him either accidentally or intentionally. I didn't witness the act, but I know that she killed him.
One of the details that's always stuck out to me as strange is that, months after his death, my partner got a text from my mom telling them to pass on the message 'I thought you should know that "John" died'. No further information, no details, just 'my husband died'.
This has been weighing on me because I could have done more to stop it. I knew she was abusing her husband and I didn't get him out of there. I'm not saying this so someone can give me a hug and tell me I tried, I say it because I genuinely don't know why I didn't do more. I don't like the psychological implications there. I'm terrified of becoming something like her. My mom killed her husband, but I feel like I let it happen. I feel an immense amount of guilt but I also recognize that my mother is a monster and is the one that perpetrated these acts. It's a lot of complicated feelings and they're all bad. I almost feel ashamed of how much I let the trauma I carry from a life lived with her control me, because she at least never successfully killed me. I don't know. I don't know what to do with this.

Please feel free to correct me if any details are wrong. I literally whipped this up at work this morning. Also worth noting, some info was featured on the "extra footage" episode of the reunion on Peacock, the Call Her Daddy podcast Ariana was on, WWHL and VPR episodes. And lastly, anytime "Tom" is used, assume I'm talking about Sandoval.
Edit: watching again for the 3rd time and added a couple dates I missed and made a couple corrections.
Dec 2021 - James and Raquel call off their engagement.
Beginning of 2022 - Tom tells Andy during 1:1 this is around the time he starts having feelings for Raquel. 🧐 🤨
Mid April (at Coachella) – Allegedly, Tom tells Raquel that he and Ariana are in an open relationship. Raquel tells others, and it gets back to Scheana, who tells us this at the reunion. Rumors start swirling that Raquel and “Tom” were seen kissing at Coachella. It’s assumed to be Schwartz, but little did we know. 😠
Sometime in July – Schwartz tells us at the reunion Tom confided to him that he and Ariana are having problems. He's setting the narrative.
Aug 2 – Ariana’s Dog Charlotte passes away :(
Aug 3 – Guys night at the Mondrian hotel. Raquel and Charlie show up after leaving the girls trip.
Aug 4 – Schwartz tells us at the reunion that Tom told him he confided into Raquel about his relationship problems with Ariana and they had an "intimate moment”.
Aug 9 - After filming wrapped at “C-U-N-Tuesday” a bunch went to the Abby and that’s the night they had sex. Tom tells Andy this during his 1:1.
Aug 13 - Tom and Ariana host a pool party where Tom defends Raquel against Lala
Aug 23 – Scheana’s wedding in Mexico (Schwartz and Raquel kissed) Tom caught in footage smacking Raquel’s ass. There are rumors Tom and Raquel were seen making out in the hotel.
Aug 31 – Schwartz tells us at the reunion that’s when he finds out about the “one night stand” between Tom and Raquel. Says Tom blamed alcohol and it absolutely won’t happen again.
Sept 2 – Lala’s birthday – Katie tells Tom that Ally saw him and Raquel at the Abby “enjoying” each other.
Sept 5 – Ariana’s Grandmother dies (according to the obituary)
Sept 5 – Labor Day cook out in LA, Raquel is also in attendance. Tom says he “couldn’t get a Lyft” back home to Ariana while others confirmed Lyfts and Ubers were in and out of there all day long.
Sept 12 – Raquel’s B-day, she buys the Lightning Bolt necklace for herself around this time. Also Glamping trip. This is also when Schwartz confirmed at the reunion he was including Tom when he mentioned Raquel having a type of going after men that are taken.
Sept 16-18 Life is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas – Pictures shown of Raquel on Tom’s shoulders. Tom tells Andy at the reunion this is when the affair “amped up”. (Ariana was in attendance.)
Sept 19 - Raquel’s Instagram post from life is beautiful featuring her wearing the lightning bolt necklace. Captioned “It’s giving Harley Quinn falls in love with the joker vibes ⚡️”
Sept 24 – Ariana’s Grandmoms funeral. Ariana flies to Florida twice this month to be with family. Unclear what those dates were.
Sept - While Ariana is home in FL, Ken Todd drops the mother of all gossip bombs. “I can’t believe, that Tom Zandaville had Raquel, over, when Ariana’s away, in the ju… jacuzzi as well. AND SHE STAYED ALL NIGHT, YEAH?!”
Sept sometime - Tom tells show runner in unaired footage that he feels guilty he’s not sharing his issues on the show and thought it was unfair to the rest of the cast. Again, laying the groundwork.
Oct 14-16 Bravocon – Raquel shows up in TomTom hoodie. Schwartz tells Katie that Raquel isn’t there for him. 👀
Oct 31 – Tom dresses up as Raquel for Halloween
December – Tom takes Raquel home to STL for Christmas.
January - Scheana says she has a convo with Ariana and she said she and Tom are in a good place. Communication and intimacy were good.
January 2023 – Big Bear trip with Schwartz, Jo, Tom, and Raquel – Ariana was not invited. Schwartz claimed he did not know about the affair at this time.
“Mid/late Jan” – Tom tells us at the reunion that’s when he told Schwartz about the affair. Neither can get their stories straight however.
Feb 8 – Both Toms on WWHL. Schwartz is extremely nervous. Tom acts very composed and laid back. (Meanwhile, Raquel is in their hotel room based on info Ariana shared on the CHD podcast)
Feb 14 – Valentine’s Day, Ariana and Tom go to V-day dinner, Tom gifts her flowers. Fight all night about their relationship. (Details provided by Ariana on CHD podcast)
Feb 28- Tom records him and Raquel fapping to each other on Facetime at Schwartz’s apartment.
Mar 1 – Scheana & Raquel are guests on WWHL. Raquel calls Sandoval the “hotter Tom”. Ariana finds out about affair by looking in Tom’s phone in a bathroom stall at Tom Tom restaurant.
Mar 2 – Affair made public by TMZ.