Well HB to me

[Eko]

37. Happy Birthday buddy.

I know how that feels somewhat. Here is a story about it. Work in retail management, have to work way more around holidays. Had to open and close the store night on Christmas eve and since the day after Christmas is huge in retail and we are closed on Christmas day I had to set the store up for before the big sale on the day after Christmas day. So work 8am to 10 pm. My Mom was getting sick and I figured I wanted to spend Christmas day with her I got home from work about 10:30 pm Christmas eve, packed up and drove 5 hours to her house. Got there about 4 am went to sleep, woke up at 11am to go to Christmas dinner, (no idea why my Aunt and Uncle have Christmas dinner so early, they always do) Ate and then we all opened presents. I was working 10-12 hour days and only had one day off each week in December and they counted Christmas day as my day off since the store was closed so I only had 1 day off in two weeks except for Christmas day. I had gotten all of them presents, My Aunt, Uncle, Mom, Big Brother, Little Brother, Sister in Law, 2 nephews and niece, and my moms dog Lennon. He was an Akido. Cool dog. Anyways we are opening presents, so we all sit down and my Aunt goes to the pile and hands each present out to who it is for saying their name.Everyone starts getting a pile of presents and my name is not being called out at all. Finally near the end my Aunt calls out my name and gives me an envelope. I open it up and its a $25 gas gift card. That's all I got. I took pics of everyone and my niece and nephews with their presents and just kinda didn't react at all and acted normally. We finished all that and then went back to my moms house. I got my stuff gave everyone hugs and kisses and left about 6 pm getting home around midnight. Went to sleep and back to work at 6 am. I know I shouldn't be upset about any of that, but dang I gave up my one day off to travel and see them, sleep depriving myself and I got a gas gift card for less than the gas it took to get there. For Christmas. Fuck I'd a liked just getting a candy bar with a note from them, or a card or something. Just something small from a couple of them instead of just a gift card from my Uncle and Aunt. I didn't go back for Christmas the next three and my Mom died before the 4th. If I could I'd do whatever I had to do to go see her this Christmas.
It's just a story. Nothing about this is me suggesting in any way how you should process what happened to you. If anything its just that Family is fucking hard some times.
Keep on keeponing.
Eko.