The smell of white trash

So, it never fails to amaze me the utter classlessness of some people.

This week my husbands step father passed away after a long battle with cancer. His sister called to relay the news. My youngest daughter answered the phone and had a momentary blank when she said it was "Aunt Heather". She said to her dad, "There's some girl on the phone called Aunt Heather. My husband said "Oh for goodness sake it's my sister".

A little background here, my youngest daughter has only met "Aunt Heather" a few times in her life. She didn't make the connection at first who was on the phone.

The reasons behind her only meeting her Aunt a few times in her life are many as we as a family have struggled with his side of the family's treatment of us over the years.

It began when his mother wanted to control our wedding as she is a woman used to having her own way and steam rolling over anyone and any objections anyone may have. As we were paying for this wedding ourselves, we had planned a small gathering of 50 guests. We booked the hall and church and laid down deposits. She then showed up with a guest list of 75 people. We asked her to trim it to accommodate our finances and she refused, insisting that everyone would give money and it would be plenty to cover the cost. Hubby and I weren't happy about this and asked her how she could be sure of that as we didn't want to start out with a huge debt hanging over us. She then informed us that she and I quote here "Oh I told everyone to give you 100 dollars". Well, I have never been more shocked and horrified and immediately told her under no circumstances could I agree with this. She refused to "un invite" people, it was a casual invite as we didn't have the formal invites sent as of yet. It was a battle of wills and I refused to be party to such crassness as to literally ask people for money!

In the end, my hubby said "Cath if you don't want to do this we don't have to, we have to stand firm". She refused to back down and so after some talk between us, we decided to cancel it all and get married at city hall and that's what we did. And she never forgave me for it!

Fast forward to when I had our oldest daughter J. My mother in law and hubby's stepfather lived 20 minutes away from us and never and I mean NEVER came by, despite many invites from us. She never took on the role of grandparent to our child the way my own mother did, or the way she did for hubby's siblings kids. When her birthday rolled around I would invite them and all I would hear is how far everyone had to travel to be there. This went on for the first 4 years of J's life. Keeping in mind that the entire family lived no more than 30 to 40 minutes away from us. At her 4 th party I'd finally had just about enough of the carping about it and said "OK if it's such a problem, we will dispense with the family parties and next year she will be in school and we will do the school friends only parties". I was hurt and angry that they couldn't take the time to be a part of our life without bitching about it.

For years after, the girls only saw their grandmother once a year when she dropped off a Christmas gift for them. There were no invites to their Christmas gatherings as we had no car and they were not willing to come pick us up. Also, they didn't approve of our lifestyle as we smoked pot. Never ever in front of our children but nonetheless we were treated as second class citizens because of it. Didn't matter that there was alcohol abuse on a few family members parts, that was overlooked as it was a LEGAL drug.

When my youngest was 6, and heard "Nana" was coming to drop off a gift, she said "I didn't know we had another Gramma!" Out of the mouths of babes! My oldest daughter was quick to correct her saying "we don't, we have one Gramma and one Nana", as in her mind a Gramma was someone you saw regularly and who read to you and babysat you and did stuff with you. And the sad part is at the tender age of 11 knew full well the difference between the two.

Fast forward a few years later and by then we were both working again and could afford to buy a car. We went to his sister's place for Thanksgiving dinner and her youngest son's birthday. Imagine, if you will, how my children felt to see their cousin opening a multitude of gifts from their Nana as well as a card with 50 dollars in it after years of receiving 5 dollars in a card for their birthdays. She quickly realised what they were seeing and started rummaging through her purse and made the excuse that oh she'd "forgotten" to send more and gave them and hubby each 20 dollars. In all the years of our marriage,she has never acknowledged my birthday, ever.

After that we decided to just live our lives without them, life is too short to expose our children to that kind of treatment and we pretty much wrote them off and never saw them.

After 5 or so years, with the advent of Face book, his sister Heather messaged me, making nice and yapping on about how great the girls looked and my grandson etc. I thought and said as much to hubby "What does she want?" So I thought OK I can be the bigger person and let bygones be bygones and will keep in touch. I thought I won't bring anything up , all the hurts and slights as I am past it all and had no desire to rehash the whole god damned mess.

Well, was I in for a shock when all of a sudden she started the whole thing up again blaming me for her mother not being able to see her great grandson and I was shocked and incredulous that she would have the absolute gall to blame ME for this stinking sorry mess. The nerve!! I fired off a scathing email telling her that my daughter has been hurt to the core by her own Nana's total indifference to her during her entire life and would not under any circumstances allow her "Nana" to do to her son what was done to herself! After which she told me it was all my fault cos I had said not to bother coming for her birthday anymore!! O.M.F.G!! I could not believe what I was reading! The bitching about the travelling to her birthday, the snide comments about our lifestyle, the fact that this woman couldn't be bothered to drive 12 kms down the road to see her sons family and somehow this was MY fault?? Oh I don't fucking think so! I sent a final email, outlining everything, told her basically to take a fucking leap and to stay the fuck away from us with her venom and then I blocked her from email, Face book and any other way of contacting me.

Today, I read the obituary for hubby's stepfather and my children were totally and intentionally excluded from the list of grandchildren!

And that my friends is an example of the utter classlessness of that family! I will not be attending his service, not because I don't trust myself to not punch his sister in the mouth but because out of respect for my father in laws memory.

The irony here is my oldest daughter will be attending with her father and said "Just let any of them say one fucking word about my mother and I'll blast the hell out of them cos I don't give a flying fuck what they think of me!" You rock JENN!! She won't start anything but she'll rip a strip off anyone that tries to say anything nasty and she's a writer and will have no trouble whipping them with that tongue of hers and putting them in their place. Which really? belongs at the curb with the rest of the white trash!

There, I feel better now for getting that all out and written down.

Cathy