Guilt

Apparently the service yesterday went off without any clashes or verbal sparring, although my hubby's brother gave him and J the "evil glare of death." That brother along with his sister are the ones that spew the venom, his other 2 brothers pretty much stay out of it.

J told me her Nana said to her "Maybe someday we can put this all behind us like water under the bridge." W..T..F ?!?!
This is not J's fault, was she asking for forgiveness? I'm not sure. I think the old woman, at this stage of her life, is having regrets. And the cynical hurt part of me says it's too little too late.

The part that makes me mental is trying to understand, being a gramma myself, how any woman could willingly avoid her grandchild? Is it partly because I have only one grandchild? The fact that she has 8 grandchildren and out of that number she sees only 4 of them? Hubby's venom spitting brother has 2 that his ex wife doesn't let him see or not very often anyway. His ex is like me in we couldn't believe how shit works in this family. Neither one of us wanted to be held under the thumb of our mother in law. If you give up control to her, everything is fine. It's when you don't that you become person non grata and you and your family become nonentities.

And NOW she has regrets???

Nothing and no one, no matter what they try to do, could keep me from my grandson. Family is supposed to be precious and children are hurt easily. To be rejected because Nana and mom had a problem isn't fair and then I look back and wonder how this could've been handled better and I know I did try. I would've let her see them any time no matter how I personally felt about her just because they ARE her grandchildren but she never took advantage and judging by how many times I invited them and her and how many times they said no, which was all the time, I guess I just gave up.

Ya know, I'm not a religious person at all, but I always thought that to be a good person , you must treat other people the way you'd like to be treated, no matter what your personal feelings on the person were. I've tried to make that my life's motto. It's not always possible but you got to try. That means SMILE while eating SHIT and keep smiling til you get it all down.

I think she's finding out now that life is indeed very short. Hard lesson to learn at this stage of the game. If she wants to see the kids she'll call. I wonder how much of this is, not so much she wants to actually see them and be a part of their life, but is it the fact that she doesn't want to die knowing her own grandchildren don't know her or is it she doesn't want to go to her grave knowing what she did to these kids with her indifference? I don't know , it's made me crazy over the years trying to figure out the psyche of these people.

What a waste huh?

Cathy

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

History in the making

In my lifetime, I never dreamed I'd see the day that an African- American would become president of the United States. I couldn't be more thrilled for the American people!!

I watched the coverage all morning and with tears streaming down my face while listening to his inaugural speech, it came to me that finally, finally, people are able to look past a persons skin colour, to put behind them the stereotypes.

While I'm not a political person by any stretch, his speech gave me hope cos what affects the states, affects us here in Canada. He is very charismatic, he didn't mince words, he recognised that it won't be easy, but his faith in what he believes is contagious.

After hundreds of years of slavery, segregation and bigotry, all I can say is this, ya did good America, ya did real good!!!! It warms my heart to know that this will be a new era in equality for all people!

Cathy

Dear Santa

This is a little late but I thought I would share...

!?!?!! :)

Over for another year

So the holidays are winding to a close and really, I'm not that unhappy about it. Everything has been taken down and finished putting the living room back together. I'm kind of glad its over for another year.

Had a good Christmas, quiet New Years babysitting so the kids could go out. The older I get the less I want to go out and the more attractive it is to be warm and snug at home!

I changed the living room around. I've been told with the parquet floors and my obsession with open space that it resembles a basket ball court lol Anyway...so when we had people over we ended up pulling the love seat closer to make it cozier and so I decided to try it in what is supposed to be the actual living room which is freakishly small for being a condo. I was surprised it worked out as good as it did and makes it snug without me having to walk sideways to get through! My friend will be impressed I'm sure lol

Also, I finally hung the picture Char gave me and now she can let Mr Man know its got a good home! Now I'm looking at the opposite wall thinking whats up there just doesn't fit in. So I need to be on the look out for another pic similar to what was given. J helped me put the room back together this afternoon and as always I was driving her nuts about every little thing being perfectly placed! At least this time she just laughed at me about it.

One more full day of vacation and it's back to the grind. This is probably when nice balmy days seem so very far away. I couldn't live where there are no changing seasons but by mid January it feels like its been winter forever! Bring on the warmer weather! Nice thing too, in February, in Ontario, we get 3 day weekend. It's called Family Day and last year we went sledding and had homemade lasagna. The whole family together. What a good idea it was! If January is bad, mid February is way worse cos by then winter actually has been forever!! Takes away some of the winter blahs and having to wait til the end of March or early April for the Easter break.

Okay, well that's it for me , now I must go to Pogo and play Scrabble as I am addicted!!!

Hope everyone had a nice holiday!

Cathy