Family Issues
Posted
Wednesday, June 11, 2008 10:53 AM
I don't know why, but for the past few days I keep finding myself thinking about my mom's family and why I'm still really hurt. Let me set the scene quick like.
There are 6 kids on my mom's side. My mom is the second oldest and she and my dad have been the most financially independent of the family. When I was 10 or 11 my grandma died and my mom's family seemed to fall apart. At least when it came to having common sense. Eventually my grandpa remarried this gold digging b*tch and they had two children together. No matter how nice my mom was to his new wife, she just hated my mom. She went so far as to remove all the pictures of both my grandma and my mom out of the house.
There have been a few altercations between my aunts & myself because I don't just stand for their sh*t like my mom does. My mom usually comes home after family gatherings just sad and depressed about her family. One Thanksgiving the eldest of the children screamed at me and right in front of everybody I was basically "What? Stop freaking screaming at me." And then afterwards she pinched my arm and pulled me into the bathroom to ask me what's wrong.
Okay, so this is what's really been eating at me. Before Jax was born I asked all of our relatives to make a scrapbook page for him so he could look through the pictures and see his family. Almost everybody did it. My mom's youngest sister was expecting the month after me and throughout our pregnancies I had emailed her and asked her how she was doing and trying to be there for her and hoped she would be there for me. The month before I'm due (maybe it was a few weeks, I can't quite remember), she sends me a 4 page nasty letter. This letter has been included with presents for Jax. In the letter she explains that she has been purposely ignoring me because she's mad that I didn't come to her wedding and she thinks that it was in bad taste for me to miss it.
Okay. I got married in April and we went to Costa Rica for our honeymoon. She got married in August/September in some expensive castle lodge thing in San Francisco. During that time period when she was getting married, I miscarried. I sent her several emails explaining that there was no possible way that Andy and I would be able to come because it was just too expensive for us to come and I had just started my job at the bank and couldn't take the time off. Plus Andy was already over his vacation hours so he couldn't take time off either. Sure we had planned to come and hoped we could, but in the end it just wasn't possible.
Also in the letter she went into a tirade about my grandpa's money. Why she even brought it up to me I have no idea. But after about 20 re-writes and a loooong looong walk around the city, I came up with a serious response that wasn't chock full of swear words. I printed off every single email that explained in detail why we couldn't come and why I was really sad that we couldn't come. I wanted to go. I did. A week in San Francisco with all of our relatives? It would have been amazing. I also told her that some of the things she was yelling at ME about were not even issues concerning me and that she should take them up with the appropriate people.
Well then her scrapbook page comes into play. It featured her and her new husband and several pictures from their wedding. But at the bottom where there was a picture of my mom's family, her caption mentioned that "This is our family .....except for the Chihos and Dahl families". Was that necessary? I mean really and truly. My first instinct was to scratch it out. But the more I thought about it, the more I want to show my children when they're older just how stupid people can be and let their feelings mar gifts like this. No matter how annoyed I was at any of them, I would never write it down on a scrapbook page or any kind of gift to them "Oh, by the way, you weren't even there."
Even now, two years later, whenever I see that I just want to tell her off all over again. For Jax's baptism and first birthday, we sent invitations to everybody. Even the people we knew wouldn't come because they live so far away. My mom's family didn't even bother calling and telling anybody that they weren't going to show up. And then, for each of Jax's cousins (one with a birthday in August the other in December) we didn't get invitations. Now, I realize that they probably didn't send us one because we live 6 hours away. I just feel done with my mom's family. Andy knows and his parents know that I would much rather spend holidays with his family than go anywhere near my mom's family. Why? Because Andy's family is all about frivolity and fun and being a FAMILY where my mom's family talks about politics and how much money they make and all this dumb stuff.
When I last visited my parents, my grandpa came over to visit. Now, I have not seen my grandpa in about a year and a half because of his wife. She is a basketcase. I am not even sure what her deal is, but they are FINALLY getting a divorce. It's a mean thing to hope, but I hope she has to take the kids with her. Her children are the rottenest children I have ever met. They're mean and spoiled and just terrible. The only adult they'll listen to is my mom. My mom doesn't put up with their temper tantrums or anything. So when she says "Come over here and sit down and eat" you better believe it that they listen. Anyhow, so when Jax & I were visiting with my grandpa, he turns to me and says very seriously "Gina, make sure your children don't grow up to be like my kids. All they ever want is money and always asking something from me." How sad is that?
In the past I have been severely tempted to send out a letter to my mom's family saying "Andy, Jax & I don't consider you family anymore. You aren't the kind of family we want involved with Jax's childhood or our lives really. So please don't invite us to anymore family functions for we won't go and we won't invite you to any of our get togethers because we don't want you there." But I haven't because there are a few (okay, just my uncles that live on the East Coast) family members that I love dearly and want to see as often as possible when they're in the Midwest.
Sorry to just air out my dirty laundry, but I've just been feeling really bothered by everything. I want Jax to know his great grandpa, especially now that he's acting like his old self. He's acting like the grandpa I knew when I was little. The one who just loved to sit and talk and tell you about how he taught himself to ice skate and hear him sing really loudly and badly out of tune. My mom tells me that whenever she talks to my grandpa, he's always saying how proud he is of me and my little brother. He's impressed at how well I've turned out and happy to have a great grandchild.