Double Secret Probation – Lifted

A note about the following: this is pretty raw (at least for me) and may confuse or even offend some people. This is something that I haven’t gone about pressing “post” lightly. What I’m writing about has torn my family apart. I reached out to my mother and my sister for their feedback and blessing. My sister’s comments are posted at the bottom, my mother has been asking me almost daily when I am going to post it. I’ve written this for me, and nobody else. As I state below, this is my truth as I see it. I no longer purge physically, but needed to “purge” this emotionally. If you choose to read this, thank you for listening and understanding.

Points to anybody who IDs the movie that comes from.

After a few weeks, I’ve decided to lift the veil of secrecy I’ve had on the blog. In order to explain the reason for lifting, I guess I need to explain the reason for the veil in the first place.

As some of you may know, my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s about two years ago, and my grandfather, her primary caregiver, passed away in August. My grandfather was a stubborn man, in some ways a benefit, in others, a true deficit. He resisted help literally until his dying moment, and denied his pending death and what that meant until the bitter end. At the end, with his kidneys having shut down and the rest of his body following suit, my sister had to call in numerous favors, and risk her job, to get him into hospice in the last hours of his life. He, without discussing his wishes with anybody else in the family, decided my mother’s sister (who has chronic pain and takes multiple narcotics) would care for my grandmother.

A word about my mother’s sister and this is airing some very dirty laundry which I no longer feel the need to hide. Mom’s sister (who I now refer to as my ex-aunt) was always a somewhat flaky individual. She was married to a similarly flawed man, who was flawed before he was shot in the line of duty as a police officer. The injuries and the long term results didn’t help the fact that he came from a family with violence and addiction issues, the fact that he had a bullet fragment lodged in his body and the pain that came with it, in addition to the alcohol my ex-aunt readily gave him, had some bad results. One of which was the majorly inappropriate things he said and did around (and to) me. I won’t go to the next step and say I was molested, because the man was partially paralyzed, but the way it made me feel as an insecure 17 year old wasn’t too far off the mark.

I told my sister, who promptly told my mother, after one particularly inappropriate Thanksgiving, and she handled it like a pro. Mom said I’d never see or talk to him again, and I never did. My ex-aunt left him a few months after, and for a time, he was the devil incarnate. She had nothing but bad things to say about the person she helped to create, and was indignant when told she needed to get a job. She flitted about, getting fired/laid off, and it was always someone else’s fault. She treated my grandfather like her personal groundskeeper, so I guess it was small wonder what he expected of her as he realized he was dying.

Once my ex-aunt’s ex-husband passed way, he was suddenly a saint. She had nothing but positive things to say to him, and when my sister or I either left the room, snorked in disgust, or in one case with my sister actually called her/him out, it was dismissed.

I bring this up to show that the ill will I feel now isn’t exactly misplaced, and my questioning of her judgment has some basis.

Anyhow, the day after my grandfather died, a social worker from the hospice came out, to help us work through next steps with regard to my grandmother’s care. My mother’s sister flipped out, raging at all of us in the room. She told us that she “promised daddy” that she would take care of my grandmother and accused us of not caring about her (my ex-aunt) and that my grandparents were the only ones who cared. We, as gently as we could, told her we did in fact care, and worried about her pain management and what she had to do to get through each day.

We pointed out that she was clearly overwhelmed, and wasn’t able to follow the directions set out by the visiting nurse who cared for my grandfather. We told her we knew she was smoking in a house with an oxygen tank, forget the fact that my grandparents, adamantly against smoking never wanted her to smoke in the house. It was pointed out that we not only knew, but witnessed her sitting on the porch, feet away from the tanks, puffing away. Our intention we told her, was that we thought it would be good for my grandmother to be in a nursing home, where she would get skilled care, and perhaps make some progress , as much as an Alzheimer’s patient can and that my mother’s sister could go about healing herself, emotionally and physically, and resume her life, including getting a job.

My mother’s sister dug in her heels, moving into my grandparent’s house and started freely spending my grandparent’s money. She went about essentially erasing any evidence that my grandfather lived there, disposing of his arm chair, setting up her own lair where he once sat with an ash tray, lighter and pack of cigarettes displayed in the house. Drawing a salary for caring for my grandmother, making purchases that I don’t understand how someone who hasn’t been employed for quite some time could afford to make and blocking any attempts we (mom, sis and I) made to help care for my grandmother, implying that the help we were offering was the wrong kind, in the wrong amount, and just plain wrong.

About six weeks ago, things came to a head, thanks to my old friend Facebook. I’m not sure who made the realization that my mother’s sister was on there, but we had one or two mutual friends who are relatives. My mother’s sister didn’t attempt to friend any of us, I actually blocked her, getting a sense that I didn’t want her to be my friend, let alone my aunt. One day, my ex-aunt messaged my mother on Facebook, instead of emailing, texting, or heaven forbid, calling, angry that we hadn’t visited on what would have been my grandfather’s birthday. My mother didn’t reply. Then she saw that my ex-aunt was badmouthing the three of us to another relative, on Facebook.

That was the last straw.

Mom emailed her, telling her that (a) she could feel free not to publicly air family issues on Facebook and (b) that seeing as my grandfather was dead, she wasn’t sure why she needed to visit the house on that particular day.

To say the message didn’t go over well is an understatement. She sent a nonsensical rant to my mother, bringing up things long past, accusing my mother of financial mismanagement of all things, implying my sister hastened my grandfather’s death and taking a slew of other paranoid, cheap shots going way back. At that point, I took my little blog private, because I know my ex-aunt found it once, and I wasn’t sure if she’d find it again. At the time, I wanted privacy, and I didn’t want her to have any insight into my life. Now, I don’t care.

I’m sure if she were to see this she, WW III would break out. But this is my truth, these are the facts as I see them, and I think I’m entitled. I’ve done a lot of work on my outside this year, and I need to do work on the inside now. That means no more toxic people, even if they are relatives.

If you’re still with me, 3 pages in MS Word as I type this, I hope you understand and don’t judge. Every family has its quirks, and I’m sure you think me insane for airing dirty laundry. I just no longer feel the need to hide. If people ask about my family these days, particularly my grandmother, I don’t know how to answer. My access has been cut off, almost by mutual decision on the part of her caretaker. If I want a relationship with my grandmother, that means I have to have a relationship with a person who takes narcotic painkillers and has treated my mother poorly over the years.

That makes me sad, but the reality is that my grandmother died the day we received the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. What remains now is a shell of the woman who used to have tea parties with me (juice for me, coffee for her, lots of cookies for both of us), called me her Betty Doll and always told me I looked like I had lost weight even when I had gained a few pounds. Now when I see her I walk in the door announcing myself and my relationship to her – “Hi Grandmom, it’s Beth”. I’m sure she makes the connection that I’m her granddaughter, but nothing else.

I miss her, and I miss the way things used to be, but there is no sense living in the past. I need to move forward now, and fix what I can.

I reached out to my mother and sister for their thoughts this. My sister offered the following: Can I add a couple of things? Grandmom and Grandpop used to cook for her and clean too. They paid bills for her, even that $2,000 tax bill right before grandpop died. K**** spent more time with P***'s niece and nephew than she ever did with us, even after the divorce. She flew to Texas to see R***, but she couldn't drive here after mom had surgery. She drove T*** home from the grandpop's hospital hopped up on her pain pills and sedatives. Her behavior has always been erratic, selfish hateful and mean. She never thanked me for the whole hospice thing. She never acknowledged how hard it was for me to pull it all together so fast or how hard it was for me to do post-mortem care on my own grandfather. I had nightmares about the whole thing for weeks. She was angry because the other nurse and I destroyed the morphine and the ativan instead of giving it to her. She was angry with me because of the social worker. She was angry with me because she couldn't bully me the way she did everyone else. She is jealous of mom and has always done petty and nasty things to her. I want to stress this: this isn't from mom bad mouthing her. This is from what I observed with my own two eyes, from the time I was 2. Mom stayed loyal one hell of a lot longer than most people would. K**** tried to get mom alone so she could bully her. She knew I was on to her. She isn't a flake--she is erratic and evil.

Grandmom and grandpop created her. In the end, they chose K**** over mom and even us. You reap what you sow. I'm proud of mom for stopping the cycle, as painful as it is. She did better for us and we'll do better for T***. One more thought: she made my mother cry