More family stuff...

I am sure everyone had that ONE family member...or 2 or 3 lol...who really just PISSES you off.  I imagine it comes with the "family" territory.

My aunt is one of those people.  She is driving my family batty!  She is married to my dad's brother, and unfortunately several years back he had a pretty bad stroke so she has been his caretaker.  Stressful, even though he really recovered better than anyone expected.  He is mobile, mentally coherent, etc.  But his wife takes control over EVERYTHING.  My uncle has power of attorney over my grandmother, and as such his wife thinks SHE can make all the decisions.  And of course he goes along with it.

Sp the time came back in October that my grandmother had to be put into a nursing home.  She is 98, btw.  Before that, my oldest daughter and my mom had been doing the bulk of the caretaking...being with her, helping her out, cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, etc.  My grandmother is stubborn and did insist on doing stuff on her own, and my mom (yep, my mom...who has been divorced from my dad for 18 years...takes care of her former MIL because she WANTED to,,my dad does as little as possible.  Go figure) and daughter let her do so within reason.  She would mop the floor (by sitting on a chair and scooching around the small kitchen LOL), she had been known to make her way down to the basement to do laundry (my dad installed railings to the upstairs and basement so that there was a rail on each side of the stairs.), she still liked to cook (we had bought her a crockpot...no fuss meals easy!).  But she is 98, and became more and more limited.  And my aunt took over everything...especially the money.  Told my grandmother she could not have her hair done, it was too expensive.  Told her she needed to stop buying certain groceries (basically, the goodies for the kids that she kept at the house for visits).  Would come by at the beginning of the month and give my grandmother her "allowance."  made my mom and Jenna account for every penny.  Even if my grandmother told them keep the change, they couldn't.  It was frustrating, but nothing could be done.  Everyone grinned and bore it. (my famous quote:  she can't take the money with her when she dies.  God don't take checks.  Let the woman buy a box of cookies!!!!!).  Then my grandmother had an episode and it was decided she could no longer live in the home she has lived in for 60+ years.

My grandmother will be 99 next month.  She has been cooped up in the nursing home for months.  We wanted to take her out for a birthday dinner.  We had done so in the past, never really ON her birthday, but usually the weekend afterwards so that we could make the drive up there and be part of it.  She loves Olive Garden.  Its about 5 minutes from the home.  Sounded great!  UNTIL...my aunt decided its not a good idea.  Oh the work involved...have to have her cane and take the wheelchair too in case she gets tired.  What if she has to go to the bathroom.  What if she gets tired walking.  Blah blah.  Ok look, we KNOW whats involved.  Nobody asked HER to do anything, yet she is acting as if we are asking her to go build the freaking ark!  My daughter talked to her and was treated rather rudely.  My aunt even asked "do you want to for this for her or for you" and made comments such as "well its not like you have a tradition with her" and "we have spent every birthday and Mother's Day with her for the last 20 years."  It has been TRADITION that I drive up with my family every year around March 15th to celebrate my grandmother's birthday.  Whether we go to Olive Garden or KFC (another of her faves) or even just have lunch at her house, we do SOMETHING.  THAT is tradition, is it not?  My aunt suggested just bringing stuff to the home.  Jenna said she's have to talk to her family about it.  My aunt was all like "we are all family."  Um, huh?  If we are all family, why are you treating the rest of us like pariahs?  My mom treks out to the home every week for Bingo with my grandmother...my brother goes out at least once a week...Jenna too.  We would if we lived closer.  Them?  Once a month if lucky.  Decisions?  All made unilaterally by my aunt, with no care for what anyone else may have to say.  If that is the definition of family, man we have all been overachieving.  Because if we were all family, then maybe you would not be acting like the queen bitch!

We have no choice but to accept the fact we are not "allowed" to take my grandmother out.  We gotta take food to the home.  Well, that is the plan for now.  I am waiting for "oh you guys can have whatever you want but Nunny has to have what we tell her she can."  Or some other excuse that we can't do something special for her at all.  Because we have no tradition.  The woman is going to be 99, I think she deserves a plate of pasta and a bowl of soup and salad!  and CAKE!  and maybe a walk OUTSIDE with some fresh air.  It is not a lot to ask!!

When my grandmother passes, that funeral is gonna ignite one huge fireball.  Its gonna be a mess.  There are still some hard feelings lingering from way back when Nunny's sister passed and my uncle tried to take over things, even though her daughter was perfectly capable of handling things.  He tried to move in and make decisions he had no right to make.  I guess this time, he has the paperwork behind him.  His wife makes the decision and he just OKs everything she says.  I do NOT understand how 2 loving, caring folks like my grandparents gave birth to 2 of the most hardheaded, selfish idiots to walk the face of the earth.

Family.  Can't live with em, can't kick their asses!!

Religion and family...

Right up front, I am gonna say it...we are not religious folks.  Oh the horror!  But yup, its true.  Has been for a while.  Both hubby and I were raised Catholic.  That might just explain it all LOL.  I was never super involved with the Church.  Rudy was as a teenager.  As we grew up and reached the age of reason, we both starting thinking for ourselves.  It was one of the many things we had in common when we met.  Over the years, the Catholic guilt still poked at us...even though we had a perfectly acceptable wedding my in in-laws backyard, we caved to pressure and had a Church wedding as well a year and a half later.  All 4 kids are baptized.  We sent 3 of our kids to CCD.  Jenna got her communion and was confirmed, AJ and Nick have both had communion.  Noah, however, has never had any inkling of religious education because by the time he was old enough, we finally shed the Catholic guilt.   Most of it anyway.  While my mom has finally let up, and no longer hounds us about going to church and such, my MIL still does.  It all came up again this week when she was trying to get Rudy go enroll Noah in CCD this coming fall because, of course, he is "behind."  Aside from the fact that the church we would go to charges a lot of money to enroll in CCD classes (which, look, I would not mind paying $10 for the book, but come on...why do I need to pay the church $150 to teach my kids about their faith?  And there is NO homeschooling in religious ed, unless you already homeschool for regular school...and even then, its on a case by case basis.), we have had several conversations with my MIL about why we no longer relate with the Catholic faith, the main one being we do have minds and beliefs of our own and our ideas do not jibe with the Catholic church's teachings.  For instance, we believe in gay marriage, we believe women should be given equal opportunities (ie, women should be priests, girls should be altar servers, etc), we believe in birth control, yada yada yada.  Of course for all that we are going to hell LOL. (we never told MIL when Rudy got snipped, because he did not want to hear any lectures on THAT. lol)  Instead of respecting our decision, my MIL continually hounds Rudy (not me so much, because I rarely speak with her...not because I don't want to, but because when seh calls him, its usually when he is at work and so I am not around at those times.).  Whether its about religious ed for the kids, going to church or reading/watching daily videos on YouTube (not sure exactly all she checks out, but it mostly relates to Fatima and Mary, etc.).  Just when we think she has stopped, she brings it up again.  It is enough to make me scream STOP IT ALREADY!!!!!!!  But I don't.  Neither does Rudy.  He just says he does not want to discuss it.  My FIL seems to respect our choices, for which I am thankful...no double-teaming there.  And while my own mom is not particularly happy, she also respects it.  She's be happy if we went to ANY church, not necessarily a Catholic one.  My MIL would most likely have a fit if we did such a thing.  But I can not walk into a church and proclaim to believe the things they teach when i don't.  Now, my mom has about 95% the same thoughts and beliefs as I do, yet she still goes to church and professes her faith.  Great, if she can reconcile that with her own conscience.  Even better that she does not hound us anymore. maybe because she understands finally why we think the way we do.  And I surely do not want to alienate my MIL, nor does Rudy...so we do keep our mouths shut for the most part.  But UGH it gets annoying!  I should NOT have to defend myself or my beliefs to anyone.  Don't judge me! lol.
Ever see the movie "Dogma?"  It was so on point for us!!  But my MIL would faint and curse it to hell, I am sure of it!!

Emotions

As I was reading a blog and shedding a tear for an online acquaintance's loss, I recalled when I was younger my mom accused me of having no emotions.  Even worse, of being like my father! (That's pretty much a huge insult to me...seriously.).  Now, yeah, we do tease me mom because she will cry at the drop of a hat.  But to think she expects everyone else to do the same...silly!  Yes, of course, I have emotions.  No, I do not always show them.  In fact, a majority of the time I do keep them internalized.  Why?  Because I do get upset or emotional at small things, and I just don't need to advertise it.  Maybe something I get emotional about would seem silly to someone else.  And in my many, many years of low self esteem and of trying to be sure people like, or at least tolerate, me, I did not want to show "weakness."  But you know, why would showing emotions be considered weak?  Maybe I don't wanna be the crazy lazy who cries at the drop of a hat LOL.  Then again, I do find myself getting emotional or teary-eyes at the littlest things.  At Nick's last football game in November, I was thinking about how just a short year from then, Nick would be playing not only in his final A league game, but in his final house/"pee wee" league game period before moving on to possibly playing high school ball.  Not only that, but also how at the same time next year Noah would be playing his final C league game, thus ending an affiliation we have had with that particular team (Nick played on that team in C league too) for 6 of the last 7 years.  I did shed a tear or 2 last year when Jenna graduated from pastry school and was also recognized for doing so with a 4.0 GPA.  I found myself tearing up the other night while reading a book...something I can't recall doing before LOL.  I have cried myself to sleep over things as well.  Being sure, of course, that nobody can see so that I do not have to explain myself.  No explanations means nobody can tell me how silly I am.  I do the same thing when I am mad...I stew to myself so I do not have to explain myself.  I am sure some of the stuff I get annoyed or ticked about most folks would find silly or they might think I was a tad irrational.  I am thankful I have a couple hours to myself on most days.  I can be alone and let it all out.  Then, I can face the world with my happy face.  I gotta be around kids, I sure don't want to be cranky! 

Just because someone can't or won't show emotions in front of people does not mean they do not have feelings.  Maybe their feelings are more fragile than you might think.