Happy Birthday, Tiffany – and an update

Today, my older daughter turns 30!  That feels a little bizarre, that we are in the same decade of life now.  Elisabeth is going to visit her on the 16th, which is my nephew Hunter’s 3rd Birthday.

Want some news, since it’s been so long since I wrote?

Tiffany has left Eddie and re-established a relationship with an old boyfriend she had when they were kids.  Laurie approves of James.  While I had hoped that Tiffany would wait a while before she went into another relationship (you know, for some Tiff time), I have to admit I really like James.  He says all the right things, and he doesn’t have the desire to control our daughter.  He won’t even tell her not to talk to Ed.  

Speaking of that particular Devil, when Tiffany told him she wanted a divorce, he had her committed.  While she was in the hospital, he moved out of the apartment, leaving her pretty much with nothing except a bed.  He DID pay the rent on the old apartment so she’d have a place to stay, but he even took her kids’ pictures, at first.  He has given them back, which is good, because I didn’t want that freak to have pictures of my grandbabies.  It’s partially his doing that we no longer HAVE them!!!!!!

As for Elisabeth….everything is going so wonderfully well for her, and I’m very happy about that.  I talk to her and Bug (our new nickname for our grandson) quite often on the phone.  "Bug" was a nickname Memaw gave me when I was a child, and there is something comforting in having the same nickname for our grandson as my precious grandmother had for me.  

We had a scare with Memaw not long ago.  She started hallucinating a lot, all of a sudden.  It suddenly dawned on Mama that maybe Memaw had a UTI, because that’s one of the usual effects they have on her mother.  Whatever it was, she is better now.  She turned 89 on February 24, and she’s holding up pretty well, I think.  It was always nice that my grandmothers were the same age, give two months.  Nanny turned 89 a week before her death, in December, and Memaw turned 89 in February. 

I miss Nanny.  I don’t miss the bullshit that often accompanied her, but I do miss HER.  She was, after all, my grandmother, and I loved her, in spite of our extremely troubled history.  Thankfully, I’ve learned not to idealize people just because they died.  I know she was rough to be around, but she was and always will be "my grandma".  We had a complicated but very intense love for each other, and it has left a void in my life not to have her around anymore…but it’s not a SAD void, necessarily.  It was, at first, but now it’s already started getting better.  Maybe that’s because everything seems to make sense to me now.  I finally realized that she wasn’t being punished all those last 20 years of her life.  She was enduring a trial by fire.  And she passed!

Things are shaping up between Mikey and me, too.  We still have battles about friends and family, but we’re beginning to be able to forge new ground, in a way.  It’s far from perfect, but I think we’ll be okay.

By the way, Stacy DID get married on April 1.  I don’t know what to think of it, but I’m not going to judge, just be here for her.

Much love to everyone,

H