Day 126 pt. 1

I’ve been processing a lot of family related emotions, lately. I have one brother but 9 aunts and uncles and like 95 cousins. They’ve never really liked me. I was overweight and gothy, as a teenager. I self harmed and smoked pot. I didn’t fit into their upper-middle class vision. I still don’t. Now I’m tatted up, I don’t try to hide my scars, I talk openly about my experiences with drug addiction and treatment. Quite a few of them are alcoholics, one of my aunts was recently arrested for her 4th owi. They try to hide it, otherwise it would reflect poorly on the family. I get it, my grandfather was a controlling, chauvinistic jerk. There just comes a time when people need to be accountable for their emotions and actions.

Despite them not liking me, the adults in my life put a lot of extra responsibility on me, growing up. I was the older one, of those of us who lived in town, so I was always told to look out for the little kids. When my owi aunt was sober, she was an over-the-top great mom. When she was on a bender, I had to pick her kids up from school, take them to lessons, and emotionally support my cousins. When her son was 14, he was so angry at her. He stole her car and started hanging out with the wrong people. He wouldn’t listen to me because I was his cousin. I tried telling my grandparents, my mom, an uncle, but they were all busy working full time so they never saw anything. They’d throw their hands up, “I’m not his parent, I can’t punish him or do anything about it!” One night he flipped his mom’s car and I’m just glad he was safe. But knowing what he was doing and that the real adults in our lives were failing us, made me feel responsible for what happened to him.

When I was 21, my grandma needed a fulltime caregiver. My aunt had just gotten her 3rd owi and was placed under house arrest for 30 days; but instead of making the arresting address my grandmother’s house, she filed a different address. So yet again, I had to drop my life, live with my mom and care for my grandma 10hrs a day. I couldn’t say no, I knew my grandma wanted to be cared for by family. None of my older cousins put their lives on hold to come help out, none of my aunts or uncles paid me…I’m still so mad at them for making me watch her die, for 2yrs.

I think she had a major stroke and just didn’t wake up for the last 3 days. We were giving her scheduled liquid morphine mixed with lorazepam. The morning she passed away, I was turning her in bed, to clean her, and she vomited. I told her, “It’s okay. We love you and we’ll miss you, but you can go now.”  I went to get the lorazepam and it was gone (…it’s been speculated that my owi aunt stole the bottle.) I called hospice, to see what I could give my grandma instead, they said to give her a tylenol suppository. When I walk back into her bedroom, I see that she’s not breathing anymore. I called hospice back, I called my stepdad because I didn’t want to be the one to tell my mom that her mom passed away.

One of my cousins briefly thanked me at the funeral. Other than that, no one has ever asked me or talked to me about it. It was a very spiritual experience. I got to care for someone who cared for me. We were always close but as she let go of her filter, we talked about a lot of things she never talked about with anyone else. She told me that she always felt a special bond with me. But it really sucks that I have all of that hard, painful stuff mixed in too. Those last 3 days were the hardest. Grandma wanted to pass quickly, she didn’t want to linger and suffer. She didn’t open her eyes, she couldn’t eat or drink, I couldn’t talk to her. I have to live with that shitty last memory, while everyone else gets to remember Christmas or Easter or whenever the last time they fucking felt like visiting was.

Blood is thicker than water, but water doesn’t give you sepsis.