In case I have never mentioned this before, my mother’s side of the family is a lot like the anatomy of a rose. My mother is the rose and all the other people are simply thorns. In particular we find her sister, the biggest thorn of all. Thorn (as I will call her) is Spam and Burrito’s mother, she is stuck in an ever aging body going on 50 years old and unfortunately her mental capacity and maturity busted around age 13 or 14. So we are dealing with a 50 year old who has no concept of there being a world outside of her own and that her actions may actually affect other people, it’s hard for her to fathom that the world does not revolve around her. I would like to give her a swift kick of reality to the face, regrettably that is considered assault. Her children have been living with my parents for about four or five years, most of Burrito’s life. Even before they started to permanently live with my parents they were over almost every weekend.
Thorn lived with us; I can say “us” because it was during the summer when I was home, last summer. I’m not sure what Hell is really like, but I imagine it would be a lot like that summer. There is no lake of fire and wretched souls twisting in agony. There is Thorn laying on the couch, or eating the food, or talking. There is her personality that is a personality that on any person I would despise. She is a “people pleaser” with no intention of following through. She knows the right things to say to make you believe that she is going to do what you wish she would do. But don’t be fooled, Thorn is a selfish woman, and she is just trying to manipulate you, which if you are a fool like her parole officer and would like to believe that people are good deep down inside, then she will succeed. I am no fool. I would give anything to tell her to that she is no longer a part of her children’s lives and when you look back on it, she technically never was. I don’t think that because your body is there that it counts as spending time with your family. I forget who said it, I think it was the old President of my school’s wife, she said, “Just because you spend time in garage, doesn’t make you a car.” Now she was talking about Christianity, being in a church doesn’t make you a Christian. Well, having your body in the same room as your children doesn’t really make you a mom, sounds cooler as the car analogy, but I think you get the point. If you are high from your drugs passed out downstairs while your three year old daughter makes toast for your baby, I doubt anyone would consider you a mom.
If you go to prison for, let’s say a year that should have really been five for drug charges, and you write all the time, it doesn’t mean that you are a caring mom, it simply means that you are in prison and find that you have nothing else to pass the time with. Because when you get out of prison, if you really care about your children, wouldn’t they be the first people you go to see? Why would you write them a letter telling them that your release date is a week after it really is? Where you going? Who is so important all of a sudden? And why after you tell them in a letter that you will see them in a week that it takes you a whole three months to finally show up? How stupid do you think they are? Why do you only want to show up for the big events? After the first time that she showed up, phone calls stopped, she didn’t bother. Then, Thanksgiving came. Guess what? So did the phone calls. She wanted to come eat dinner with us. Thankfully my mom told her that it wasn’t a good time. If she wants to see the kids, we can set up a time that she can come and visit; it will be the same time every week because her emotionally damaged children need some structure. So…of course that never happened. No calls until Christmas. She always wants to be the fun person, its “fun time” when they are with her. I just want to have my hour with her. I’d beat the crap out of her. Sorry, I don’t think you realize how hard it is for me right now to not throw in all the obscenities that I know and to not make this chapter about how much I want to physically hurt her. I’m trying, but they slip out every once in a while.
Back to the deal. So we set up Wednesday afternoons for her to visit with her children. That happened once. She calls my mom at work but not at the house. She doesn’t call to talk to the children, she didn’t call on Christmas, and Burrito, bless his heart is such a moron that it doesn’t matter. He expected her to call on Christmas, he wasn’t disappointed that she didn’t call; he is just conditioned to believe that on major holidays she will call. He doesn’t care about her, but whenever she shows up, it’s like she’s the only person in the world.
I just got a call from my sister tonight. She called to tell me that Thorn just showed up at the house! At 8:30 at night! She’s a freaking moron who has never cared about anyone but herself! Burrito hasn’t been sleeping lately. Not since his freaking grandmother took them for a night and let them stay up until 1:30 in the morning! They probably did this because they didn’t want the kids to wake up early…guess what? These kids always wake up early, no matter how late you let them stay up. So what did this mean for my family? Pretty much the most difficult Christmas Eve in our family’s history books. My mom had to drag Burrito out of church by one arm because he wouldn’t come out with her and she needed to take him out because of how unruly he was being. We aren’t talking simple disturbances during church, this is major, this is jumping all over the place, grabbing people’s stuff, talking loudly. Then you have Spam who cries at a pin drop because she’s so overly emotionally charged that she doesn’t even know what’s wrong. So Burrito grabs her notebook she’s screaming about it and then crying because he touched it. It was Christmas Eve for goodness sakes. And did I mention that their pediatrician doesn’t think they need counseling? First off, a pediatrician doesn’t know crap about these kids mental situation. You check the heart rate, you tell them to gain or lose weight, and you prescribe the A.D.D. medication. You are not a doctor of psychology and you only see these kids for half an hour at a time, before the medication wears off for the day, don’t you tell my mom that these kids don’t need counseling until you have spent the weekend with them.
My parents shouldn’t have to deal with this. They raised their kids already. They have every right in the world to be able to enjoy their time, their family, their Christmas! Literally, and I hate to say it because it sounds like it’s the kids fault but I am not misplacing the blame here, it’s Thorn’s fault, but literally all of our lives are ruined. Life is supposed to be different then this. I’m the baby of the family; I’m 23 years old, almost 24. That’s the end of their line, they raised us, and we’re on our own. My mom would like us all to come over more often but there is only so much you can take of these kids.
I had to listen to my sister cry tonight, and from what I could actually understand I’m pretty sure she swore, big swears. That’s not like her. I wanted to swear, I wanted to drive to my parent’s house and tell Thorn to get the hell out because she is not welcome. Not only that but she was still there after 10 o’clock. Of course the kids are still awake, my mom went to bed, and my dad just doesn’t handle Thorn anymore. He’s had to put up with her since she was 13 (she lived with them for a while after my mom’s mom died). So it was up to my sister to tell her to leave, I told her I would come over just to tell her, I would really like to take out all my pent up anger towards her, and I don’t care if the kids got mad at me about it because whether or not they realized it, that pent up anger comes out at them. They are genetically the closest thing to Thorn and I am a horrible person and take it out towards them. Especially Spam because she is so much like Thorn. I hate Thorn.
The other lower case thorns in my mom’s life…where are they? Living life, their normal course of life. Nothing has had the effect on them. I don’t give a shit if you think my mom is a saint for what she puts up with, because you could help her out. They are just as obligated to these children and that family as she is. They have more resources to do it too, and do they ever cut a check? No. They buy the kids a cheap little Christmas present every year to ease their troubled minds and go on with the rest of life.
And Thorn? She’s no better. She’s trying to make herself feel better or she’s trying to win them over because she needs to be loved. My sister told me that Thorn bought Spam a watch and a lamp for her room and she got Burrito a whoopee cushion. You know, I got a whoopee cushion too, from my roommate, as a gag. She said it was the best dollar she ever spent. A dollar, I doubt Thorn was able to find an overpriced whoopee cushion. She always does this. She sent nothing for Burrito’s birthday but Spam’s a few weeks later she sent a letter and I think candy in the letter. Prison candy, it’s not even the good stuff.
Their grandmother is no better. This is the grandmother on the father’s side. My mom’s parents are dead and even her step-mother is dead, deceased. She sees them at Christmas and at their birthday, which is really just singular to her because she can’t even bother to let them each just have an individual birthday, she’s got to clump it together to make less visits. What is that, two times? I’m going to be nice and round it up 10, in case she shows up at Easter but I’ve missed it because I’ve been out at school for the last 5 years, there may also be another time or two that she feels her grandmotherly heart strings pull towards seeing her only grandchildren. These visits are usually only a couple of hours, where they go to McDonald’s or some other ridiculous place. This past time they begged and begged to spend the night at Grandma’s and she finally let them and we’ve already talked about the repercussions of that. So my dad said something about how they got their visit for the year and Spam said that they hadn’t been seeing her often because she’s been sick with cancer. What the hell? She had cancer a couple of years ago, she’s so over it. Her hair has grown back in and all. I even said something to Spam about it and she said that she spent time with Grandma when Grandma was bald. I told her that it probably meant that it was while or right after she got cancer because her hair is back. What kind of crap is she telling these kids? She’s been perfectly healthy but like her former daughter-in-law she is selfish and just plain sucks. Did I mention their father is in jail…again?
My sister just called me back. She got Thorn to finally leave. Thorn tried to give her a hug and my sister said, “I’m sorry I can’t”. She rocks. After Thorn was gone Spam went into the guest room where my sister is staying and she told her that she wished she had the courage that my sister did to tell Thorn what she did. Spam doesn’t love her mom (who she calls by her first name and calls my mom, mom). She wants to have the courage to tell Thorn that she doesn’t love her, that she doesn’t want to talk to her, but feels like she can’t because it would be too rude. Do you know how upset that makes me? Not only because how much this little 8 year old is suffering, but because I have never liked people who can’t figure out that others don’t them, I hate having to them what is so obvious. That’s the problem of having white trash familial connections. You may not be white trash and no matter how much you want to disown the white trash part of your heritage you feel too rude to let them know. It’s easier to ignore the fact that you have them and to simply slip into your room and sleep when they come over unannounced, uninvited, and unwelcome.
Coming soon, from Pixar…
8 years ago
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