I See Life Alive In Many People's Eyes
The few months have been quite the trip. I was given management recently which has been insanely challenging simply because the kid that works with me in the new store is fucking horrible. He is a compulsive liar, incompetent at simple tasks, and doesn't get any of it. One of his best lies was that he had a son that magically appeared after 2 months working with him who suddenly had leukemia, and then died. Yet that story didn't match up with what he told everyone else. Amazing.
Now in case I didn't post this prior, when I was evicted from my home back in July, my cousin was as well. He moved down to my mom's house in NC. Okay, good. Now let us jump across space and time to March.
I got a phone call one March evening. It was my cousin. My mom had given him a month to move out. I was shocked, but didn't understand why. I heard some of the arguments she had with Tom (my cousin) but it was stupid. I posted those arguments with my response to them on my twitter the following day. One of the posts said "I'm not sure how to handle the situation in the next few weeks with my mom."
...turns out that was a bad move.
My cousin called and we were discussing on how to bring him home. Grandma had said she would let him stay with her which was a good first step.
In the midst of our discussion, my mom stormed into the room screaming. She found out what I posted on twitter and assumed that I don't love her anymore. He hung up before I could hear more.
About 15 minutes later, he called me back. She threw him out. Now I'm pissed. Not once did I say I didn't love her. Not once did I say something remotely close to that. She took what I wrote out of context. I re-read it a few times to try and understand where she was coming from but it just was not adding up.
I started making a call to Leroy. He and I were planning on driving down there to pull off a rescue mission. In the midst of talking between him and my grandma, mom called.
We argued for an hour and a half. She had good points on why she was throwing him out. I got that. I kept telling her that her argument made sense but my problem was telling him he had a month and then 2 days later, throwing him out for taking something out of context.
She wouldn't listen. She kept putting words in my mouth do many times. My sarcasm started to get the better of me where I said things like "Oh what is this in my mouth? Are these... Are these words? I didn't put them here. Did you, mom?"
Eventually we came to an agreement. I would help out as much as I can.
No apologies were exchanged. No I love yous. No good byes.
I got up the next morning for work. It felt like a normal Sunday. I stop at McDonalds and bring food to Jackie who was at work. I told her everything that happened.
JUST as I finish telling her the story, Tom calls me. They threw him out again. He said he was looking through colleges and such LIKE THEY ASKED and got pissed later. He grabbed a few things and walked out of the house to get some air. My mom yelled at him to not come back. He hopped on a bus back to NJ and moved back in with Grandma. He left a lot of his things behind. A lot of possessions, some of which were mine that I let him have, are lost now in NC.
I let Tom borrow my Xbox and Desktop until he got his feet back on the ground. She has trying to get Tom to pay for shipping. Tom has no money for it. She's basically holding OUR stuff hostage.
She emailed me some days later, bitching and moaning. Complaining as to how much money Tom owes them for all the trouble and food he ate. I didn't care. It was a lot of bullshit to me.
It was at this point I planned on not talking to my mom.
Flash forward a month. I was driving to go and get something to eat. I got a phone call from Tom. Something Was wrong with grandma. She was being unresponsive. I was 5 minutes out and drove over as fast as I could. I saw her. She was shaking. No reaction from me. I grabbed her hand and shook it. Nothing.
I called 911. It was a decision I was afraid to make because I knew when I said those words that this was it. The last memory with grandma being me bringing over some 24 packs of soda and going in the other room to play the Pokemon Card Game with Tom.
The ambulance showed up and took her to the hospital. We headed over. Her neighbor was with us when the ambulance came. She gave them any of her medical info we didn't know, which was pretty much everything. She was having a seizure which they put her in a semi-coma to prevent another seizure from happening.
We began to contact our family excluding my mom.
I looked at my my cousin. He said to tell her. My dad said the same thing. So I texted her.
I didn't want problems. I went with the safest path because there were words inside me that I wanted to say but instead I kept quiet. It wouldn't help though.
My mom texted me back saying that they were going to be up in NJ within the next couple of days. Tom spent the night at a friends house. I went home.
Tom went back to the hospital and eventually grandmas house to take care of her dog. My mom showed up that night. Tom then went out to hang with friends and spent the night with them.
He came back to grandmas the next morning. He asked if they heard anything about grandma and the first thing the happened is, unsurprisingly, they kicked him out. Tom told me that he wasn't allowed to stay there, that only they were (my mom and her husband, if I forgotten to mention that).
I was done with her.
Tom called me up the next day asking to hang out. I headed over after work and visited grandma in the hospital with Tom. Our aunt and grandma's friends were there. They began discussing over what to do with grandma. My mom had the power of attorney over grandma, and no one in that room liked that.
As we finished discussing, she walked into the room. No look at all from her outside of seeing who was there. No reaction at all. She just walked over and sat next to grandma. Her husband, Fred, said "hey mom." and that was it. I looked over at Tom, who was begging me since we got there to go get food, and asked if he was ready to go. He nodded. We got up and headed out. I had a million words to say to her, none of which would have been good. I felt like I did the smart thing by keeping my peace, not making a scene ESPECIALLY in front of a dying woman.
As I walked down the hall clenching my fist, she walked past me and uttered "thanks for nothing." I was petrified.
She made a scene. You know those cheap sideshow things you got when you were a kid or in school for a presentation? That "click" noise and the slide shifted to the next one? That was my vision. For a brief moment, I saw in my eyes shift my personality. I saw the quiet side of me slide into a furious version, one with a devilish side.
I kept my peace, letting her fume over whatever was bugging her. Tom and I said our goodbyes to our Aunt and hopped in the care. "Where are we going?" he asked. I turned to him and said "Grandmas. I need to get my stuff." I knew this was a bad idea from the start but things were getting worse. "This feels like we're edging up to the final boss, ya know?" we're the words that came out of my mouth as we drove.
We weren't sure what was going to happen. I pulled the car up to her place and had Tom jump out the see if the slider was unlocked. It opened. I popped the trunk and headed in. Started packing my things. Tossed Tom's old laptop that grandma was using into my car. I went back inside to find the boxes for my desktop and tom's tv. We started packing it up.
I heard a car door slam outside.My mother walked into the house.
I watched her as she started yelling. I watched he as she called Tom a piece of shit. I watched as she did nothing but falsely accuse him of things he had no control over. I watched as she wouldn't get it. Fred added to the fire. Fred wasn't getting it either. This was grandmas house and all they did was disrespect it. Sure, what Tom and I were doing was respectful either but when you leave your stuff in the care of someone who is holding someone else's stuff hostage, you want it back now. Grandma would have understood.
I fought back. She threatened to call the cops. I told her to go ahead. I called her bluff. She complained that there was shit in the bathroom. She forgot that there was a dog still living there. She complained that the house smelled. The house started to smell because no one has been home to clean it. She complained that I sided with Tom. I told her if she didn't break the agreement, this wouldn't even be happening right now.
I was fed up. Tom and I grabbed the things we came for and started to leave. She tried to stop us, saying that we were stealing from grandma. We pushed through and got our stuff in the car. She started babbling to Fred, saying they were heading back to NC. I walked back in to check for anything else. As I walked out, I said something that I would have regretted under any other circumstance but for this particular moment in time felt right.
"This woman isn't my mother."
We drove off. Tom asked if I was alright. I was shaking a bit, upset, angry, and a number of other emotions, some of which weren't ever recorded in medical books. Reality, I was not fine. Who would be after all that?
We headed to Leroy's. Figured we could use a friend to cool off. Chatted for awhile before we went to get food. We went to the diner. As we ate, I saw someone walking around and I smiled.
They were here, the person I called my mother and Fred.
They left before we did. I didn't care. I was just glad it was over. At the time, anyways.
A couple days later, I hoped on Facebook and saw that Fred posted something on my wall. This wasn't a good sign. He posted an extremely long thing on my wall that took jabs at Tom, his mom, my dad, and myself.
It wasn't really what they said about me that pissed me off even though Fred went so far as to say I'm a failure at life because Kathy (person originally called "mom") decided to tell half of the story to him (the half that makes her the victim). It wasn't the part about my aunt and her habits because, let's face it, she has to live with that for her life. It wasn't the jab at my dad because that entire bit was bullshit.
It was the jab at Tom. They found a notebook of his that wasn't pretty to them. It was a journal. Held his dark secrets. Stuff that no one except close friends knew.
Fred told it all.
As if I wasn't angry enough with them, Fred crossed the line. I called my dad and told him to read the post. I told Leroy to check it out. I was angry. I wanted to end this stupid, petty fight. I wanted to shout at them for what they posted. I wanted to hurt them in so many different ways. My dad calmed me down a bit, told me he will respond to it. It was a witty, intelligent post that called Fred out.
Fred deleted the post.
It was a huge slap in his face, really. Fred ran scared when other people were getting involved. This is what happens when you post something on a PUBLIC SITE. Of course, Fred posted stuff on his own wall saying stupid shit, thinking he got the upper hand.
But I wasn't satisfied. See, he posted the same thing on grandmas Facebook. I was infuriated because they continued to be disrespectful. Our family was fighting. I was tired of it. I didn't want to see this anymore. That was when it hit me.
I still have grandma's laptop. I hopped on and realized I could get on grandma's Facebook. I went on it and did what I felt was the right thing. I called them out. Told them that they were being EXTREMELY disrespectful throughout this entire ordeal. That there was a dying woman and all that anyone cared about was petty fighting. That I kept my peace out of respect. That I didn't invade someone's privacy and try and use it against him. That if she woke up and saw all this shit, she would have everyone's head. That I would not stoop to their level of underhanded petty shit. It needed to stop.
Fred apologized for his actions and faded from the world... Or something like that.
My grandmother passed away on the 28th of April. My mother changed her phone number and no one could get in touch with her. She knows, I'm sure, but I don't care enough to find out.
It's weird, really. I just wanted to do the right thing, the best of intentions, and it all just bit me in the ass somehow. Kathy just didn't see things like I did. She played the victim. She wanted money. That was all I could see out of this. It wasn't the loss of a mother. It wasn't how she was treated. She didn't care that her kids, her family turned on her. It all came down to money. It's possible that debt collectors from credit cards Kathy took out were catching up to her or they were in a financial situation but never told anyone or something else entirely. I don't know. It's impossible to tell now.
What I do know is that life goes on. Things change. People can change even when they are stubborn. I know personally as I'm stubborn. I will not apologize for what I stand for. I did what was right and made a sacrifice for it.
In case it wasn't clear. Throughout writing this, it evolved. As time progressed, the person I once called my mother changed to her name. It's going to be hard now, knowing that things are changing.
I always told myself to never turn your back on family, but what happens when your family turns their back on the ones you care about?
Glad to finally post this...
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.