It's good to know the petty is genetic
My mother has managed to utterly astound me. She's carrying on an escalating war of pettiness with a dead woman.
My Aunt J. died in August, after a long and painful battle with ovarian cancer. She and my mother have always been very, very close, despite my Aunt J.'s antipathy toward some of her other siblings (due to issues of abuse). It's been hard on my mom, but the most recent chapter in this story takes the cake.
To set the scene a little, last year my cousin was shot. It was a critical injury, and he almost died. My mother, in her infinite wisdom, decided that Aunt J. didn't need to know about this, and commanded Aunt M., my cousin's mother, to silence. I told Mom that this was going to bite her in the ass, but no, she was right and that was the end of it.
So last December Aunt M calls Aunt J, and because Aunt M can't refuse any opportunity to use another's misery to gain sympathy for herself, she told Aunt J about the shooting. Quite predictably, Aunt J went ballistic. After reaming Aunt M a new one, she called my mom and repeated the procedure. To add insult to injury, Aunt M then decided to blame my mom for the whole mess.
Cue seven months of the three of them ignoring each other.
During that time, my mother had spoken to Uncle S (J's husband) to get updates on her condition (Uncle S hates our sid eof the family - with good reason). So she knew when Aunt J. decided to stop treatment. This summer, Uncle S. called my mom to tell her the end was near. Of course, he called her on day ten of the ten days Aunt J had been given when she entered hospice care. So Mom and J make up, and J proceedes to hang on for another three weeks. Everyone's sad, but also happy because goodbyes were said and everything was resolved.
Well, almost everything
After she died, Uncle S. started sending us some things she'd set aside. One of those things was supposed to be a family photo album my mom had loaned J, and wanted back. Unfortunately for mom, J decided she didn't want the album to go back, because it was the only thing she'd gotten from
my grandparent's house.
So. The dead woman is now holding photo album hostage. Funny enough in a fucked up way, but this sets off my mom on a rampage of bitter indignity. She is pissed at her dead sister for being this petty, and asks for the album anyway, and Uncle S. says that for now he's honoring J's request, but will send the album on eventually. Makes sense enough - he does his grieving by honoring her request and then will let it go.
My mother, however, is not one to let it go, and decided to up the stakes from petty revenge to passive-aggressive insanity. Uncle S's plan is not enough to satisfy her, so she writes a letter to her dead sister, addresses the envelope to her dead sister, and asks Uncle S over the phone
to read the letter to her dead sister. In this letter she complains to her dead sister about the album issue and says she hopes S will give it back.
Un-fucking-believable.
My Aunt J. died in August, after a long and painful battle with ovarian cancer. She and my mother have always been very, very close, despite my Aunt J.'s antipathy toward some of her other siblings (due to issues of abuse). It's been hard on my mom, but the most recent chapter in this story takes the cake.
To set the scene a little, last year my cousin was shot. It was a critical injury, and he almost died. My mother, in her infinite wisdom, decided that Aunt J. didn't need to know about this, and commanded Aunt M., my cousin's mother, to silence. I told Mom that this was going to bite her in the ass, but no, she was right and that was the end of it.
So last December Aunt M calls Aunt J, and because Aunt M can't refuse any opportunity to use another's misery to gain sympathy for herself, she told Aunt J about the shooting. Quite predictably, Aunt J went ballistic. After reaming Aunt M a new one, she called my mom and repeated the procedure. To add insult to injury, Aunt M then decided to blame my mom for the whole mess.
Cue seven months of the three of them ignoring each other.
During that time, my mother had spoken to Uncle S (J's husband) to get updates on her condition (Uncle S hates our sid eof the family - with good reason). So she knew when Aunt J. decided to stop treatment. This summer, Uncle S. called my mom to tell her the end was near. Of course, he called her on day ten of the ten days Aunt J had been given when she entered hospice care. So Mom and J make up, and J proceedes to hang on for another three weeks. Everyone's sad, but also happy because goodbyes were said and everything was resolved.
Well, almost everything
After she died, Uncle S. started sending us some things she'd set aside. One of those things was supposed to be a family photo album my mom had loaned J, and wanted back. Unfortunately for mom, J decided she didn't want the album to go back, because it was the only thing she'd gotten from
my grandparent's house.
So. The dead woman is now holding photo album hostage. Funny enough in a fucked up way, but this sets off my mom on a rampage of bitter indignity. She is pissed at her dead sister for being this petty, and asks for the album anyway, and Uncle S. says that for now he's honoring J's request, but will send the album on eventually. Makes sense enough - he does his grieving by honoring her request and then will let it go.
My mother, however, is not one to let it go, and decided to up the stakes from petty revenge to passive-aggressive insanity. Uncle S's plan is not enough to satisfy her, so she writes a letter to her dead sister, addresses the envelope to her dead sister, and asks Uncle S over the phone
to read the letter to her dead sister. In this letter she complains to her dead sister about the album issue and says she hopes S will give it back.
Un-fucking-believable.