9:06 a.m. - 2013-03-15
far away bad dreams
A is flying to Alaska tomorrow to say goodbye to her grandma, who is dying from kidney cancer.
Grandma -- and A -- found out a month ago, maybe? At the time the doctors said she had two weeks to two months to live.
A's grandparents basically raised her -- though she lived with her mother, she spent most days with them -- and they were the good people in her life. Her mom, who died in a car crash when A was 18, was bipolar and constantly told A she never wanted her ...
After her mom died, the family apparently assumed it was A's job to take care of her mother's parents, even though A has two uncles and many cousins ... apparently this is what she spent her whole life doing, when she wasn't working, for years: going to her grandparents' twice a day to give her grandfather his shots, take them groceries, etc., etc. Instead of being grateful and nice to her, they berrated her constantly for not doing and caring enough. Eventually her grandmother chewed her out one last time and A. stopped going back. Stopped answering their phone calls. Stopped having anything to do with them, cold turkey.
I assume other family members stepped in -- there were no shortage of them - and A didn't talk to her grandmother again until she'd already left Alaska for CT and her grandfather was dying.
Since contact was reestablished -- four or five year ago -- her grandmother has been calling her a couple of times a week to try to try to try to guilt her into moving back to Alaska.
And now she's dying.
And now A. is going back. Only for a week, but in my opinion (though I think it was my suggestion that she go) one week is way too long.
I still don't really understand this situation and I don't know what to do. OK, so I am petsitting her animals and driving her to the airport but it is really confusing and heartbreaking to me. I would never not talk to someone for five or six years and totally ignore their calls if I loved them -- I would give them a piece of my mind, look for understanding and reasonableness and forgiveness, I think -- but I know that A didn't shut her grandmother out because she doesn't love her. I already knew that but I knew for sure the first time I heard her talking on the phone to her grandmother -- "Hey, Geeg." That's short for GG, which is short for "grumpy grandma."
She sometimes tells me I am the best thing that ever happened to her and that makes me wary. I don't want to be the only egg in anyone's basket. I tell her that I'm not the only one; if anything ever happened to me she should keep looking, because no one would ever find his/her soul-mate if there was just one someone for everyone.
I believe that -- I had a hard time imagining love after Matt, and I found it -- and plus I have a lot more, my two wonderful kids and great long-time friends and my family that is considerably less fucked-up than it used to be.
A really doesn't have anyone. It's not her; some people are just born under a shitty star. I suppose that's part of what attracted me in the beginning; I sensed that she needed someone. Otherwise I probably couldn't have opened up to anyone; I was too hurt by Matt. When I got to know her, I was even more attracted by the fact that she has managed to keep her shit together with zero imposition on other people or self-pity. By rights, she should probably be in jail or a drug addict or at least an emotional mess. Instead she has a good job and a house that's always clean despite her nine spoiled pets (her family) and the only sign that anything's ever been off is that she keeps the world at arms' length emotionally. She has friends that talk to her, not vice versa. She never cries in front of other people (except me). She avoids things -- and people -- like her grandma.
Now she's going back to Alaska and I feel like I'm sending her, since she says she wouldn't be going if it weren't for me. It think that is because she knows she doesn't have to worry quite so much about keeping her shit together at all costs now that sheb has me, but maybe it is also because I've pushed her to do something I shouldn't have? I don't think I've pushed, but I did think that her going to see her grandma before she does would be the best thing for both of them, and I said so. I still do, but I just wish it was over. I wish she was back. I wish she wasn't going at all.
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