family, issues.

[beastieangel01]

ergh, this ended up being super long, sorry. Just needed to vent this out. There is also some background necessary so, I rambled.


I don't understand most of my family. My immediate family is one thing but this time I am talking about my extended family.

My extended family on my Mothers side is a little messed up. Everyone has kids from different men, or women, everyone is divorced or seperated, one aunt is currently back in jail for who knows what number of times now (and all 7 children were taken away from her). Everyone struggles financially, both due to lack of skills and/or bad handling of their money. Several of my relatives, including of my aunts once borrowed money from my parents, a large amount, and never paid it back.

Moving on, my grandmother passed away yesterday morning, early in the AM. I got to see her on Saturday, when she was still hanging in there at the hospital. It was awful to see; she lost 100 pounds and she had some sort of infection (I cannot remember the name of what was going on I was too in shock to really remember)... they showed us x-rays of her spine before and then the state it was in Saturday, it looked like her spinal cord turned in to liquid. I didn't even know that was possible. They had her on morphine at least. I didn't think I'd take it all that hard but Saturday in the hospital I was balling.

It's weird though because my Grandmother, and this is meant as no disrespect because it's the truth, wasn't the greatest Mother. To be honest, she was quite negligent to her children. To such a point that it's pretty terrible to even repeat them.

But it turns out her and her husband (not my actual Grandfather) never took out a life insurance policy so things are kind of a mess. People are arguing about what is getting paid for and who pays what. My tia (aunt), one that borrowed money and never returned it in the past, even called and was telling my Mom what SHE wanted to do for the funeral. She was talking about a really nice casket, then making t-shirts and get a metal plaque and all kinds of things. Then she ended it with, "ok so you guys can pay "x" amount" and my Mom said "what, wait a minute we haven't even discussed this yet, none of us have [they are 5 siblings and then my grandmothers sisters, etc], and we don't really know what is going on I don't know what we can afford..."

then my Aunt said "Well you have a house and Elias [my brother] takes piano classes you can afford it without a problem."

Which of course causes and arguement and my Mother starts crying and had to hang up on her and all this.

I know my Grandmother wasn't the best Mom, I know everyone in this family has problems, but I just don't understand why people can't just let things go or stop being so fucking dramatic or bring shit up that doesn't even matter. Yes, the money is an issue, but what the fuck. My Grandmother, their Mother, just DIED. Can we please stop arguing about money. And furthermore, my Grandmother asked to be cremated, that's it. But apparently my Aunt knows better what my Grandmother wanted, regardless of what my Grandmother actually said.

Blah.

[beastieangel01]

thanks. And yeah, but knowing the extended fam, it'll be a mess for a while. I hope I'm wrong, though.

[Rock]

sorry about your grandmother.

sorry about your fucked up situation.

i decided not to associate with the extended family that I find disrespectful to my family. Fuck em. I say do the same.

[ET]

Yeah, sorry to hear about the situation. I can see how it's affecting you even though you're not completely involved in the specifics of it... Really simple things (well mostly simple) like a life insurance policy or a will can screw families up after a death. It happens to a lot of people even though your extended family seems to have a lot of problems in the first place.

I hope they can iron everything out.

[ms.peachy]

Sorry to hear about your grandmother.

I know aalll about messed up family, sweetie. Not in the same exact way as yours of course, but still - I get it. Mr.peachy and I are pretty much planning to tell Mattie that we are actually aliens sent from a distant galaxy to observe human behaviour, and so there actually is no family here, just the three of us. It's so much less complicated that way.

[beastieangel01]

thanks everyone.

and yeah, I'm not directly involved but it does bother me. A lot. It bothers me because it shouldn't be happening like this, my Grandmother just passed away and I think it's horrible to be going on like this. In fact that same aunt was in the hospital room with me, with my Grandmother laying right there, saying what she wants to do for the funeral. I did my best not to explode; my Grandmother is right THERE and she wasn't dead yet, and she could still HEAR, I found it so disrespectful. It also bothers me to see how much it bothers and upsets my Mom. As much as my Mom and I may be different or disagree from time to time, she's a good person at heart and I hate to see her upset.

Eh anyway. Thanks again. It's frustrating. I hope things settle down soon.

[DipDipDive]

I'm sorry, babycakes.

Tragedy usually brings out the best in some people and the worst in others. Unfortunately, the latter generally tends to be the case. But I'm sure you're one of the few in which a situation like this will bring out the best. Just stay strong and support your Moms.

[beastieangel01]

thanks miss. thanks to you all again. The funeral is next week, I just hope people can be civil for at least one day.

[befsquire]

sorry for your loss, and for the mess.

your aunt apparently is dealing with the death by trying to focus on one thing -- the funeral. funerals usually have the whole graveside service, and maybe your aunt needs that for herself. but just because she needs that doesn't mean it's what your grandmother wanted. people get really selfish because, understandably, they're focusing only on their pain and how they can get through it.

hopefully there will be some sort of majority vote on what will happen and those in the minority will be able to deal with it.

did your grandmother write a will, and have her wishes in that will? it stops a lot of squabbling when it's written down, and recently updated. fights from funerals to who gets the bedside table lamp can cause problems for years.

[beastieangel01]

not sure of the status of a will, guess we'll find out. thanks beth for the words/advice, it's appreciated. :)

[monkey]

:( maybe hopefully, your family will take this opportunity as a catalyst to get themselves together and fix their relationships. maybe not, but i like to think positively.

im sorry about your loss :( hugs.

[Tone Capone]

Sorry to hear about all that. You are right to want to vent.