When I was a kid, she was very kind to me. She liked me and took care of me, we spent time together when Mom was working or whatever, and it was good. She used to take me to plays and musicals, she'd take me to swimming lessons and I'd watch cable tv while she made lunch. She was nice to me and let me have my long, elaborate plots to capture her pissy tortoise shell cat, Cleo. It was good times.
Then I turned into a teenager, dyed my hair whore blonde and decided to form my own opinions. This was bad news, but Mom always served as the buffer. She'd take the sting out of much of Grandmas spewing hate arrows. Not all, but most.
Fast forward. Mom moved back into the house Grandma has lived in for the past 56 years, in part because she was broke and didn't want to live in public housing. In part because grandma was in her mid 80s at the time, and needed a hand. It worked. Or so I thought.
FF again. Mom dies, grandma is now alone. She has lost her daughter Joyce, her husband, and now her younger daughter. All thats left is the Granddaughter who she doesn't like now and hasn't liked in a long time. Grandma suffers from what I think is dementia, but hell she's 90 fucking years old, she's entitled to have swiss cheese for brains, right?
The issue is that Grandma has been manipulative, hateful, spiteful, paranoid, resentful, angry, two timing and nutty for ages. And the memory lapse/dementia has only made this 100X worse. When I was in Rochester after Mom died, she came into the room I was sleeping in. Keep in mind my Mom was a hoarder, and filled most of the rooms with her stuff so theres only about a 1ft path in the room from the door to the bed. Grandma came in at :
- 430AM, the day after I arrived. Woke me up. Said some gibberish about the funeral home and left when I told her I'd deal with it when I woke up.
- 530AM. Continues gibberish. I respond in same, takes twice as long for me to get her to go downstairs and leave me in peace.
- 630AM Gibber GIBBER GIBBER. I freak the fuck out- not only is the funeral home NOT motherfucking open at 630AM, but I'm motherfucking jet lagged, and you're giving me a goddamn panic attack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I plead with her to leave, I beg her to give me even 10 minutes to collect myself. I threaten her that I'll smoke in the house, I reason with her. I lie to her. Anything I can think of to get her to leave.
- 700AM: Call all the neighbors, freaking out. No one answers. Someone answers. They don't understand me, think Grandmas dead or something. Cops come, EMT comes, fire dept comes. I look like a crazy bitch because Grandma is downstairs acting like nothing ever happened.
Person one:
"Hi Emily. Your grandmother called me today, sounding a bit confused. She said she was trying to phone you, but your phone said it was disconnected (I'm not sure if she was dialing the right number). I know it's very difficult for you to talk to her, but she said there are some things that need to be taken care of regarding Pam's legal papers and stuff. Can you please give her a call? "
Person two:
"This morning at 9 am, at the same time I had set my alarm to wake up, your grandmother called me and asked where Pam (meaning you) was staying. I said, you mean, Emily? and she said, yes. She thought that you were in Rochester and that she had seen you this past week. I told her that you are in Seattle because you had to go back for school and that you'd been here a few weeks ago. She wants to call you and to talk with you about some things that she says have come up at the house (I don't know what). I told her that you and I had been writing and you wanted to help her with clearing this out of the house. I told her that we (you and I) think it would be great if she goes to do something fun with friends while you (Emily) are able to clean things in the house and sort through what is there, since most of the things in the house are Pam's or Emily's, I said. She thought that sounded fine. I told her that you would be coming sometime in the near future to help with this, and that either I or other friends of Stephanie's could take her out to do something enjoyable so she wouldn't have to go through the work of the sorting. This sounded good to her."
This insanity will continue and continue. I feel like I'm in a horror movie where I'm the unfortunate star. Not the girl who gets away from the murderer, but the girl who scrapes at window panes with peeling paint frames until my nailbeds bleed. The girl who vomits showers of hornets and pulls out her hair violently in an effort to make anyone understand whats going on. ...but when they come to cure me of this demon disease, I look normal and sane in my soiled white nightgown. Somehow the devil hides when I'm not alone.
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