okay.
so. i found a lot of stuff last week about my "family of origin". that there phrase is in quotes because they are only, in my mind, tangentially related to me. the two women i am talking about are the blood sisters of my mother. one full blood sister, one half sister, i believe. my mom and her older sister were raised by their grandparents, their younger sister, my aunt l, was raised by the mother, my grandmother.
i talked a long time to my cousin on the phone. it was good. i’ve always felt a kinship with him, like maybe he and i were aliens in this world of dysfunctional bullshit. i feel that even more now, and the phrase "family of choice" is even more important to me.
when i was little, for awhile, both my aunts lived in the bay area. the younger aunt, li, lived in hayward and the older (than my mom) aunt (lo…two initials because both first names begin with l) lived in fremont. my mom used to drive us there for holidays, but not all of them. it seems usually thanksgiving but rarely christmas. i have more christmas memories of home than of either of their houses. i do remember though, that my aunt li used to take us in to san francisco on the day after thanksgiving to see all the christmas displays in the city. they were always amazing, my favorite being neiman marcus. i think one of the things that sort of hurts the most about this is that my sister, who is small and cute, had always seemed to be the favorite child of all our relatives. except my aunt li, who seemed to love me more. i have many fond memories of me with her, in hayward. she taught me how to bake. i remember being in her kitchen and sifting flower, trying so hard to not screw anything up because i didn’t want to make my auntie mad or do anything that would take away her good favor. this got me through many childhood angst moments, because her and my aunt sue, i knew, loved me for who i was. i was wrong.
my cuz told me that my entire life, his parents have disliked me because of my size. i am a plus-size woman, but not overly so. he told me how his dad used to talk about me, the horrible things he would say. i knew he hated children, but didn’t realize he also hated large people. the funny thing about this is that HE WAS FAT!! he had big ‘ole jowels that made him look a lot like a cranky basset hound. he was not a nice man. i had sort of wondered why i hadn’t heard from my aunt since my moms death, but knew she had her own hands full…taking care of her older sister, and then with her husband, my uncle having brain cancer and dying within a year and a half or so of my mom, i was sure she had her hands full. she told my cuz that i was a lazy slob. please keep in mind that i have not been around this woman regularly for probably 30 years. how she would know this is beyond me. perhaps from my mom…she told my cuz that my mom used to talk about how miserable things were for her in reno when she would visit them. cuz says that she probably couldn’t have stayed positive about things, being around them and in that environment. i don’t know what to think about that.
will it be wrong of me not to be terribly sad when both these shallow people die? my other aunt, lo, also hates me now, but i am told that this is because she feels that if i had taken better care of my mother, she would still be alive. have i mentioned anywhere else that my aunt li is a "devout catholic"? that makes me laugh on a number of levels, but i should probably just leave the fact as having been recorded here. i am saddened that people who don’t even know me, or know who i am bear me ill will because of their own narrow-mindedness. and that i share blood with these people sort of makes my skin crawl. my cuz was all up in arms and ready to defend me to his mother, and i told him not to bother. life is too short for me to be worried or allow my self-esteem to be affected by two bitter old women who don’t know anything about me and have chosen to form negative opinions of me based on gossip and their own need to rationalize their sisters death. it doesn’t seem to matter to them that neither of them were around as she was getting more and more sick. that my one aunt works for the mayo clinic and has done everything for the older sister, but did nothing for my mother.
i’ve been struggling with this for the entire weekend. i am so thankful for what i have. i am thankful that i have raised children that take people at face value, and appreciate people for who they are, and are not, i don’t think, overly judgmental. they are good people. i am ashamed of what i’ve come from, but feel heartened in the fact that with me, this insanity stops. may it not carry to any more generations.
peace, fleeting.
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