Re: Re: this whole stinker in the family thing!Ann

[Guest guest]

Thank you for your post. I do not think that one must go out of one's way

to be nice to some of these relatives; in many cases "barely civil" will

certainly suffice, and I do have one amphetimine-addicted cousin whom I

NEVER initiate communication with; if she calls me, I just ask HER about

HER life, knowing full well that she does not care a cr---ap about any of

ours! Love to you, in heaps, n

Re: Re: this whole "stinker in the family" thing!

VERY WELL SAID n. I enjoyed this email very much. I've also had some stinkers in my family. I had an aunt who was a REAL stinker. She ruled everyone around her. Her son lived with her and was her minion all of his life. She died a horrible death from lung cancer 13 years ago or so. He misses her terribly but he's got a life now. (he's very screwed up... but that's another long story). Anyway, we all have stinkers in our lives. I like the way you deal with your own personal stinkers! Way to go n!

Sharon

n Rojas wrote:

I had a sister, 14.5 years older than me and older than each of the six

of us. She was the soul of wit and humour, smart (not much intellectual

curiosity, though) and was totally fixated on IMAGE: clothes, the house,

"gourmet cooking," though not very good at it, and very judgemental.

The ultimate came when I was in my late fifties, yet (which means that

she was no kid!) and she called me up on the phone and asked me for

all the pronunciations of the cheese called Gruyere.

One might wonder why she did not just use both an English and a

French dictionary, and I did NOT see the trap before me. I had been

born in Michigan and spent much of my childhood there, as well as in

Canada, and had traveled more than had she, so I DID (alas!) know the

answers to her question (dumb me; never did learn with her). So I just

assumed that she wanted the answers and gave them to her:

English: Grooyere; French: Grueeyere -- allowing for the limits of the

computer and keyboard. We were after all on the telephone and I pro

nounced them correctly for her.

Did she just say "Thank you," and hang up and end it?

Of course NOT! She then said to me: "Well, how is it that YOU know

so much about these things?"

Fighting the urge to just tell her to look the **** words up, I claimed that

I had an incoming call and had to leave, but would call her back (like in

maybe six months!)

She called me back in an hour, sobbing into the telephone, and said,

"I just could not stand it if YOU were angry with ME!" Fighting the urge

to say, "And just why WOULD I be angry with YOU?" I managed to

comfort her and NOT allude to the previous conversation.

She did things more or less like that on the telephone, in person, in the

presence of family and friends ALL the time to ALL of us. We just shrug

ged it off. Ultimately she died of a hideous combination of alcoholism,.

heart disease, diabetes and cancer. I was asked to give the eulogy at

her funeral. Her ashes were sitting on a shelf in a lovely Iris decorated

vase. So, as I had cought the puddle-jumper to Santa Barbara the mo

ment I was informed (we had spoken lovingly before she died), I arrived in

my usual elderly Levi's, Navy T-shirt, sandals and a suitcase, and had no

time to change--did get my earrings into their holes though!

So, I took a very deep breath, looked out at the assembled clan and

friends, and it dawned on me that I was the only person in the room who

had really known her since I was two! So, as she was a great wit (NOT

cheerful, but a great wit), I simply recounted the funniest things she had

ever said or done in my lifetime.

I suppose the folks at the next internment of ashes must have wondered

about the shrieks of laughter. But, I wanted to send her off in HER style,

and let everyone know how much I had loved her, and how loveable (rarely) she could be, so I went at it and the shrieks of laughter abounded.

The point to all this is that family members are not always what they

appear to be. I knew how sad, how depressed, how confused she had

been all her life; you could even see it in toddler photos, whereas I was

just born a grinning idiot! (for which she hated me for that quality). but I

would put up with most anything: insults, prods, nasty cracks, you name

it--from her, because I loved her and I KNEW how unloved she had felt.

So, when one of our parents or other close relatives acts like a complete

sadist (I have one distant cousin who is a real grouch), I am inclined to

bake them a pie, send them a book or flowers, --anything to break the

cycle. --even if it doesn't. I figure that if that person is that miserable

WITHOUT ALL THE MEDICAL CONDITIONS WHICH I HAVE, then the

poor soul is really in bad spiritual shape and needs a bit of shoring up.

Luckily, the rest of my family and friends have been wonderful to me,

which is terrific! I figure that it is definitely O.K. to avoid the stinkers

in the clan, but not to torture them verbally.

(I have been known to take them to really good restaurants which I knew

they did not like, though; my husband got a real kick out of this!).

Love to all of you on this list; may we all survive our relatives, and they

us!

n Rojas

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Sharon (MSersLife creator/owner)

“One minute it's a giant cabbage and the next, ka-boom! You've got cole slaw all over you." V.R. , Palmer, Alaska, where Cabbages grow huge

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