Dear Grandma.... fuck off !!!

The BBQ Pit
1

I know Grandma you had a rough life, barely worked had tons of kids. Whom you gladly housed as adults, as long as they waited on you hand and foot. You’ve had eight kids, you only have three left. Whom one of is my mother.

Yes Grandma it really was “mean” of my mother to put you in a home after our uncle passed away last year, and now you have no one that can no longer serve you soup promptly at noon every day, serve you ice cream at three. Sorry Grandma not many of your kids or yourself worked very much during their lives, but my mother was and still is one of them. My mother is 64 Grandma, and your 94 but my mother is still working full time. Since your sixties Unlce number one took care of you, then when he passed away uncle two moved in now he’s gone. Now you got no kids left. I know life sucks Grandma.

And it’s so unfair of my mother to not quit her job and take you in, instead she sent you off to that really mean old folks home that looks like the Four Seasons, with a cinema inside, church, activities. But no, you still can’t let go. You call my mother more now than you ever did, from a list of really stupid reasons. I give my mother shit for falling for your bullshit. But it really pisses me off that you send my mother on errands on her day off to pick you up clothes via public transit only for you to turn into one of the three fuckn bears with it’s too big, too small too tight remark, and she goes back to get it fixed. Your not senile grandma, your selfish.

When you demanded last Christmas you didn’t want to stay in the home for that day we took you to our sisters, and all you did was complain the whole fuckn time. First you gave me shit because the vehicle wasn’t sufficiently warmed up to your sastisfaction, then you complained about the sun being to bright. Like I can fix that . No Christmas trip for you next year ya old bag.

Your a classy woman too, my uncle who waited on you hand and foot for the past fifteen years who passed away last year. You refused to pay for the cremation because 1500$ “too expensive”

No wonder the only two other kids you have left besides my mother want nothing to do with you. But as much as a mean old, inconsiderate, selfish bag you are. My mom says “but she’s my mom” But now my mom is sick, she is tired all the time and losing weight and I fear the worst.

But that didn’t stop you from calling her up even though I told you to call me specifically because of your last visit to the hospital because your bones felt sore, and you needed some day clothes to leave the hospital because “it’s not proper” even though you left the home in your fuckn pajamas. My mother had to take the bus to the hospital, then to the home to get your clothes and back to the hospital. Then you have the nerve to complain about her leaving at 2:30 when she spent the whole day running back and forth sick.

I wish my mom would smarting up, but most importantly Grandma, I wish you would fuck off. You’ve had your shot at life, let the rest of us have ours.

2

Your totally right.

(sorry, if it wasn’t me, it’d be someone else)

3

That sounds like my maternal grandmother. She died unexpectedly during recovery from a hip transplant but I had the whole plan scripted no matter when she went. I just told my mother, “I am sorry for your loss” when she called to give the news and then told her I wasn’t going to the funeral (and I didn’t).

Some people in the family claim that makes me an ass but I was just so sick of everyone covering up for the all abuse she dished out to people her whole life. To this day, people will try to say “Well, she wasn’t that bad, there was this one time when she could have been bigger selfish, abusive bitch than she was.” I finally just started saying that I am glad they have some semi-fond memories of her but I was thrilled the day she died and wished it happened sooner. That doesn’t usually go over well at the Thanksgiving table but they know it is the truth.

4

And your excuse for not stepping up and helping your mom out, who is ‘tired all the time and losing weight and (you) fear the worst’ is…

5

Not wanting to be prosecuted for trying to smother Grandma?

6

Not wanting to be around asshole grandma any more than she has to be?

Not wanting that drama to fill her life any more than it already has?

7

I try to.

It’s hard to help someone who won’t let you help them. “I don’t want to bother you with grandma” I’ve always made myself available to her, issues get taken care of during the week while I’m at work, I don’t hear about it until after. This also upsets me to no end. I always call her up on the weekends asking her if she needs a ride to get anything done. On occasion she takes me up on the offer.

Also she’s refusing to see a doctor, she thinks being tired and losing a little weight is no big deal. It can be, as most of us know a very big deal. She hates doctors. I love my mom, but she’s always chosen the most difficult way to deal with issues in life.

She doesn’t have a family doctor but I made an appointment for her to see one in about a week, I’m going to have to drag her there. I may or may not be successful. She’s flat out refuse to go before for other unrelated illness in the past.

8

I don’t think that’s fair; Ibanez’ mother needs to draw some boundaries with her own mom (needed to do it decades ago, probably) - Ibanez’ mother’s inability to not be a doormat is not Ibanez’ fault.

On preview, I’ll amend this post to warn Ibanez that he needs to make sure he has boundaries with his mom, too. :slight_smile:

9

Also despit my OP, my mother isn’t really aware about how much rage I have towards my grandmother’s actions and behaviour. She knows I think it’s bullshit, but I’ve never huffed and puffed when she does take me up on my offer on occasion to help out. Intially when my grandmother went to the home, the menu there wasn’t to her satisfaction. eg. She had asked my mother to bring her bananas and cheerios. I calmly told her that she has to set some limits here or it will never end, she’s going to have to make do with cornflakes and apples instead.I told her not to bring her any food at all, and not to start this. For a woman that grew up on green ketchup she sure is picky.

10

It’s stories like this that make me miss my own grandmother more than ever.

And I don’t have any relatives I hate. One aunt is a little annoying if we talk politics(she’s so Republican she thinks Reagan was our greatest president) so I just avoid politics when I’m around her.

11

You were thrilled that someone died and wished it happened earlier? And that someone was a family member of yours? :confused::eek:

12

Yeah, this. What happens when someone tells grandma “No”?

Baker, it’s stories like this that make me not want to be a pain in the ass to my kids.

13

You are a very fortunate person if you don’t have a toxic family member. Or you’re overprotected.

14

Or someone who was a perfectly nice person but whose protracted illness made relatives want to do unacceptable things with the med pumps.

I hope your Moms checkup comes up all right, Ibanez.

15

There are a lot of assholes in the world, and they have to be related to somebody.

16

Yes, as a matter of matter. She is the only family member I ever felt way about and she deserved it. Her own kids wouldn’t stand up to her even after a lifetime of abuse so I just took it on as my responsibility as the oldest grandchild. Like I always tell my mother, the world is a better place without her. She was only 72 when she died. I can’t even imagine what would have happened if she lived another 20 years.

17

The world is filled with people whose lives contain more pain and suffering and deliberate cruelty than many can imagine.

And while I’ve seen way more than my share of those lives, I’ve been fortunate to not live too many of them myself.

18

In the past thirty plus years not too many people have said no to her. Myself and my sister are the only ones that have. I know my uncle(s) who recently passed away took the path of least resistance with her in order to avoid hearing her bitch whine and complain about things he did for her. He made sure it was done to her specific requests. Soup had to be a certain tempature, you had to bring the soup over to the table and pour it into the bowl. The milk couldn’t be filled up over a certain line in the glass etc etc.. crazy shit like this. Stray from this and she’d ripp into you.

She tried this with me a few times, when my unlce was in pallative care and I was going over after work to feed her supper before we could find her a home. I told her I was their to help her not take her abuse, and wouldn’t tolerate it for one second. She would protest a little with reasons why. But I just ignored her or change the subject.

When he was too sick to get groceries for both of them. I would on occasion after work go and get groceries for them. Old battle axe would only want a certain brand of this, or that. I remember the first time I did groceries, seeing how small their list was. I trippled everything. I know my uncle did groceries every other day for them.

Of course I came back with the wrong brand of cookies and ice cream or some stupid shit, and she said I can’t eat that. I said “you can’t or you won’t” She made up some bs about stomach problems with other brands. Then she told me I bought too much. I said listen I work full time and if she thought I was doing groceries for them every second day, she had another thing coming. That’s what freezers are for. How she reacted to that is she would call my mother and complain about me not meeting her specific needs, my mom would then buy the brand she wanted on her next visit.

The last time she flipped out from me was her Christmas tirade about how stupid I was for not having the vehicle warmed enough for her. I really wanted to bring her ass back up to her room. But because my mom was there, and it was x-mas. I told I didn’t appreciate being talked to like that at all. Once at my sisters I placed her in the chair and stayed a good thirty feet away from her the whole night and played with my niece.

She doesn’t care if other people are sick. Life of course is about her first and foremost. That was evident with my uncle who hobbled around until he could no longer move from fatigue from cancer. I got a frantic call from my mother telling me I had to come over and call the ambulance for my uncle because he could no longer move because she couldn’t do it. My mother knew the end was near now, when I arrived my mother was in tears. My uncle lost half his body weight. Lying in a feces and urine soaked bed, telling me he can’t do it anymore. I called the ambulance while consoling my mother as my grandmother said " Sorry but I can’t cry anymore" as she ate her lunch during the whole ordeal.

A real piece of work.

19

It sounds like it. I lived through the same thing myself. It is amazing what their children will do through a sense of ‘duty’ no matter what was done to them over decades. I say an asshole is a worthless human being no matter what their age or gender. However, I seriously doubt your mother will change her ways or view just through my own experience. The abusive ones have people trapped into a collective familial psychological disorder and the abusers are the puppet-masters and know it.

I can tell you, I am not ashamed at all to have been the one to call my own grandmother on her antics and I always stood by them. I couldn’t get my mother or uncles to directly oppose her but I made my stance very clear to everyone and I think that had an effect on all of them. There wasn’t much wrong with them, it was just her and they couldn’t break the spell so I tried to.

I worked in the only supermarket in town in high school and had my own grandmother banned from shopping there while I was on duty which was much of the time. You don’t have to be that extreme but assertiveness about the situation can keep your conscience clean and maybe give pointers to other family members. Maybe yours and mine can hang out in hell together sometime.

20

Here’s what you need to take away, I think. Neither of these women are going to change one iota. Not with time, not with gentle prodding and not even with tears and begging. They are both stubborn beyond reason, and cling to their hardheaded ness for dear life. And they are not going to stop being that, not ever. I think that’s the very first thing you need to accept.

You cannot push a rope. I personally have relearned this life lessons more times than I can count. You Mom is partly so hardheaded, stubborn, and gives in to her Mother, just as the siblings did, because Gran made them all that way.

Her children deserve your pity, being slaves to her, a constant stream of what you’ve shared here, as a sound track to their lives.SHUDDER Count your damn blessings that you were born a generation later, that she’s your Gran and not your Mom. Because look at you, you’re not taking that kind of shit and have demonstrated the spine to stand up to and repel being abused! One generation! Give your Mom some props for bringing you up to be whole.

We’re I you, I’d try my best to help. But don’t get sucked into the dynamic. Your Mom did not spare you this inheritance, for you to get sucked in now. Don’t vent at Mom, or push her to change, to not be like the uncles, weak against their Mother. Just support her and help her. (Push to the Dr, of course!)

You just need to let go of wishing it were otherwise. Life will get less frustrating and a little smoother if you can maage it. Try to remind yourself from time to time.