let me preface this post by saying that i love my family, all of them, in one way or another. they are where we come from and they have all influenced me in one way or another.
i come from a long line of hicks and mountain men. literally. remember about 10 years ago when there was that mountain man stand off up in montana? yeah. i had a relative or two there.
anywho, i have a particular aunt - we'll call her aunt crackhead for the purposes of this post - who has, shall we say, made some bad choices in her life. as the chosen name would suggest, she's been addicted to drugs and alcohol for god knows how long, she's had a string of wifebeating husbands and boyfriends, and is morbidly obese. all of this has not been so good for her health. she is consistently on death's door and has actually been resuscitated a number of times. everyone is constantly in a dither, rushing to her aid or to stand vigil at her bedside to wait for her to die. for years.
i have heard many times "oh, poor aunt crackhead. what has she ever done to deserve this?"
ummmm... i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it may have been the lifetime of destroying her body. i know, seems unlikely. call me kookie.
so, you've probably guessed that i am less than concerned about her health after years of crying wolf. she'll probably outlive the rest of us; she has enough chemicals and preservatives in her body to do it. that doesn't stop everyone else in the family from keeping me up to date on her latest illnesses. case in point, this weekend my mother told me about a recent phone conversation with aunt crackhead - "i would ask her questions and she wouldn't answer me for the longest time and when she did she was very slow and her speech was slurred. i'm so worried about her." this is the point where i keep myself from asking "isn't she dead yet?" because that's just insensitive. and i am anything but insensitive. just ask me. so, instead i ask what's being done to help her. then i get told a story about how my grandma bought a friend of aunt crackhead's a car so she could go out there daily and lend a helping hand. turns out this "friend" ran off with said car and hasn't been heard from again. go figure. the friend of a known druggy stole from her family.
with a gene pool like this, is it any wonder i'm so screwed up?
let me reiterate - i love my aunt. she is a good person who has been through a lot of hurt that i wouldn't wish on anyone. this is just how i deal with bad situations. i make light of them.
i come from a long line of hicks and mountain men. literally. remember about 10 years ago when there was that mountain man stand off up in montana? yeah. i had a relative or two there.
anywho, i have a particular aunt - we'll call her aunt crackhead for the purposes of this post - who has, shall we say, made some bad choices in her life. as the chosen name would suggest, she's been addicted to drugs and alcohol for god knows how long, she's had a string of wifebeating husbands and boyfriends, and is morbidly obese. all of this has not been so good for her health. she is consistently on death's door and has actually been resuscitated a number of times. everyone is constantly in a dither, rushing to her aid or to stand vigil at her bedside to wait for her to die. for years.
i have heard many times "oh, poor aunt crackhead. what has she ever done to deserve this?"
ummmm... i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it may have been the lifetime of destroying her body. i know, seems unlikely. call me kookie.
so, you've probably guessed that i am less than concerned about her health after years of crying wolf. she'll probably outlive the rest of us; she has enough chemicals and preservatives in her body to do it. that doesn't stop everyone else in the family from keeping me up to date on her latest illnesses. case in point, this weekend my mother told me about a recent phone conversation with aunt crackhead - "i would ask her questions and she wouldn't answer me for the longest time and when she did she was very slow and her speech was slurred. i'm so worried about her." this is the point where i keep myself from asking "isn't she dead yet?" because that's just insensitive. and i am anything but insensitive. just ask me. so, instead i ask what's being done to help her. then i get told a story about how my grandma bought a friend of aunt crackhead's a car so she could go out there daily and lend a helping hand. turns out this "friend" ran off with said car and hasn't been heard from again. go figure. the friend of a known druggy stole from her family.
with a gene pool like this, is it any wonder i'm so screwed up?
let me reiterate - i love my aunt. she is a good person who has been through a lot of hurt that i wouldn't wish on anyone. this is just how i deal with bad situations. i make light of them.
3 comments:
I promise, she will die....someday.
(I say this because I can and also because I have been the go between for some of crackhead aunts healthcare this past year)... And for the record, you are strange because you choose to be, not because your family made you that way. So There!
The joy of family ;-) I can pick my friends but not my family, whom I love, dearly - regardless of the amount of baking soda they smoke.
Thanks for sharing Tina!
isn't it odd how relatives are so quick to point out another relative's illness? my MIL points out all the illnesses she can think of with great glee, and i try not to interject with sassy replies. i actually told her once that i would rather NOT spend my dinner discussing graphic medical problems. she said she didn't see the problem. go figure.
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