As many of you all know, I am the sole person responsible for my grandmother. This is quite an addition to my already hectic life. I acquired the responsibility after my mother passed away in 2003. I was never given a choice. I am all she has left besides some nephews that are out of state.
I know some will judge me for saying this, but I resent her at times for being a burden to me. I know she doesn't mean to be, but she makes my life so much more stressful than it COULD be! And I know the people at her facility judge me. I don't visit as often as I should, I don't get her exactly what she wants when she wants, and I'm often late on payments, because managing my own finances is hard enough.
It upsets me to know that they judge me without knowing the details. And I know they do. As a nurse we judge families everyday. You try not to, but it can be hard. We don't know the stories, we don't know why a family hasn't spoken for 20+ years. It's not our job to know it's our job to take care of those who need us.
Granny and I have a lot of baggage from the past. Fortunately for her, she doesn't remember most of it and if she does, she pretends not to. I however remember it all. I remember how she took my uncle in after my grandfather died. How she paid for everything for him, even the company that he tried to start that bombed. She babied him, and let him do whatever he wanted. She gave him control of her money and her life. In the end he had moved her away from her friends, exiled her from her family, kept her drunk 24/7, and drank himself to death (in 1998). During his last 2-3 years she has little to no recollection of what happened. To this day he still walks on water... she thinks he was taking care of her. During those years my mother tried to go through the court system to have them both declared incompetent so she could at least save my granny's money. He paid people to speak on their behalf.... the courts decided they didn't need to intervene, my grandmother is now almost penniless and has no clue.
Guess who got to go pick up the pieces after my uncle died.... You guessed it... me! She wanted to go back to Florida, so I was in charge of her while my parents got her business settled in TN.
Granted I was in my early 20's, but I had a life all my own. She hadn't wanted anything to do with us for several years and I was supposed to swoop in like nothing had happened.
Lets fast forward to fall of 1999. I was pregnant, my parents didn't know yet. I went to visit for the weekend with the intentions of telling them the news. (I was unmarried at the time and knew it would be difficult for my parents at first). I end up in a meeting with my parents and my mom's therapist. It seems that for several years during high school, my mom was sexually assaulted by one of her teachers...a female teacher. My mom went to a boarding school and was looking forward to summer so she could be away from her attacker. Then she discovered that her parents had invited her into their home for the summer. She was assaulted in her own home, the one place she thought she would be safe. (Needless to say I didn't share my news that weekend.)
I was there when my mother confronted my grandmother... my grandmother's response... we thought something was wrong, thats why we invited her to spend that summer.... they wanted to "figure out" what was going on. I mean seriously what kind of parents do that. My grandmother brushed it off like it was no big deal. My mother was severely depressed for most of her life over this and other stupid lacks in judgement by her parents.
There is so much more.... I could go on and on, but I won't. I hate that even in granny's demented state, her stories sound plausible..... people believe her even though they know they shouldn't.... There's no telling what she says about me when I'm not around.... I try not to worry about it, but I'm only human.
We are all human and we all judge..... just try to remember, we don't know the stories that aren't told.
