Mixed Feelings

I can't believe it has been over a month since I wrote anything.

My grandmother is dying. We were never very close. I was about 9 when my mom remarried and this is really my step grandmother. I wasn't really accepted ever by them and I think I get some of the ill feelings that were associated with my mother. My sisters were really all my grandparents cared about. So as I got older I stayed away a lot. After all I had the grandparents on my mother's side. I never knew my biological father's parents or my biological father for that matter.

Anyway, my mother's mother was everything to me and she passed away a long time ago. All I have left on that side is my grandfather who lives far away and I don't get to see or talk to that often. He will be 92 in a couple of months and he doesn't hear very well on the phone. I miss you Grammy!

But I am getting off the subject. My step-dad's mother. My step dad passed away in 1994 from Hodgkins disease which is a cancer that goes through the lymph nodes. Now his mother has it. I went to the hospital to visit with my daughter who is 4 on April 27 and 28th. I didn't have to work those days and I felt it important to show I actually care. She was always a say it like it is no matter how it makes someone feel type of person so she still reduces me to the scared child I was. The first day we went she introduced me to the nurse as her granddaughter and then my daughter as her great granddaughter. It was very strange to me and it has really stuck with me this past week. I don't ever remember her acknowledging that fact in public before.

I am very close to my one sister. Her (Missy) and I are not close with our other sister, Sam or our mother. But that is another story. Missy lived with our grandparents when she moved back home from college and is very close with them. So I am being strong for her even though I am feeling sad. Our grandmother was in a hospice facility for a week and is now home and hospice is sending nurses to make sure she is comfortable. My uncle is making Missy and Sam help out and take care of her and I feel asking too much. Especially of Missy given her emotional state with all of this. But it struck me over the weekend that I am the only one who doesn't owe them anything and anything I do can be without guilt. Both of my sisters have milked them for money. Granted Sam is supported by them to this day and Missy only did the guilt thing every now and again to get them to pay for something. My uncle has forever had them handle way too much. Even as a grown adult living away from home for years would still have his mother do his laundry. It is really frustrating seeing him leave much of her care to my sisters (her granddaughters).

Missy is expecting me to save her from people when she gets trapped at the funeral which includes my mother and other sister. It always happens where I have to be the strong one. Being the oldest child I have always had much of the burden of keeping things together and it has taken it's toll on me. But I will do this once again for Missy. I don't know what I would do without her. She is truly my family and doesn't talk to me only when she needs something.

But I am still SAD...
and I am not sure anyone else would understand.