Visit the Family - Part 1

This post is far removed from my usual overview of clever anthropological "isms" of all sorts. Today I'll be setting most of that aside and spending the day with my grand mother. This 9 hour venture will be due to her going to be alone most of the day, since she likes me the most out of the family I stepped in to take the task on.

The background behind why she is alone approximately all day every six to eight weeks is because of an experiment procedure my grand father is undertaking. He suddenly went almost blind in one eye do to bleeding somewhere inside the dry blood eventually began to cause problems after years of going unrecognized as old age vision problems. He being too elderly to drive very far takes a shuttle to the capital city to get an injection into his eye, this was experimental and they did not guarantee results but so far his vision is improving every day.

Since I'm off from my normal schedule of classes and homework this week I decided that it would be a nice gesture to stay with her for approximately nine to ten hours.

In a normal family, this wouldn't pose to be much of a problem. However it stands to reason that my grand mother is the biggest misanthrope who I have ever met. I mean, she hates everyone. Even more unusual she is very cruel and blunt to some, and others she treats very sweetly (and most times these people don't deserve it). I being something of an anti-social being myself seem to get along best with her.

With this said, she and I have had our fights. She's very racist and bigoted at times, which has lead to her being very cruel to people amongst the family with no good reasoning behind it. Approximately four years ago I once declined Christmas dinner with her because she said some very nasty things about my girlfriend, all untrue, but just to get to me she attacked a point which I could not resist fighting back.

So you can probably tell that she's the type who needs to have chaos around her to feel at all important. Most of the family has excommunicated her for this reason, but I still come and visit. I understand even before she was getting senile, she was rather insane.

I don't trust her being alone either, she suffers from severe depression, treatment resistant depression at that, and coming to terms with her morality in her old age has only pushed it further. She's having more and more suicidal thinking, and taking up a mentality on life which would make even the most positive cringe. I'll rest more peacefully, if I am able to be around to keep her company so I know she's not contemplating anything.

I assume this day will be filled with a few crying spells, television (because she loves Dog the bounty hunter), and some not so deep conversation. I'll have to reinforce those rules which my father drilled into my head about my grand mother as a child and still does to day.

1.) Never give her any information, about anything which isn't known or she can interpret in an insane way.

2.) Never tell her anything about your personal life, especially relationships.

3.) Never tell her anything you don't want known across the next three towns.

Funny rules, but very true. She'll use comments you make a year ago to attack you at any given moment.

Well that just about sums up what I'll be going through for the next nine to ten hours, I'll be leaving very shortly. Wish me luck. I'll be following up this entry with "Part 2" when I return, if I have the energy this is.