Family Troubles

An otherwise cheerful lady (sic) like myself would probably not spend too much time writing and pontificating, unless she is troubled, or even depressed.

I read my signs of depressions a week or so ago.  Funny how I read it like an out of body experience.  I think I am more or less out of it now, though I am still not a very happy person. 

My uncle's death two years ago had very little direct impact upon me.  I concede that I am a heartless, ungrateful bitch; I tried really hard but I couldn't get myself to cry at his funeral.  He had been a good enough uncle to me.  He was interested in my academic progress and curious about the books that I liked to read when I was very young.  He continued to be an excellent legal guardian for me while I was in Canada, at least, he was as good as good gets when I lived so far away from him and his family.  I remember how he drove for hours to reach me at the drop of a hat, when he got a call from my school and was told that I was in troubles, and was advised to not come back to that particular high school again.

But then, visiting my cousin's home now, and seeing the degree of damage and anger in their household, somehow did it to me.  Quietly, drinking in the anger and pain of my little cousin, I cried.

As teenager, I used to spend much time sleeping with my cousins [as in lying side by side, don't be silly], and we would make a contest of recalling our childhood life in Hong Kong.  How we used to lament the horror of Chinese parenting!  It's so wonderful to be young, it's just so easy to blame the adults for everything.  

I wonder what has happened to us, and what would become of us.  As I walked my grandmother home, I took a quick, poignant glance at the swings and the slide that we used to love as children.   The look of anger on my cousin's face shocked me.  She looked like she hates our grandmother.

I won't pretend to know my cousins very well; even though we played together since we were toddlers, and they remember my childhood better than I could remember my own.  To me, my cousins always symbolized family value and religion.   If my mother was a brutal tyrant, my uncle has to be worse.  But they had looked pass his violence very early on, and had been good and caring to their family, at a time when I was still full of childish anger and hatred for my family.   I think that has something to do with my uncle's health; he had a wild life as a young man, he was hospitalized many times from motorcycle accidents when we were still very young, and eventually became handicapped.  My parents told me he was as wild as I am when he was younger; so I often wondered what it would like to be trapped in a compromised body and not be able to have adventures.   When I visited Vancouver, I always observed with a great sense of wonder, how my cousins walked on either side of my uncle, one supporting him and help him walk, while the other held an umbrella over his head.   But then uncle used to verbally lash out at my aunt too.  I used to think of her as a meek, dependent, docile woman.  When uncle yelled,  she would just cry.  Invariably, it was my hot-tempered little cousin who used to stand up to her father and defend her mother.

Now that uncle has died ... I can't believe how heartless they have become, or so my parents accused.  I was told, J would come home to find grandma watching the tube, and she would sit down without saying a word and switch to watch a English channel.  I mean, she didn't even used to watch English channel back in Canada, so why the sudden change now? 

Then comes dinner time.  They would eat out without taking grandma, or they would cook but not give grandma any food.  When grandma confronted them, and they started yelling at each other, and my grandma cried all night.  We found out because cousin D called in the middle of the night to ask my parents to come fetch grandma, or somehow make her stop crying.   This is sounding more and more like the terrible witch of the aesop faery tale.  

Then grandma got sick and had diarrhea for a week.  My cousin called my parents to ask them to take her to the doctor.  Is it so hard to take her yourself?  You only live with her...

So my parents talked to them about the situation; apparently they asked them to help grandma find an apartment to herself, or a special home to care for her and they would "contribute a part to her expense."  Is that what it comes down to?  Money?  How about those years when grandma was strong, when she lived with them, worked to help support the family (my uncle had a small salary then), and also cooked for them, supervised their homework when they were children, disciplined them when they were naughty, and bought them treats whether or not they deserved them?   How about when my grandma spend all her saving to buy the apartment they now live in?  How about the car grandma sold when they immigrated to Canada and needed the money?

I listened to my parents lament, before long I was lost in my own thoughts.

But thoughts are just that.  I am in no position to criticize, or to ask them to take heart and take care of grandma.  I mean, she is my grandma too.  Granted, I was never close to her.  I only used to see her once in a blue moon as a child; but whenever I visited, she was kind to me.  I was a willful child and my mom used to hit me rather brutally; and uncle used to scold me too.  Grandma alone used to be patient and never too harsh.  So why aren't I taking care of her?