Extended Family

So, I don’t really have any attachment to my extended family (as in, my grandmothers sister/brother and their families). I recently asked a question on behalf of my friends, just as a curiosity. Had I known the drama that would ensue from it, I wouldn’t have bothered.

So my old basement apartment has been quasi-occupied for the last year or so, by my cousin, and her baby. I say quasi because since I moved back in April she has been here, collectively for maybe…I don’t know, 3 weeks? 3 Weeks out of  6 months. All her stuff is in there, crib, an electric fire place, etc. But she is notably absent most of the time. At first I thought it might be my presence, but I’m clearly not a bother. Even when I moved my “office” downstairs I was polite, I used headphones, and did little in the way to cause disruption to her. The conflict isn’t here, because this is just context. Also, she hasn’t paid any rent. This is important for a couple reasons:

1 1)      While family, it was expected that there would be SOMETHING paid

2 2)     When I asked if the apartment was available, my grandmother liked the prospect of actually earning some income out of the apartment.

So when I asked if it was available, or would be available, as my cousin is here maybe 3 days out of a month, I assumed it would be a “let me see”.

What actually happened was a shit storm of drama, and this all within the last week or so.

Now my grandmother has only been “texting” for… a month? Maybe 2. So her texts are fairly blunt, much like her, and she gets to the point. It sounds like the text message to my cousin went something like this: “I have someone who wants to rent the apartment for November”. Notice no question mark? So whatever, apparently my cousin relents it, says that’s fine, then bitches to my great Aunt, who in turn starts to bitch at my grandmother, now leveraging the baby (“you will only see her at formal family occasions” real fucking mature for a woman in her 60s right?), and making my grandmother feel supremely guilty I imagine.

Like… I don’t know man, my grandmother could have gone about it in a more subtle way, but some context on my grandmother: She looked after her mother, in her house (the one I currently live in) for… what felt like forever, and I can count on one hand the number of times my aunt came to visit outside of regular holidays and mother’s day.  She has paid airfare for my cousin to fly home from London when her job was not working out over there (London England). She paid for her flight to Cuba, the same trip she got knocked up by a Cuban local. She has put a lot of time into driving both my cousin and great aunt around to various appointments and other things. My grandmother is the most giving person I know. And I know I don’t appreciate it enough. But to see her SISTER treat her this way? To see my cousin hide behind her mother like this when she is nearly 30? Like… What the fuck. On top of that, my aunt took a swipe at me and my “silly” friends. I don’t really care what my aunt thinks about me or my friends, silly as we are, but when I’m already angry at you for your treatment of my grandmother (The most generous person, of heart and of finances), it’s the final nail in the coffin. I was cordial and polite at her 60^th birthday the other weekend, had I known this was the flag she was actually flying, things would be different.

I touched on me not being appreciative enough. This track of events has… impressed upon me the importance of not taking that for granted.

*Disclaimer: I may not have the whole story, but I have enough. I can’t envision a world where my grandmother is in the wrong here, unless she’s secretly Hitler, she’s just not a bad person.