I Need to Vent!!

I really really need to vent right now. If I don't, I will explode. Please don't read any further if you don't want to hear me complaining about my family.

You all know that my Aunt Margaret passed away last week. BTW, Thank you all for your wishes and prayers.

Well, Aunt Margaret had a son, Stanley. I always looked up to him. He was the first one in the family to go to college. Well about 14 years ago he dropped off the radar. He stopped calling, visiting, etc. One day my Aunt ran into one of his friends in town and the friend asked her why she hadn't come to Stan's wedding the previous month. Well, she hadn't attended because she wasn't invited nor did she even know about the wedding. Same thing with her learning in the subsequent years that he had children. Not once did he call or even write her a letter.

A couple of us were looking for him to tell him about the death of his mother and also because a second signature was needed in order to have her cremated like she wanted. Well a message was left for him on Friday night by a family friend and another message was left on Saturday by my Mom. My mom was not feeling very charitably towards him and left a message that basically said the reason she was calling was that his signature was need in order to cremate his mother who just died. I don't think I would have put it quite that bluntly, but Mom and Margaret were extremely close and she was very upset by what she considered his abandonment of his mother. Anyway, he didn't call back. More calls were made on Saturday night and Sunday, but the answering machine had been shut off and the phone just rang and rang. So you know somebody was there. He didn't call until after the funeral home contacted the Charleston Police Department to go to his house to inform him of a death in the family.

Now I ask you, what kind of a person just turns their back on family, specifically their MOM. I could understand it if she had been an alcoholic or abusive. But she wasn't either of those. She was a single mother struggling to raise 3 kids. There hadn't been a fight or anything either. She was extremely proud of him and used to tell everyone about him going to college to make something of himself and the wonderful job he got in Ohio. She was so hurt and confused because she never could understand why he did what he did.

My Mom told me today that she heard he might be coming up this weekend. I told that I frankly didn't care and that I wouldn't be around this weekend. I have a knitting retreat on Saturday and I work on Sunday. Aunt Margaret was a very special woman in my life and I just don't think I can forgive him for the way he treated her. I told her I was afraid that if I saw him I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut and would probably just kick him in the knee. And I really didn't think the family needed any more animosity running through it than we already have had over the last couple of days.

The thing that set me off today was that I discovered through the wonderful world of the internet that his wife has a blog. And she was gushing over a visit from her Mom and Dad and how close they were to her kids and Stan. But did either of them ever even think about Stanley's Mom and how she would have loved to get to know her grandchildren. I just wanted to scream when I read her entry.

Stanley is such a shit. And you know they always say what comes around goes around. I just hope to hell none if his kids ever treats him like he treated his own mother. But it would be sweet justice if they did.

Thanks for listening to me vent. I just couldn't keep all this bottled up inside anymore and I didn't want to say this to Tracy (Stan's sister) or my Mom, they've been upset enough as it is. Surprisingly I feel much better after spilling all this.