I never knew either grandma from either side of my family. On my mom's side, my mom said that that woman was a god-awful person. Mom never has gotten into much of her experience with that woman, but I do believe it was fairly traumatic.
My mom did tell me that when I was born my grandma tried to steal me and possibly my younger brother away from her. I was one or two at the time, so I have no recollection of the event.
I do know that my mom was never allowed to have sleepovers, either at her place or the other kids.
Yeah, that grandma was cut from our lives when I was very young.
For much of my life (actually, just about all of it) I've been against finding any family members. Why? I'm not too sure. Maybe it is because I never cared for who my father was. Maybe it is because, in this capitalistic society, society has trained us to cut off people, family or not. That is what happened to the blacks that were stolen from Afrika and made to work here in America for us white people. The blacks were cut off from their ancestors. Why? Well, one reason is that if you know that you come from the lines of kings and queens, why would you want to be a slave? Slavery has extended its tentacles from just being black and brown people to including us poor white people.
Anyways...
I've been asking my mother for years to find out what happened to her mother. She ignored my requests/pleas/demands, almost always saying her typical line about anything when she is asked to do something, "I'm busy," or "I don't have the time." -- These lines are so normal for my mother to say even when she is watching TV with nothing to do.
My mother did the ancestory DNA thing recently. Through that, a cousin from my great-grandma's mother's side connected with my mother. You see, even my grandma lost contact with all other family members and was not able to find them before she died (only a couple of years ago). My grandma was adopted out because someone around my great-grandma was molesting the women (and girls?) around her. My great-grandma didn't want her daughters to be exposed to this person, so all the girl children were given up for adoption.
The adoptive great-grandparents seemed nice. I met them once when they came to visit us, my mother, brothers, and I , when I was very young living in Colorado. My mom always spoke well of them. You might ask how come my grandma turned out so bad and horrible. To that, the only thing that I can say is that we live in a culture that breads intergenerational trauma and dealing with it is something that we avoid doing.
So, after many years, my mother found her mother, and it didn't take her long to do so (my mom can be a good sleuth from time to time). My mom found out that my grandma pasted a couple years ago. Apparently, she was a chain smoker for much of her life and an alcoholic. After "finding" Jesus (lol, I hate Christianity because of how fake it is and how it is meant to control you rather than free you), she gave up smoking and drinking -- or something like that. Apparently, my grandmother left us something. She didn't die a rich woman, sadly enough. I wonder what she left my brother and me. I imagine it is a letter of some sort. I can't wait to find out what it is, whether it's letters, money, or anything else.
I don't know much about my grandmother on my father's side of the family either. One of the first and only times I remember meeting her was when I was around the age of twelve-thirteen. She was quite old then and I do believe that she was in a nursing home at the time of my visit.
I don't believe that my father had a happy childhood either. His dad was a drinker and my father sure did follow in that path. He has drunk so much beer that he is so very, very fat from it. Not to mention that he is primarely a meat eater. Not to mention that he hasn't dealt with him trauma, only passed it on. We pretty much stopped talking after I said, basically, "Well, FUCK YOU THEN," after he was pissed that we didn't come back to live with him after visiting my mother.
I asked him to send some of my things to me and he refuse and was very nasty about it.
I don't speak to my father at all anymore. He blaims my mother for everything and takes no responsibility. People like this piss me off and, no, I don't want to hang around these types of people -- because I'm the only perfect being 8-).
I do speak with my mother; although, this has been a very turbulant relationship. She is a habitual boundry crosser. I've had to cut her out of my life on occation because she has refused to not cross certain boundries with me. But, this is a grandama post, so I'll not rehash that traumatic experience.
I'll include this picture of my grandma when she was young. I have no clue yet as to what she looked liked in her later years.
If you follow the link below the picture, you can check out some of my family tree. Hey! We might be related. Apparently, I'm something like 22-23 degrees away from Leslie Nielsen! How cool is that. I really have to do more work to figure out what that really means. He did live in Florida where much of my father's side of the family lived. If he wasn't dead, I think I'd try to connect with him and say what's up.
Also, wikitree is pretty awesome in the way that it works. It is completely free, and it may be worked on with all members of the community, opposed to other site that you and only you work on your tree. The down side is that you still need places like Ancestory and (Find A Grave)[findagrave.com) to connect many dots that will otherwise go unconnected if you are with a family member that has kept track of all family.
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We all have a life story with ups and downs, and sometimes lots of downs, getting up and moving on is what defines us.
True enough. However, I'm tired of all this trauma being passed down from generation to generation and nobody dealing with it. I've been working on myself so that when/if I do have children, I'll make a whole set of new mistakes for them to deal with 8-)