A Letter to My Grandmother

My computer died (I'm sure I'll rant about this at a later time) and I've been unable to write and the words have been storing themselves in my fingers and dying to get out and I have the feeling my posts are going to be unacceptably long in the coming weeks.
But before I start pouring out this backlog of useless things I want to write about, I must get this out of my system.

Dear Grandma,

I love you. Somehow, I still do. Just remember that.

But I don't like you very much. I've given you so many chances. I defended you time and time again. I tried to justify your actions and explain away what I refused to believe was blatant manipulation. I can't do that anymore.

Do you know how many tears I've cried because of you? Do you know how much guilt I felt, feelings purposely orchestrated by you? Do you know what you did to me? All to feed your selfish desires, make yourself feel important. You knew I'm the weakest member of my family. You fed upon my need to please those I love. You knew you could manipulate my feelings and you milked it for almost my entire life. A tool to get back at my father, to make my mother feel guilty.

I used to feel bad when my brother treated you badly. How wrong I was. He was acting like I should've all those years. He was just impervious to your constant guilt trips. He was, is, stronger than I am. What I thought was rudeness was simply him being a far better judge of character than I.

Perhaps I would've tolerated your behavior longer if it wasn't for the truth I saw in the way you treat my father. You know how close him and I are and you've always been jealous of it. You try to make him appear a bad influence. You blame him for the way my family functions. Just because we're not you doesn't mean we're not just as good. Maybe even better.

My father is a good man. He's given me everything I've ever needed and even everything I wanted. But most of all, he's given me the one thing you never have and never will be able to give--unconditional love.

He sees me for what I am. He knows my faults and loves me anyway. I don't have to hide my imperfections from him because he will try to understand. You only criticize, blame, and try to force me out of me.

I can be honest with him about my myself and my beliefs and he does not judge. Maybe he doesn't always agree, but he values my opinion and doesn't belittle it.

You just blame him, television, the internet, my "secular" education. You say I'm brainwashed and you don't even know half of the real me. You give me no credit. The father you say is horrible, he raised me to be an independent thinker, a logical and grounded person. I read. I think. I process. I form my own opinions. They are not his or anyone else's. I have my own brain. I strive to shake anybody's total influence. Yours, Dad's, anyone's.

You don't want to know me. You don't want to love me. You want to buy my affections and my loyalty just to get back at Dad for marrying my mother. You treat me like a tool under the mask of love and expect me to just accept this. You think everyone is trying to brainwash me but you're the only one full of manipulation.

I'm not that little girl in the poofy ugly dress you bought that I only wore to make you happy, or the little girl in the church choir even though I can't sing that only stays in it to make you happy, or the little girl reading her Bible out loud to strangers even though I'm so uncomfortable to make you happy, or the young woman getting baptised even though she was lying through her teeth just to make you happy. Back then, I thought I did those things out of love for my grandmother. I was simply being guilted and manipulated and used.

I will not be anymore. I will not sit back and watch you trash my father. You even went as far as to accuse him of child abuse. That is the most ridiculous accusation you could ever make. I will not sit back and watch you make my mother feel guilty for living the life she chose. Now that I'm older and able to see what you really are, I have to constantly hide what I really am to you. This isn't fair.

I'm supposed to love and like my grandmother. She's supposed to make me cookies and tell me stories about the good ole days and love me. She isn't supposed to make passive aggressive jabs at my father, lie about him to the rest of the family, and use me as a bargaining chip.

I will smile and be polite at all the obligatory visits. I'll exchange a hug and maybe even a laugh, but I will not bow down to you anymore. I will not let you guilt me into anything, including loving my own father. I am my own person, whether or not you choose to believe it.

Ayn Rand wrote in The Fountainhead, "I would die for you, but I will not live for you." You've lost my respect and I know you'll never care to earn it back.

Just remember, this your own doing. I tried.

Sincerely,
Your granddaughter

For the Love of a Cat

People have always had pets. I don't know what it is about them that makes us need them so. Why do we want to reign in wild creatures for our own personal satisfaction?

I guess it makes sense. It gives us a (sometimes false) sense of superiority and we like having something dependant on us.

Pets' love sure does seem unconditional. No matter what I put my cat through, he still looks at me with such adoration and trust. Even that one time he ended up on the pool steps, or after a particularly traumatizing trip to the vet...

Like today. This weird black dot developed in his eye awhile back, a few months, and we should've taken him sooner. But we brushed it off as something trivial that would go away on its own. It didn't. We took him today because his face had started to swell and emit puss. Yeah, gross.

Turns out it's a tumor and has to be removed. This requires taking him to a specialist in Greensboro, a lot of money, surgery, and possibly the loss of his eye. Dad's not going to want to pay for it; the poor thing might lose his eye. I feel horribly guilty for not taking him sooner, but it would probably have the same diagnosis anyway. I gave him way too many treats when we got home anyway, as if the things could make up for possible loss of half your senses.

The thing that kills me is he still looks at me with those trusting eyes, around the tumor. I just know it would kill me for him to only be able to look at me with one eye.

I could never have children. If I'm this attached to a pet, if his injuries upset me so much, what would I do if it were my child?? I know I'm far from the only person this attached to their pets, but that doesn't make it suck less. I love that cat more than the majority of people. After all, people's love isn't nearly as unconditional as his, nor their trust as enduring, or as innocent.

I can't even write anymore about it; it just makes me too sad to think about. I'm so sorry, my dear cat.