Saturday, February 22

Today I am grateful for:

More gorgeous weather.

Getting to town today to pick up the mail and get groceries. I also went to the thrift store, and found some books, one was a watercolor instruction book, and the other a book about an artist's work.

Continuing to use the 45% off coupons at Micheal's to buy one expensive watercolor paint at a time, but showing good restraint about not buying tons of other stuff.

Getting most of the dishes washed and getting some laundry done.

Not necessarily under "gratitudes":

As I've mentioned, my sister's husband has been diagnosed with lung cancer (as far as I understand; everyone is dancing around saying it outright, but he "had a mass" in his lung, was coughing up blood, is undergoing tests to see if it's spreading).

I haven't been close to this sister as an adult. About 30 years ago, her son took his life, and I never felt like I could talk to her about it. At the funeral, and around this time, she was oddly cheerful and refused to be upset. I was never able to talk to her about it, and she never brought it up. Never. Yet, other people in my family say that they've mentioned it, and it was okay. Not my experience.

So, though I actually have really mixed feelings about her husband (I was only a little bit older than the nephew who died, and when I would go over there as a child to play with him and his sister, we were terrified of their dad. I witnessed him beating the crap out of my nephew with a belt several times, he constantly yelled at everyone, and honestly he was a miserable asshole that we were all terrified of. He quit drinking after my nephew died, and became this weird person who was a lot less scary, is much nicer to his grand daughter than he ever was to his kids, and so on. I have never gotten over who he was when I was a kid, helpless to stop him from beating my nephew), I know I should be saying something to my sister.

They've been married for better or worse, for over 40 years now. I should be saying something.

I called her the other day, and she was bright and cheerful, just like when my nephew died. She refused to talk about her husband, just wanted to talk about her garden, the work we're doing on our house, and so on. She kept control of the conversation, would not talk about her husband, and then pretended to have to go because there was another call.

When I tried to talk to my adult niece, I got the same thing, almost exactly. Even worse, my niece came across as really harsh and critical of other members of our family. I remember when bitter back-stabbing gossip was something her Mom did a lot when I was a kid and listened to her talking to people, and I guess my niece is like this now too. Basically, anyone in our family who has problems with addiction and so on, the hallmark challenges of poverty and low self-esteem, should just straighten up and fly right! That was literally what my sister and her husband used to say to my nephew too, when he was having problems with school, and with life, and his teachers. Straighten up and fly right, kid! Not "maybe we need to do more to help you deal with this", but he'd better just quit what he's doing and get a grip. Work harder. Do what you're told. Just do better.

I'm not likely going to be able to see my brother in law any time soon. Not like there would be any kind of closure. No one would be willing to talk to me about my nephew, how my brother in law beat him, how terrified I was. No one is even likely going to talk about my brother in law dying.

It's like it's just none of my business.