Wyndsong Writes

The writing prompt is from Build Creative Writing Ideas from his 20 free writing prompts page.  The one that I felt I needed to use was this one:

18. Describe the last time you cried that didn’t relate to a movie, television show, play or book.

The last time I cried that wasn’t realted to a movie, tv show, play or book (which happens quite often actually) was on Saturday, Jan 24, 2009.  Just a short 4 days ago.  I found out something that happened recently that not only hurt me, but my mom and older sister as well.  My neice, who is my brother’s youngest daughter, is getting married this summer.  Which should be a happy thing, but it’s not… at least not for the family members out here in Las Vegas.  You see, my mother and I are specifically, by  name, not invited to the wedding.  Not on accident, not out of respect, or anything good.. but out of simple petty meanness.

This isn’t a short story that can be explained in a few paragraphs, so bare with me here while I go back in time almost a decade (wow it’s really been that long!?).

Not long after I left my husband, my two small sons and I moved in with my mother and oldest sister.  We really had no where else to go.  My sons were 2 and 4 at the time, we were on welfare, I was afraid of my ex, and where is a young mother to go besides her mom.  My mother and sister, here on known as “C”, were living together in a condo which my brother, we’ll refer to him as “R”, owned.  They had moved into the condo mostly to “help out” my brother so that he and his family could buy a bigger house for the 5 of them to live in.  R was not happy that my boys and I were moving into the condo with C and our mom, because “That’s too many people in the condo”.   Which of course everyone in my family went “Hello??  5 people linving in the condo?”  But C basically told R that if he didn’t let my boys and I move in with them, she and my mom would move out and then they wouldn’t have anyone paying for the condo.  (Such family love, not that I’m bitter)

So the boys and I move into the condo.  My mom takes care of R’s youngest son, who happens to be 2 years older than my oldest son, and does errands for R and his family while they are at work and school.  Originally my mom was supposed to be paid for some of this, and the original rent on the condo was supposed to be $600 a month.  After a few months, my mom no longer was being paid for the things that she did and she stopped doing as much for R and his family because of it.  However she still took care of R’s son after school or when he’d come home sick, and my boys and him would play.  They really loved each other, called each other “Cousin Brothers” because of how much they loved each other.

This sort of thing happened for a year or so.  Things seemed alright, for the most part.  Nothing was ever really good enough for R’s wife, we’ll call her D (although my favorite name for her starts with a B).  My mom didn’t like her from when R and D first met, and was extremely upset when they decided to get married.  However, like any good mom, she felt that it was R’s life and he had to live it no matter how many mistakes he made.  She said and did the same for me with my ex, I guess I just got smart faster than my brother.  Even when things seemed “ok”, there was always something hanging over us because of D.  Then, in June of 2000, hell broke loose and my idea of a loving close family came crashing down.

My brother came to us one day wanting to talk to us, seriously.  He and his bitch wife decided that they couldn’t afford to have us living there and only paying $600 a month anymore, because their mortgage on the condo was $900 and they needed that now.  This had all be discussed before my boys and I ever came to live there.  R & C had made the agreement that $600 a month was all my mom and C could afford, and R had agreed to it saying that they were making more than enough to pay for their new house and the remainder of the mortgage on the condo.  Of course my mom  knew this would happen eventually, but both R & C assured her that it wouldn’t.  Anyway, so R tells us that if we can’t pay the $900 a month, we’d have to move.  Oh yea, did I mention that during that year my sister, C had just gone onto disability and couldn’t work her regular job also.  I was still on welfare, and couldn’t find a good job at the time either.  So this was PERFECT timing.

Anyway, there wasn’t much we could do, so we all agreed and told him we’d have to move because there was no way, with the current circumstances, that we could pay him $900 a month for rent.   We also told him him that we didn’t know how long it would take to find someplace else to live and that we wouldn’t be able to even look for a place until July.  R said we’d need to be out sooner than that and wanted us to move by the end of that month, which it was the beginning of June when we had this lovely talk.  So we  all agreed to move as quickly as we could, but no promises.

Then mom remembers that she still has to pick up R’s son from school everyday, and almost every Monday he would come home early sick and most Fridays were half days.   So there’s no way we can try to find a place while mom has to pick up R’s son for the last 2 or 3 weeks from school.  R’s 2 older daughters are teenagers and get off school around the same time, plus D is a teacher in another school.  So Mom calls D and tells her that she won’t be able to watch their son for the remainder of the school year because of having to find someplace to move and that other arrangements would have to be made.

That is when D lost her mind, what she had of it at least.  She starts screaming at my mother over the phone that she can’t do that to her children.  That my mom never loved their children and we were taking food out of their mouths.  (I know all of this because I could hear her screaming over the phone)  Of course my mother gets extremely upset, starts yelling back that she’s being rediculous and lying (which wasn’t the first time my mother told D she was a liar), and that if they wanted us to leave on such short notice they’d have to deal with the consequences of their decision.  That she couldn’t do everything they wanted her to at the same time and that D would just have to deal with it.  Then my mom slammed the phone down.

Can you believe this is all the calm part of the story?

A few hours pass and we hear someone pounding on our front door.  It’s my brother and he is pounding and kicking on the door so hard it nearly comes off the hinges.   I don’t remember who actually let him into the house.  I think it was my mom though.  My brother starts yelling and screaming at my mom as she backs up the stairs to our living room.  It’s strange how that night is so blurred with emotion now that I can’t remember a lot of the details.  Basically there was a lot of yelling, accusations of abandoning R’s children, my mom not loving him or his kids, of her being a horrible mother and so on.  There were several points during the night that I was sure R would hit my mom, and maybe more but he never did.

My mom, C and I all tried to clam R down, to tell him the truth about what happened over the phone with his wife, but he wouldn’t hear any of it.  There was a lot of swearing, as much by me and C as there was by R.  I threatened to call the cops on him if he didn’t leave the house, but my mom and really my own heart wouldn’t let me do it.  R kept throwing things around in our garage, breaking things, kicking the walls, hitting the walls.  We were all very scared and upset until he finally left after about an hour of this going on.  We were all crying, and my sons were upset, though they had been in the back bedroom the whole time.  After about 10  minutes someone else is knocking on the door, and it turns out that one of our neighbors had called the police.

The police come into our house, check on us, find out what happened, and talk to my sons.  My youngest, who was only 4, tells the policeman that “Uncle R broke my car machine”, which of course the policemen thought was very cute… well cute how he said it, but still serious that my brother did this.  We found out later, much much later, that after the police left our house, they then went to R’s house.  We weren’t told exactly what happened, but from things that were said, R and his family didn’t have nearly as nice a visit from the police.  I guess R was told that he’d better hold his temper or they’d return and he’d learn to hold it in jail overnight.

Anyway, the horrible night was over, but my mom was extremely depressed about the whole thing. R had said to  my mom, sometime during the whole craziness, that she was dead to him and never to contact his family ever again.  Which of course, she told him that this was fine with her, because any son of hers who could do this was dead to her long ago.  I actually felt the same way.  I had lost the man that was my brother long before that night happened… although when you lose a brother or son emotionally and spiritually, you  never really get to grieve and move on, the pain is always there, and things keep happening to open the wound back up again.

Now, I’m sure you’ve all but forgotten about the whole point to this story.  I know I almost have.  You see all of this is what led up to my neice, J who is getting married this year, my brother’s youngest daughter, to tell my mom and I (not to our faces of course, or even to our ears via the phone) that we are specificially not invited to her wedding.  All because of what “We did to her father”.  Now, I ask you dear readers, what did WE do to her father?

We didn’t kick him out of his home mear months after going on disability.  We didn’t come into his home scaring them all with violent threats and name calling.  We didn’t go over there breaking down their door and breaking other objects in their house.  Hell!  We didn’t even give OUR SIDE OF THE  FUCKING STORY to the rest of the family!!!!!  We just stood there quietly when the other members of our family tried to get US to appologize to R!  Tried to make us feel like WE did something heanous to HIM!  Even if we had wanted to tell everyone our side of the story, it was too late.  R or D had already called our entire family before the next day to tell them how horrible we were.  And now at the few family gatherings that we have gone to where R and his family  are at, we get treated like the ugly step chidren who are just there out of pity.  To the point where my mom refuses to go to anything that isn’t extremely important… such as my other sisters daughters wedding.

No, R is treated like the poor self sacrificing soul who was bruised by family who took advantage of him, and we’re treated like dirt beneath their feet, and then told to “get over it already” and “don’t you think it’s time to let it go”.  Obviously NOT since my neice has decided to specifically uninvite me and my mom to her wedding.  When she knows damn well that we wouldn’t have come anyway!  My mom won’t travel to California, she hates long trips in the first place, and now totally hates family gatherings.  Oh but just in case we actually might think we were still part of her family she had to expressly tell C that mom and I were not invited.  Oh yea, I forgot to tell you this lovely part, C is invited to her wedding.

yes, even though C was a part of all of this holy shitload of crap, C is still treated like an angel.  partly because of her disability, she can’t really think very straight anymore, and needs my mom to care for her 24/7 (with no help from anyone else in the family).  Also she’s treated differently from mom and I because she has all but begged forgiveness from R for what happened.  She placates that side of the family and gets mad at mom and I when we are still pissed about the whole thing and how we’re treated.

So of course, my neice J, is talking to C on the phone because C saw a picture of J with a ring on her finger.  C asks J if she’s getting married and J says “Yes in July, but Grandma and Aunt Chris ARE NOT INVITED, but you are”.  How sweet, huh.  Of course C calls my other sister G, tells her all about this.  Then G calls R and tells him.  Then R calls his daughter J and tells her that mom and I ARE invited because a wedding is a family gathering and we’re still family. (WTF?!?! yes, my head exploded at that too.  WHATEVER!)  Of course it doesn’t matter, mom and I are in agreement, even if she did relent and invite us, we feel that a bride has the right to invite or not invite anyone she wants to.  It’s her wedding!  We’re all hurt and upset by what my neice has decided to do, but her wedding is her special day, no one should be forced on her.  Not that day.

Anyway, so I didn’t find out until a couple of days after this all happened.  My mom called S, my boyfriend, to ask him if they should tell me in the middle of the week or wait till the weekend, so I wouldn’t be upset and having to work.  They decided to wait until saturday.  We went over to my moms apartment “for dinner” and after we get there, my mom pulls me into her room “for a cigarette” and then she tells me all that happened.  I didn’t cry right away, actually  it wasn’t until after we stopped talking about it that I hugged my mom and told her that it doesn’t matter what J or my brothers other kids said or did, my two boys would always love her and be there for her.  Then we hugged tighter and I started crying.

I cried later that night too, hugging S, because my boyfriend is always so good at making me feel better when I”m sad.  There are so many wonderful things going on in my life right now.  Living with S has turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made in a very long time.  The boys love him and they get along wonderfully.  IT’s like it has always been this way with the four of us.  Then there’s our business, which is doing great, and continues to grow, even in this economy!  And the friends I’ve met out here in Vegas.  My life is finally going where I want it too.  It still hurts that my family isn’t what I thought it was when I was growing up, maybe no one’s is.  I’m glad I have so much more to be grateful for in my life now, that this hurt, although big and painful, is easier to deal with because of all the good and wonderful things in my life now.