Why Nana is Alone

Nana is an old, selfish, manipulative, mean, bitch. I will say it without pulling any punches because she's gone too damned far this time.

I am going to try to get this story into the most condensed version possible. I don't have the next three hours to write it up.

Yesterday was Lia and Janelle's birthday (and John's birthday, too, but I don't know how to get ahold of him right now -- he's had some issues with that moron roommate of his). Lia and I got up early and went out to Janelle's store for a grooming appointment. Since I was leaving her there, I went to go get some coffee and a sandwich for breakfast at McDonald's . I parked, then, in the parking lot at the detail car wash in front of Janelle's store. I finished up my sandwich and was cleaning up some garbage out of the front seat in preparation for the much-needed detailing, when my phone rang.

We, in the Peters family, don't ever get directly to the point. We're storytellers. This phone call proved no exception to this rule. After about three minutes of narrative (including my mother demonstrating an answering machine indicator with long "beep" noises three different times), I had to tell her to get to the damned point. She said that nobody had been able to get ahold of my grandmother since last Thursday or so inspite of phone calls at various times and an answering machine whose message wait time was getting longer and longer (duh, meaning that she hadn't picked up her messages -- and she always picks up her messages). I cut my mother off short and asked her if she wanted me to go down to Joliet. Yes, I was to go with my sister (because everyone was convinced we were going to find her dead).

Janelle was not even a little happy about this (Mom was on the phone with her at the store while I pulled my car around). I'm sure I've mentioned that Janelle drives like a maniac. She lost me on the way down there. I should have blown her off and taken the back roads. We pounded on the front and side doors at my grandmother's shit-box, hell-hole, piece-of-shit house in the slum part of Joliet. I also knocked at the bedroom and den windows. When we didn't get a response and couldn't find the hidden key, we went ahead and called 911. Whomever my sister explained the situation to knew immediately that Nana had been taken via ambulance to St. Joe's in Joliet ON SUNDAY NIGHT!!! This was Tuesday.

We hopped in our respective cars on the way over there and Janelle called the hospital -- to find out that the old witch has bronchitis (again -- and if she'd move out of that damned mildew and mold-ridden crap hole she lives in, she wouldn't keep getting this -- oh, and maybe if she didn't spend her life hanging out at the casino, she wouldn't catch this kind of bug -- I mean, people down there don't wash their hands, don't cover their mouths, don't blow their noses... they are all walking germ farms). Janelle was told that my grandmother couldn't get any calls and couldn't get any visitors. Sorry, but that's just all kinds of bullshit.

Janelle was pissed so she went on back to her shop. I finally had to use valet parking. I got up to my grandmother's room (where she was on the phone with Doug after I had told him what was up while on my way to the hospital), and shortly thereafter, it came out that Nana didn't want us to know she was in the hospital. When I got there, she was lying in a puddle of coffee and refusing to let the nurse change the bedding. In the meantime, her guest chair was tiled with four squares of lying carefully flat pieces of toilet tissue that I can only guess were each stained with some bodily excrement (and Nana wanted only to point it out to anyone who came in from me, to nurses, to the girl with the lunch tray, that she was saving these samples for the doctor). I was pretty grossed out, personally.

I had to hold my tongue instead of telling her exactly what I thought -- that this was a bullshit game on her part -- a manipulative ploy. See, if we never had found out that she was in the hospital, it would have been "and they never even bothered to find out where I was." If we did find out, she could pit the doctor (Dr. Mother-fucking-Stapleton-whose-license-should-
be-pulled) against us. And she got this option in full glory -- Dr. Stapleton had Nana's "friend" Lois (who has bugged Nana for some 20 years) call us and tell us 1) that Nana had blocked all incoming calls to her hospital room (duh -- I did that for her with the nurse while I was there); 2) that Nana was doind just fine; and 3) that we are not allowed to call the doctor and that it was none of our business.

I'm not sure who I "hate" more -- the doctor or my grandmother. If my grandmother thinks that she is going to "win" this little battle, she's dead wrong. After a long-winded argument between my grandmother and Janelle (just before I blocked the calls), Janelle has made it absolutely clear that she wants nothing else to do with my grandmother. Cat is so angry that she says she's never going down there again (and Cat and I both agree that during the 1/2 hour we didn't really know what was going on -- we both hoped that she was dead because it would just be easier -- and we both were more concerned with our classes -- and in my case, the comps -- than we were with whether or not Nana was dead). Joe never did give a shit and Michael doesn't pay any attention (besides, he was at Dr. Stefoski's office getting the news that he doesn't have MS -- yet -- and maybe never will). I'm stomping pissed (and am contemplating writing her a letter -- and typing it in increased size font so she can read it -- but I probably won't bother). This leaves Doug -- my mother told him absolutely yesterday that she no longer wants to hold the power of attorney or the will executorship. She wants to give it to Doug.

My mother has, over the last few weeks, had long conversations with some of my grandmother's sisters: Cecilia, Eleanor, Julia, and Betty are all still alive and well. My mother has absolutely spilled this whole story to Eleanor, specifically. Enough is enough and the selfish, manipulative, miserable old woman is just not going to be able to control her family with her damned money any more. We don't want it. She can piss it away at the riveboat; she can give it all to those "great" kids in Vancouver (because they've taken such good care of her); she can flush it down her damned toilet (except that she has a crappy sewer system that can't even handle toilet paper -- and that Doug has to "fix" once a month). Come to think of it, I like the toilet idea the best because Doug just about deserves that.

Doug did call to apoloize for saying "good" about what Nana has done, but Mom is pretty fucking pissed at him.

I am still hopping mad. I think we all would have been happier if she had first, given all her money to the assheads in Canada, and second, died quietly leaving us nothing. I'M GOING TO HELL, BUT I AM NOT SORRY FOR RESENTING THE PUPPET SHOW THAT SHE HAS BEEN PUTTING US ALL THROUGH FOR ALL OF THESE YEARS. My mother had a rotten childhood and has never wanted anything but her own mother's love. She wants so badly to take care of her and just treat her well -- my grandmother worked so hard for so long! Of course, this meant that with all her "frugal" behavior and work ethic, my mother never really had a mother of her own. How did my mother become a good mom?? And who I think was the best mother anyone could have ever had (in spite of the fights and arguments, I still love her for everything she sacrificed for all of us). But my grandmother doesn't know how to just be loved and let people "in". She has effectively pushed all of us away and I don't know if anyone is going to rebound from this.