Is this wrong of me on Christmas?

I actually don't speak to my grandmother anymore.

My grandfather battled Alzheimer's for 12 years, succumbing on my birthday four years ago. During that time, she never went to the nursing home to see him, even though it's four miles from her house.

He died quite suddenly at home in TN, and being in L.A., it was tough to get back, especially with a quick, non-descript funeral that'd been planned.

By the time I got there, the receiving friends part of the services were more than half-over. I walked up to the casket, only for said grandma to move her motorized wheelchair in front of me and YELL, "Your hair looks awful! Your suit's ugly! The least you could've done was get a haircut!"

This dressing down took place in front of my entire family, many of whom I hadn't seen in ten years, easily. The next day at her house, I gave her thirty kinds of hell for it just before I left.

She's in a nursing home now. She's there because my mother says she's too mean to die and Satan's too scared of her. My aunt always writes me a check for $100 as a Christmas gift from my grandmother. Some years I rip it up. Sometimes I give it to charity. One year I bought two eights and some liquor. I'm staring at this year's check, wondering what the hell it'll be this year.

 

That sounds like one miserable woman, westcoast. Sounds like you handled it properly.

 

You're never too old. Strangers you meet will ask if you have kids, and when you say no you'll get the "my-how-odd-you-are" look. Something to look forward to.

 

I guess we'll go from "When are you having kids, you guys would make such great parents," to the head shake and "Wow, you don't have kids" and the subtle look of pity, or something. Oh well.

It's an astonishing thing, really. One of my best girlfriends had both her ovaries explode, in separate crises. All she and her husband wanted to do was have a family. Bought the house in the suburbs, the whole thing.

Now, it's not meant to be. How's she supposed to answer that question? "Well, we desperately wanted kids, but hey, my ovaries exploded and I almost died, so that was that." Every time someone asks, it brings it all back up again for her.

I guess people are just making conversation on what they assume is a neutral topic, but they really have no clue.