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We're just one big, happy family (snort!)
2005-05-09 - 12:42 p.m. I have not mentioned this before (I don't think), but I pretty much have a non-existent relationship with my extended family members. This has less to do with any animosity than it has to do with geographical distance between us. Growing up in Ohio, my mom's sister and husband and kids lived a block away from us, and my favorite uncle lived uptown in an apt. a few miles away. My mom's other brother, wife and kids lived in IN and came each summer for an extended visit, so growing up I saw these folks a lot. My female cousins in my hometown were 12 - 15 years older than I was, however, so we were never on the same page developmentally. I was the tag-along cousin ruining their fun, for the most part. I was closer in age to my IN cousins, and really enjoyed their annual visits. But the same year my mom sold our house and moved to LA, my aunt and uncle down the street sold their house and moved to Cape Cod, MA. This was mainly because my uncle was an alcoholic who came from a prominent family who owned the local funeral parlor / furniture store, and his alcoholic antics caused my aunt and his dad's family untold embarrassment. When he finally took the cure, dried out and was in rehab for his alcoholism, his family bought out his interest in the funeral home and basically forced him into early retirement. This caused a huge rift in their family, and to this day he has never forgiven his older brother for this and they still don't speak. But anyway, I digress. So my cousins were all married with children when we scattered to the four winds back in 1981, and I went off to a little college in WV that fall. My one remaining cousin didn't even think to invite me for turkey dinner at Thanksgiving that year, and I wound up eating mac and cheese by myself in the dorm, so we weren't close at all by that point. Point being that these people really have no impact on my life whatsoever, either positive or negative. Fast forward 20-something years to this month. We are having a family reunion at a racetrack in Chicago for my Aunt's 75th b-day, and all of us (me and my kid too) are going to go. My mom is already cautioning me not to tell anyone that I have hepatitis c. You know, I wasn't planning to announce it to the assembled masses with a megaphone, but being these are the only blood kin I got that I've actually met, not counting my dad's kin somewhere out on the west coast, I thought they may be interested enough in my welfare to possibly share that tidbit if I felt comfortable doing so with some of them. I may not, and that would be up to me (or so I thought). But my mom's warning has gotten me kind of freaked out about the whole thing. She hasn't even told her husband that I have it, which more or less makes me feel like Typhoid Mary. I'm not sure what her rationale is, if he would treat me like a pariah or get all judgmental on me or what, but the fact that it Must Remain A Secret is stressful, indeed. And it will seem even odder, I'm sure, when I die of the shit and everybody's like, "Shana? We didn't even know that she was sick." I just think that it would be more natural to tell one or two folks and let the grapevine do its thang and then everybody will know. The fact that hep c is considered an addict's disease is one reason I'm sure she wants me to remain mum on the subject. But to be fair, I worked as a phlebotomist in a plasma lab and also a hospital before they screened for the virus, so it could just as easily have come from that, although I don't personally believe that's the case. But they don't have to know that. I dunno. I'm not real comfortable with the BS, but in my mom's world of rose-colored glasses, poverty and disease and drug abuse and Democrats just don't exist. How she wound up with me is a mystery, but here I be. Should be one hell of an interesting experience, with lots of fodder for this diary. �
still here - 2009-12-18
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