– My grandmother was a very bad person, in some ways even too bad. – My mother and father divorced very early, I was very young then, I don’t remember my father at all. We went to live with my grandmother when I was only 5 years old and I was under her care all my conscious childhood.
As a person, my grandmother was very difficult. Her granddaughter followed her lead. The main requirements were to be obedient and hardworking.
– I don’t remember anything good about my grandmother.
When others miss their childhood, I do not even want to remember it. I do not for anything. My mother was no help at all. I had nowhere to run: the 1990s, and I could only dream about money and work. I had to put up with it. My grandmother tried to boss me and my mother around, to make things the way she wanted them to be.
That’s how we lived. In public, of course, we pretended that we were fine.
When I was in fifth grade, my mother’s personal life got better. A man took her to live with him. A year later she took her daughter with her. The stepfather didn’t like the girl much, but he didn’t treat her badly either. After life with her grandmother, with whom she had only misunderstandings, life with her stepfather was like heaven.
My grandmother did not approve of such an alliance, and my mother simply took the opportunity to live separately from a despot in a skirt. They have had no contact since then. Only the girl occasionally calls her grandmother.
– Every month I call, but I have to prepare for a long time. I talk briefly about something, quite unimportant. To avoid the flow of negativity, I focus on the good news, in general, we exchange a couple of news and general phrases. Once every six months, on Grandma’s birthday and New Year’s Eve, I come with flowers and a cake. Enough of me no more than half an hour. That’s all. That’s how we communicate with her.
Now my life is going well – I have a beloved man, a small child, and a close-knit family. I recently came out of maternity leave and my husband and I decided to buy an apartment on credit in another city.
Last year her grandmother turned 80.
Before that, she was chipper, even doing the household alone. But recently, things have not been going well for her.
Grandma is exhausted, can’t even go out, let alone cook food. Mostly lying down, although she can still move around the house. Recently, she got sick – her neighbors helped her with everything. It turned out all right. But apparently the situation is such that grandma needs care.
– Grandma has a lot of distant relatives, who are now constantly calling me with reproaches! – she says. – With my mom they can not contact my – she and her husband live in Europe. So they think I am obligated.
But I know what a hell it will be. Yeah, she raised me, nurtured me, taught me. And it’s kind of my turn to repay her debt. And I don’t want to! She didn’t love me my whole childhood. I was able to let go of that resentment for her behavior and attitude toward me, but I can’t forgive her! But at the same time, of course, there is also a sense of guilt, I understand that I need to help the old lady.
A good solution would be to find a hired nurse, but the funds for that are now completely gone. They have a child and a loan, the son is often sick, the woman babysits him all the time and can not earn much.
What to do? Is the granddaughter obliged to take care of an elderly grandmother, or has the right to refuse her – especially since she does not claim to inheritance? Vera wants neither such a grandmother, nor an inheritance.
