When I was 10 years old my grandma got super sick. We were never close, if anything I dreaded talking to her or being with her because I thought she was boring. She was always angry or upset, never found anything positive in life. Ten year old me didn’t understand why she was like that, obviously. If anything, I didn’t think she loved me very much because she was never around. It was Christmas eve, I knew she was in the hospital. She’s had health problems before, so I thought this would just blow off like the other ones had. I didn’t really know how bad it was. My dad was there visiting with her. I was nosy, so I got on my moms phone that night to call my dad and ask him when he was gonna be home. The second I opened the screen I saw a text that said, “she’s gone.” My mom disappeared for the rest of the night. She was crying in her closet. My aunt had to watch me and my brother while she was upset too. I didn’t tell anyone I knew. I spent all of that Christmas knowing my grandma was dead without anyone knowing. I didn’t realize how much she meant to me until her funeral, it tore me up. I never got to tell her how much I loved her until she was gone. I miss her everyday.

I been thinking real hard about even relaying these awful things about the person that I have admired the most, the person I have respected and revered my whole life but that now, has completely backstabbed me in the worst way possible. A few years ago, a scandal broke in my political family involving my mother. As you can imagine, it nearly broke my marriage and tore my husband’s family apart. My sister in law found my father in law and my mom talking on social media. The worst part of it, when I was confronted, I was accused of knowing about the whole affair and made it looked like I was an accomplice to the whole ordeal. When I had absolutely no clue to such a disgusting mess. I don’t know what neither of them were trying to accomplish and now, I’m the black sheep of the family. No one talks to me. While my father in law is still loved and honored. My mother the home wrecker and I pay the sins of her ordeals. She never once has said I’m sorry. Never! In her head, I’m better off without that side of the family. But it’s not about that; why did she do this to me? Why my father in law? Among so many men? Why him! I guess I’m just looking for an explanation and I know I will never get it from her. Because she just cannot accept she did anything wrong. I wish I could get her version because as of now, I only know everyone else’s but her’s. I always thought I didn’t need to hear her side because it’s not my place to question her, but I have kids who now have to suffer for her sins as well. I don’t think it’s fair to them either. I guess the damage is done as well and the past is the past. I won’t get nothing accomplished but I just want an acknowledgment from her part that she messed up.

• August 12, 2023