Moms and Sons

I don't quite know how to start this so I'll just write.  My son and his wife seem to feel that me, his mother and my granddaughter's grandmother, doesn't deserve the respect needed to at least return phone calls.

She, the daughter in law, always says come over whenever you want to but unfortunately, that entails a long drive through traffic which I am not adverse to doing BUT I do not want to have to drive all the way over to their place if they are not home AND they do not return phone calls.  I finally called my son to ask if his wife had been out of town this week because I had left messages daily ever since finding out that my granddaughter had spent 10 hours in Children's hospital last Saturday.  My son did call to let me know that they were leaving the hospital but I wanted to check to see that everyone was doing o.k.   Not one time did the phone get answered and not one of my requests for a return call was honoured.

I did finally get a call from her saying that Michael said I was upset.........."so what's the matter?" she says.  I said that I wanted to know why she couldn't have called to say that they were fine and she simply said "well, we were busy".  Excuse me???  Everyone is busy these days but how long would it have taken to just pick up the phone and respond.  Nothing.  I wonder how her parents would react if the current scenario was involving them.

Now what makes it even worse is that her parents are there 3 - 4 times a week and they babysit regularly.  I know that a lot of women say that the parents of the wife are usually more involved but this is getting ridiculous.  Whenever I say that this is not fair, I get a lecture saying to stop whining.  They have enough visitors and according to my son, his family is the most important thing in his world......hey, am I suddenly NOT family.  He replied that NO, his family is his wife and his child and obviously, at least to me and his stepmother, we are no longer part of HIS family.  This hurts so much as we had always been so very very close.

Prior to his marriage they came over to advise me that I am not allowed to share my personal feelings with them.  I was shocked.  If we can't share our feelings with our families, who can we share them with.

I did live out of the country for a number of years but left a place that I loved to come back to Vancouver to be here for my son when he was going through a hard time.  I was here for him whenever he needed me but now that his life is going so well, he has chosen to distance himself from not only me, but his sister and his stepmother.  His father passed away a few years ago and his stepmother had been as close to him and his sister as if she were his real mother.  She too has been shut out of his life since the marriage and both of us have found ourselves in tears time and time again at this complete disrespect shown to us both.  At our granddaughters 1st birthday, his stepmother (who is also my best friend but another story that is) said to me "don't you feel like we are the 2 weird aunts that HAVE to be included in the festivities?"  I said that I can't go there because when I do that it gets me really down.

Sometimes I feel that I have to just let it go but I can't.  He is my son even though I don't even recognize the wonderful guy he used to be.  Whenever people in my life have started to act like they don't want me around I generally give it at least a year to try to fix things and then when it becomes very obvious that they are not wanting to fix things, I say, I guess that relationship is done and get on with my life.  Does it hurt?  Of course but since I know that people come and go in our lives, I have managed to move forward.  However, this is my son and he has my granddaughter so I do not want to disappear even though it feels like they wish I would.

And to make matters even worse, my father who is 92 years old and lives 8 minutes from my son and his family has only seen his GREAT granddaugher 3 times.  They never go to visit him because they say it makes them uncomfortable and they worry about Amelia getting "something".  I shake my head and say they are old, not contagious.  I try to set up times to take him over to their place which is very hard as he is in wheelchair and has a hard time adapting to the outside world not to mention me having to manouver him out of the chair and into the car and then back out of the car and into the chair but I still try.  The past 3 occasions that I had set up, they cancelled at the last minute for one reason or another.  So sad for my dear old Dad as family is all that he has left but then again, as I mentioned earlier, it seems that we are not family in my son's eyes.

I wonder if his father were alive if he would be getting this same treatment.  I guess we'll never know.

Sigh................and another big sigh...........

Thanks for letting me share.  Feel better already.

Blessings to you all.