My grandfather died recently, and I'm having a wave of different emotions for all the wrong reasons.
! To start with, I wasn't close to him in any part of my life. He was the kind of person that was a nice colleague, an excellent worker and a good acquinantance. He was even a nice brother as far as I was told. As a grandfather he's best described by a blank page. As a father, he was terrible, and it's painful to see my mom struggle with her own emotions right now.
! So I don't really feel like someone should feel when one of their grandparents die. Don't get me wrong, it's a sad occassion with some absolutely frustrating circumstances concerning his death, but my feelings are unable to go further than being sorry a human being had to die the way he died. Other than that, it's all blank.
! The burial was two days ago, and while I was positively certain it would at least help me get over this feeling blankness, it seemed to have opened a very old and persistent can of worms.
First of all, I felt like a complete stranger, even though I'm arguably part of the family, at least biologically. I thought it was strange that people offered their condolences to me, when I had less of a relationship with my grandfather than people he worked with. Combine that with the clumsily pieced together funeral speech (with sentences like "he will always be remembered as a dear grandfather by all of his grandchildren) and it all felt disingenous and plain wrong.
! This is not all.
! So this "being a stranger in my own family" thing goes further when I think about my brother. He's my mom's first child, and is 5 years my senior. Add to that that shortly after our parents separated, he went to live with our dad, further increasing the divide inside the family. Our grandparent's on my father's side loved him dearly, so much more than me, even if they wouldn't admit it even now. They still do love him way more than me and it's so apparent, my mom's friend couldn't help but notice it even at the funeral. I guess I'm so accostumed to it it didn't even register.
What about my other set of grandparents? Well, my brother worked in my grandfather's company for 5 years(in fact he's only recently switched jobs), so he had a "deeper" relationship with him than me. I put deeper in quotation marks because as I mentioned, my grandfather was pretty lousy when it came to children and grandchildren. Still, it was a bit more than I had. When we visited him at the hospital, he even joked with my brother a little, showing a tiny hint of grandfatherly affection.
! To go even further, there's the case with our great-grandparents. On father's side, I understandably had lesser contact and a more struggling relationship with my great-grandmother (we never really knew her husband, he went his own way when my grandfather was little); my brother even recalls a comment from her calling me a "stupid little kid" behind my back when I was maybe 6 or 7. During my teenage years, I always felt sort of uncomfortable around her. She lived with my grandparents. One time I went on a vacation to their weekend-house where they lived during the summers, and it was kind of awful. My grandfather was shouting at my grandma and he was treating her like a wet rag, my great-grandma was no better, I got my period, and I wanted to go home. So I told them I might go home a few days earlier (I didn't list the reasons) to which my great-grandma said: "Are you running away?" From what she meant, I don't know, but it wasn't helping in any way and I can still sort of hear the condescening tone of her voice. She was also constantly nagging me to contact my father even though I wanted nothing to do with him at that point, and even then, it wasn't my responsibility to fix our relationship when my father put zero effort into the whole thing. Keep in mind I was still a child back then. 14 years old, tops. So understandably, my brother had a better relationship with that side of the family, and spent way more time with them than I ever could.
! So what about the other side? Unfortunately, my great-grandfather on my mother's side died when I was 5 years old, and aside from some blurry memories and the recollections of other family members, I never was able to fully know him. Which is a shame, because anyone I ask tells me he was a great person, and a great father and a great husband and a great grandfather and a great great-grandfather. So an overall awesome person. My mom told me he loved me and my brother equally and I chose to believe that, because at least then I might be on equal footing with my brother. As for my great-grandmother, I have many fond memories of her, and I cherish the time we could spend together. But… and it's painful to admit, my brother seemed to have been closer to her. He had five years on me for starters and he also spent more time with her to be away from our father (who, surprise-surprise, was awful, despite my grandmothers insistence that my brother will have a better time with him then our mom). So it was a sort of refuge for him, and my great-grandma was more than happy to take care of him. Fast-forward a few years, when my brother decided to get back to our mom, she could only find place for him with our great-grandma. So they lived together for a couple of years, my great-grandma had a companion and a helper, and my brother had an infinitely better place to stay than with our father. Logically, this meant that my great-grandma's relationship with him was deeper than with me.
! All this makes me feel like a second-class citizen compared to my brother, at least when it comes to my family. On one side, I feel like I missed out by being born later and having different circumstances; on the other, I feel betrayed and a victim to a war I had zero say in.
There's maybe three people in the whole family that treats us equally: my mom, and my great-aunt and her husband. I remember one time when I was visiting them with my mom, my mom told them how different my grandparents on my father's side were treating me compared to my brother. My great-aunt lovingly said I was like a black-sheep and I can't help feeling that way right now. I feel as though the only thing I can do is appreciate the love these three people give me, even after I came out to them as transgender. I was so surprised to recieve so much love from them, you know, the kind of unconditional, familial love. As a child, I got so used to trying to win the love of those around me, I never could realize that I wasn't about what I did or what I was.
! I try not to hold it against my brother. Despite all this, his childhood was destroyed as well as mine, and I guess we both will struggle for years to come to try and build our relationship after those around us destroyed any chance we had. He's not at fault here, I am not at fault here, yet it falls on our shoulders to do damage control and rebuild from the rubble.
Everytime I talk about my family, I feel like I should make a chart because with all the remarriages and early deaths, it's hard to keep track who's who.
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