Traveling Thoughts

I don’t remember the year, I just remember my cousin calling and telling me to call my father.  A call to my father revealed that my step mom’s mom had passed away and that he hadn’t called because calls like that fell under my step mom’s job description.  Some years after that, my cousin calls again (and no, this isn’t the only time she calls) because my great grandmother doesn’t have many years left on her ticket and she wants us to see her again.  God bless my cousin because she flew my sister and I (moody, irritable, hard to manage, pain in the arse teenagers) out there to see my great grandmother, that was the last time that I saw her.  When she kicked the bucket, who was it that called, none other that my great cousin. 

My cousin always has the family news/gossip.  She finds something out and calls me.  This time I knew something first, and what we discovered, we really already knew, it was just proved.  Our family is very dysfunctional, but find me one that’s not…they all are, every family….some more than others…ours may not be the worse, there’s always someone worse, but we’re always worse than someone else…

so, here’s how this one goes, my grandfather has terminal cancer…my sister calls to tell me….my cousin sent me an email about her rough week, i ask if it had anything to do with grandpa (something *SHOCKER* that she didn’t know about).  I think my sister found out from my grandma, but I’m still unsure on who she talked to, to get the information.  My cousin called my uncle to ask him about it, and this is what she found out.

Grandma called dad/step mom, who called family friend, who called aunt, who told uncle, who called grandma…leaving all the rest of us out of the loop…that was chain one, then there’s chain two…sister calls me who emails cousin who calls uncle who says ‘oh yeah’…cousin calls me to rant and rave about this communication issue which spawns this blog…i get an email from grandma about the entire situation…

it’s pretty pathetic when there’s a family member with terminal cancer and there’s no string of communication. in fact, it’s severly screwed up…

for future notice this is how this should have worked:
grandma calls dad who calls daughters (and perhaps the rest of the family)…and i don’t call anyone because i don’t communicate with this part of the family other than my cousin

names have been withheld to protect the idiots in my family.  if a family member is reading this, forgive me if i’ve offended you