Families can be complex beasts. My maternal grandmother died this week and as well as being sad at the loss it has made me sad about the complexity and dysfunction of my family. I would like to remember her as the grandma that I loved when I was very young, the grandma who I begged to tell me a story and who would tell me one, not from a book but one from in her head. My favourite was the one about the old man and the old woman who lived in a vinegar bottle. A version of which is here although not the same as the one she told me. This is how I would like to remember her, without the taint of things long past in my family, the rifts, betrayal, hurts that are too big to talk about here, abuse of trust and all the rest.
Some cultures and religions believe that you when you come to this world you choose which family that you are born into. It's an interseting concept and one that I am not sure that I believe - or want to believe. I wonder what lessons I am supposed to learn from my family, and why those lessons have to be so hard.
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