Why I Haven't Told My Grandmothers

The term family has been on my mind a lot this week. My Aunt came in from Hawaii and my Uncle and his partner came in from Florida. they are on separate sides of the family and came in for very different reasons. My Aunt came in for a class reunion and my Uncles came in because my Grandma is very sick. My other Grandma is actually very injured and neither of them know about our plans to become foster/adopt parents.

I have lots of reasons why I've not told either of them. Since their last names start with the same letter I'll refer to them as Grandma and Gram. Perhaps the most complicated reason is my relationship with Gram. We don't really have a relationship. I've felt she favored my other cousins over my Brother and I and she wasn't a super huge part of my childhood. She also made choices on important days that I really felt were hurtful. For a while I tried very hard to form some sort of relationship with her but it was not reciprocated in the way that I needed it to be. I explored some of this with my Aunt during her visit. She's probably the one person in my family that can listen and not take offense to how others feel. She's also incredibly honest with me and I appreciate that. We have worked to form our relationship even though she lives so far away and while we might not have too much in common we both desperately want to understand our family and get to a place without tension and hurt.

A big part of Gram's personality is her tendency to brag. And generally you don't brag to the people you are bragging about so I never hear her say anything about me and ALWAYS about others. This makes me feel pretty crappy. I have a second cousin who lives near Gram who adopted a child internationally and got involved in charity work surrounding orphanages and such in the country her child is from. Through the grapevine I have heard that she is planning on adopting another child from the same country in the next few months. Now I need to state that I think what my cousin is doing is wonderful and probably sparked further interest for my husband and I to consider adoption as a way to form our family. However, I just don't feel for my family that international adoption is the way for us. Kids all over the world deserve to be taken care of and belong to loving families and I'm thankful people like my cousin can help in this effort.

To be frank - I really don't want to hear it from Gram. And that's why I don't want to tell her that we are planning on fostering to adopt. I don't want to hear how my cousin has to go back to a war torn country and live at the orphanage and how she got all the kids shoes and how what she's doing is so selfless and courageous and amazing. And that she's the perfect mother and you should call her to get advice. Now that might sound a tad bit jealous and if I'm being honest it might be a little bit as she has such a great relationship with Gram and I feel pretty rejected. Do you think my Gram knows I've helped to raise $57K for the World Vision foundation that feeds children who need it? That I've mentored teens in their faith. That I help people with cancer cope on a daily basis? No because I'm not outward with it but that doesn't mean that sometimes I don't need recognition just like everyone else especially from my family.

Now I haven't told my Grandma because she was just diagnosed with Stage IV Ovarian Cancer. And she's not dealing well and she's very sick. She's pretty much not eating and is disappearing in front of our eyes. I told my Grandpa and there was too much on his mind to process. So I'm not sure if this news would be something for Grandma to hold onto to work towards or if she would start to worry. This happened right around the time we started our PRIDE classes and I think this is also part of the reason my parents haven't said much. They are simply overwhelmed and hypothetical grandchildren are just not in their grasp at the moment. But that's life isn't it? The moment you think everything is starting to come together other things begin to fall apart. And it drives me nuts Grandma not knowing because I have all kinds of questions and conversations for her. In my heart I so very badly want all of my future children to meet her and know her like I do because she is someone very special. And she might not make it. She might not make it to Christmas. And she might and this whole living in the unknown part is really starting to aggravate me.