There are people within my life that I have come to look at differently the past few years. As I have developed the love for genealogy, I have come to discover who my family is and where I fit in with them. I have also come to realize what type of people some of my family members are, unfortunately.
Lately, I have been trying really hard not to complain or talk badly about people, but a person can only take so much before something needs to be said.
So, here it goes…I grew up with two sets of grandparents, whom were very different from each other. My father’s parents were not part of my life for the most part. My grandfather died when I was about seven years old; therefore my memories of him are minimal. The few memories I do have of him are ones that I wish I didn’t have; he scared me to be completely honest.
When I was younger, grandpa and grandma Burton spent their time in Arizona, because of the cold weather. So, it limited my time with them. When they were here in Utah we didn’t spend much time with them either. I don’t know exactly what happened between my dad and his parents, but in a sense it feels as if they disowned him. I remember wanting to spend time with them, but I was often denied this opportunity. There were several times when I would call and ask to sleep over or do something with them, but they had other plans or were having my cousins sleep over. This lead to me losing connection with them and eventually losing a desire to be a part of their lives. It also caused me to develop ill feelings towards my cousins. To this day I struggle with the time my cousins had with my grandparents, and the relationships I lost out on.
When my grandma Burton died, I was about fifteen years old. When she passed I was angry: angry at her, angry at my grandpa, and angry at the rest of my family who got to know her. I felt like I had been cheated in life. I often questioned what I did to my grandma for her not to love me or want to be with me. What did my cousins offer her that I couldn’t? My aunt tries to compensate by telling me that my grandma talked about me all of the time and always wanted a relationship. The tough part with this is my aunt doesn’t realize that statements like that don’t help, they make it worse. It tells me that my grandma did love me, but wasn’t willing to put in the effort. I believe that if you truly do love a person, then you put forth as much effort to be a part of their life (something my grandma never did).
Like I said earlier, these feelings of anger towards my grandma is something I have been dealing with since her passing. As I have worked on genealogy, I have learned a lot about my grandparents, but mostly I have learned that what I thought I knew about them wasn’t true. Working on genealogy has also been great to help me deal with these emotions that I have been harboring. I actually felt like I had been making progress, until a few weeks ago when my cousin posted a picture on Facebook. You see, the picture was of three of my cousins and my grandfather at a grandparent’s day lunch at school. While looking at the picture, the man they were saying was my grandfather didn’t look like him. My dad even questioned my cousin about the picture. My cousin’s response was, “for reals?”—yes for real! I have thought a lot about this picture since it has been posted and also the conversation my dad and cousin had. It made me realize that the reason it didn’t look like him, is because I didn’t know him. I didn’t recognize him, because he would never have been seen at my school supporting me, so why would I believe he would do the same for my cousins. This became just another reminder of what I missed out on, and how different my aunt’s family and my dad’s family were treated.
I hate that I am envious of my cousins and that I still have these feelings about my grandparents. I know that my cousins couldn’t help that my grandparents treated our two families differently. I guess I just wish that my aunt and cousins would stop being so blind to the fact that it happened. I know it must be difficult to view people you loved in a different light, and accept that they didn’t treat everyone like they treated you. Maybe one day I will be able to forgive my grandparents, but until then, I will keep working on it.
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