The cruelty of others

I know that my readers do not know my husband apart from things written here which is a shame as he is one of the nicest people I know. I am not saying that because I am married to him, or that we have been together for 21 years next month, but am saying it because it is true. He is totally selfless, will go out his way to help people, and puts everyone, no matter who, before himself. All in all, he is a decent human being, and in all honesty, a rarity these days.

His family, however, are vile, despicable and overall shit people. M’s mum, who was the only decent one of them, sadly passed away 8 weeks ago this Sunday. Not one of his family has reached out to him to see if he is okay. As most will know, M is disabled and has neurological problems amongst others, so life is hard at the best of times, however, his family treat him as though he is making it all up, even though there are hundreds and hundreds of reports regarding his disability/problems, some of which are inherited from his Mum. At the funeral M was left on his own, his sister, brother and father walked together, leaving him to struggle about 20 feet behind, never checking on him. M never complained, he just got on with it. At the graveside, they all walked off and got into the cars and left him there, again never thinking about assisting him and getting him to the car. At the meal after the funeral, all the adults sat together around a large table and never made room for him, leaving him to sit with the children. After the proceedings of the day when they went back to the house, his father and siblings got drunk and again showed their true colours. M recorded them and it is appalling. His sister, a bit of a drunk, sneering and spewing venom and hate for no other reason than this is her true self. His brother is a drunk and drug addict, so need I say more. His father, also a drunk is a spinless pathetic specimen human being. It was like watching a more hateful version of the witches in Macbeth.

Now, I have previously posted about them, which can be read here, and the way they treated M. So, 8 weeks passed and no one has contacted him, apart from a call from his father giving off that the aftershave that M bought for him had not arrived. In this call, his father never asked how he was doing, and would only demand that M do something about the lack of delivery. His father decided to text him today saying that he was lonely, which is ironic as he has all his family and friends there and is always Skyping M’s sister in America, and when M’s Mum needed help at home, his father could not get her into a nursing home fast enough. Nothing has changed for his father for over 4 years. M took the opportunity to confront his father about the complete lack of contact, the treatment he received before, during and after the funeral, and questioned if his Mum did not like him over the last 6 or so months as he knew that the sister had been poisoning her mind. His father answered with “well, she had a lot on her mind”. WTF! M told his father some home truths, that he heard them all slagging him off and that their treatment of him was out of order. His father gave a very feeble apology which I translated as him saying “I’m sorry if you feel that way”. I have no time for them as I have seen first hand how they have been with him and they hate me as I stand up for M, and will not take shit from them, oh, I am also English and Anglican, so double whammy there.

M’s sister has single-handedly turned everyone against him, for what reason or gain we do not know, but she has sewn lies to all that were concerned. She is self-obsessed and I have witnessed her viciousness that has no bounds and is done for her own amusement. She is the type of person to stop at an accident not to help but to gleefully watch the suffering of others, something she is actually well known for.

M has now cut ties with his family, removed their numbers from his phone along with WhatsApp and blocked them. I have had the measure of them for close to 20 years and M now sees them as I do. It is a sad thing that they have treated him so appallingly. I feel that M being gay is the main crux of their problem, but they are also jealous of his independent life. He is happy, does not live in a shit hole and is out of their control and interference, also he was the first one to get out of the country. His brothers youngest girl went to Liverpool Uni, got a degree and was set to have a career in TV/Media, but they forced her back to Northern Ireland for their own selfish reasons, that of a baby sitter and gain control over her life. Why should she be able to have her own life away from there?

I am saddened for M, as he does not now, or ever has deserved this type of treatment, and as mentioned has gone out of his way for them all and others, never complaining. However, I am glad that he is away from their poisonous prison. They have preyed on him, victimised him for their own unknown intentions. Whilst I have supported M trying to please them to no end, I have also told him what I see. I could never tell him to walk away as his Mum was still alive and they doted on each other, but now she is at rest I can and have, and he sees what I see.

I have experienced hate from my own father who is homophobic, racist, sexist and a truly vile man who thought with his fists and whom I have had no dealings with from the age of 15. I have seen my family turn against me because I was gay (lead by one of my sisters), which was their loss for a year or so. I have seen my sister envious of the life I have, a happy life with someone I truly love. I have been at the end of a campaign of sibling interference that failed. I have witnessed this and been at the harsh end of it, but due to my childhood I became hardened to it, gained the ability to switch off my emotions at the drop of a hat, but with that, I have anger issues and a temper that goes from zero to explosion instantly, and I am a fighter. M, however, is the opposite, he is not a fighter, he cannot switch off his emotions and as such his family have been like hungry vultures, picking away at him, feeding on his humanity until there is nothing left. Thankfully, he has now put a stop to them. He can now move on. It will be a long trek, but one that is worthwhile. With each step, he moves further away from his troubles, from people that are not worthy of his company, people that do not know what honour, charity or compassion means. Each day will take him on a journey of healing and the realisation that he is important, worthy of love and kindness, and that he is loved more than he will ever know.

The old saying of “this is the first day of the rest of your life”, although a clumsy cliche is very apt for him now, and as always, I will be at his side for the whole journey. My vows 12 years ago when we got married were “in sickness and health, through thick and thin until the end of days” and never more than now are they adhered to.

Ireland – An End

M came back on Friday night, me and the girls could not wait to collect him from the airport. His flight was due to land at 6:50pm and the wheels hit the tarmac at 6:30. Luckily I was not too far and was there when the disabled assistance brought him out to me. We were both very glad to see each other. The dogs went mental licking and doing their hug things as they were in the car waiting.

M’s sister again did not offer to take him to the airport even though she was in the same house and had a hire car and quickly vanished to the room she was staying in half an hour before he left. I would say hiding in her shame, but she has no shame, just hiding as she just did not give a shit about her disabled younger brother. If hell exists there is a definitely a place for her. His dad was his usual cold self and when M left, his father let him struggle with his bag and when a few feet down the path he just closed the door behind M only leaving the dog to look out and watch M leave. M’s brother who lives 5 minutes walk never bothered, nor did any of the nieces and nephews who all live within 5 minutes walk. Cold callous bastards the lot of them. I guess birds of a feather really do stick together.

Now, you may think, what has M done to receive this type of treatment. Easy to answer, he is a decent human being, and that seems to be a problem with them all. Over the 21 years I have watched them stab each other in the back, fall out with each other, have fist fights with each other and exude general hate to each other. All of this M had no part and kept away from their arguments as it was nothing to do with him. M is polite, kind beyond normality to be honest, and nice to everyone, but this seems to have put him at a disadvantage. His dad is a homophobe, we accepted that a long time, and “puts up” with us when we have visited. He has taken advantage of M over the years by getting him to do so much for him, from purchase of laptops, phones, and much more to sorting out paperwork, policies etc., basically everything he could not do or could not be arsed doing/learning M did it for him. As mentioned, M’s brother lives a few minutes walk away, but does nothing, and M was guilted to do things. When lockdown started M bought loads of essentials from toilet paper to hand sanitiser, he bought lots and sent it over to his dad, to which he barely got thanks. M never complained and just went with the flow, so in answer to the question, he did nothing wrong. His family are dicks. If M was a back stabbing hater then he would have fit with them all and nothing would ever have been a problem. His siblings had a problem with him when he was young as he was good at school and ended up at the Grammar School, passed all his exams, and never go into trouble, unlike his siblings who were out petrol bombing, rioting and sleeping with everyone with a pulse, not to mention they were always out drinking.

Now M’s mum has been laid to rest he has decided that there is no reason to go back. I have to agree with him, and in all honesty, I never want to see any of his family again. Even if they all apologised to him and admitted they were wrong to treat him like that, I still would not go as I could not believe them.

Although a visit to them is off, I had been chatting to the priest via email and he has asked whenever we are next over there to let him know as he would love for us to go to dinner with him, which we will be happy to do. However, the visit will not be to see M’s family, it would be to visit his Mums grave and to have a holiday on the west coast with the dogs.

With that all, this is the end of that era. Time to move on and enjoy life without interference and hate.

I have no time…

… for fools and idiots. This last week has proved that to me, and I really cannot bear that people can be so shitty. The point, in fact, M’s sister (two-faced bitch) decided to start talking after her husband berated her about it, but only because of this. She has talked to me, and I have been bloody-minded and made conversation with her, forcing her into speaking to me. However, whenever M speaks to her, her first reaction is to say “what?”. She is partially deaf so she says and cannot hear people, but has no problem in understanding her husband or father, so I call bull shit on that one. Her words to M have been very few, and only when their father has been in the room. God forbid he sees the read her, not that he does not know what she is like as he fell out with her for a long time, saying he never wanted her at his funeral, and that under no circumstance does any of the family let her attend it when he dies. Now it is like nothing happened and they are so friendly it sickens me as once she goes back to LA he will have no good words about her.

M’s brother (town idiot) who lives spitting distance (3 minutes walk) away from his dad’s house where we are staying has not been seen, and the usual text excuse how he is so busy and the kids are playing up and “you know how it is” bull shit arrived within a day of us arriving. This happens every time we are here and never changes. Not that I am interested in him or his wife, quite frankly, their presence in this world offends me to the core. Many years ago they visited us in England and stayed at our home, only to start fighting with each other, and resulting in my pinning him by his throat to the wall telling him I will kick seven shades of shite out of him if he does not calm down and shut up. He realised that I meant every word and they both ended up crying in fear that I was about to go nuclear on him. He visited with M’s dad in 2017 and being an alcoholic showed his true colours again and could not go an hour without booze, which annoyed me, then he knocked over his beer on my new carpet and I could not stop my anger at him, calling him what he is and when he said he would clean it up I told him that he needed to go to bed now and get out of my way. Needless to say, he followed instructions and we did not see him until the next morning, where at 10am he opened a beer to sort him out. All in all, no love will ever be lost there.

Now, M’s dad is getting to see M’s mum every day and I am driving him to the home each day, but they still will not let M in to see his dying mother. M begged his dad to speak to the home manager as he only saw his mum 13 months ago and wanted to be able to say goodbye to her, as fitting a person who is at the end of their life. The bitch who runs the home keeps saying no, even though they have a letter saying that from Monday gone 2 visitors can see dying relatives for 40 minutes each day. She said that the letter was wrong, even though it is written by her and signed by her. So far M’s dad has done nothing what so ever, and gave the excuse that he did not want to rock the boat! What the actual fuck! All the other kids have seen her, so why is it different now? He is a spineless bastard and again I have no respect for him in not sorting this out. M is in pieces, and his dad who pays for the home is doing nothing, and stated he did not want anyone to “cause trouble”. He also said that he would not want them to take it out on his mum. Again, what that fuck? So by demanding that the immediate family see a dying woman as per end of life guidelines and regulations is going to “rock the boat”, more like “I am getting to see her and thats all that matters to me”.

All M’s nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews live around the corner too and only P and one of his daughters has made an effort to see M. Now, someone new to my blog may think “why can’t M go and see them?”, so to clear that up M is disabled and struggles walking, and if he needs the loo, none of them apart from his dad have a downstairs bathroom.

One thing that is pissing me off is that we have spent just over £300 on food and things for his dad and the others here in the house have spent about £15 collectively, and have been looking out for themselves. Now, we cannot and would not expect his dad to get groceries in for us all to eat, but it would have been nice if the rest of the house bought goods rather than eating their way through whatever they can morning noon and night. We bought his dad a new kettle as the old one was just that, old, and needed to be binned, go knows if it was safe, and M’s sister when she saw it, questioned why. We bought cleaning stuff too as the house isn’t clean at all, and god forbid that his sister cleaned anything, so M and I have cleaned everything, including the dog. The rest of the house has sat on their arses and done nothing, apart from making a mess and use the washing machine a million times a day for their own clothes. It is exasperating, to say the least. This trip has cost us just under £1,000 and has not been at all beneficial in any way, however, if M got to say goodbye to his mum, then it would have been worth it, and more.

So, homeward bound we are on Friday, and I am looking forward to seeing the dogs. I have had Jack as a distraction, who is lying at my feet as I type, and has become quite a fixture at my side, and I will miss him, but as for the rest of it, I will file it in the waste bin in my head.

One thing I wanted to do whilst I was here was read, and that has not really happened apart from a few pages of James McBride’s “Deacon King Kong” which is a great book, and I insist that all of you read it. It is part of Oprah’s Book Club and is quite funny and odd all at the same time. The reason why I have found it hard to read whilst being here is that people here are very loud, and I mean fog horn loud. No one knows how to speak in a normal tone and volume, everything seems to be shouted. M is the only one from here that is quiet. I ended up sitting in the back yard reading this afternoon, well trying, only to hear his sister chat crap loudly about her life in LA and then bash about in the kitchen sink with a cup and of course, put the washer on a spin with towels so it bounced about for another 15 minutes, all in all spoiling the peace and quiet I so longed for. Even the TV when it is on is at ear-splitting levels.

Deacon King Kong, by James McBride

So, that is it so far, expensive, loud, annoying, and frustrating!

Northern Ireland Visit

We are here again, but not on a pleasure trip. M’s mum is very ill, and it looks like she is at the end of her life. The nursing home had in the acute care team to see her and treat her, but in reality, this team is usually the end of life care team, just different words to describe them. It turns out that his mum has had a cardiac event in the past week or so, undetected by the home, water on the brain, and on top of her increased dementia and lack of eating or drinking for the past two weeks, it is only time before he will have to say goodbye to her.

One of the many problems is the home and their constant changing of the rules with regards to M, his siblings and his dad have been told they cannot see her, yet his sister could see her the other week, although through a window and having to sue PPE, which was ridiculous as the window was not open and the head said she could look through the window for 5 minutes and had a stopwatch going and after 5 minutes told her to go. This week his dad and brother were able to go into the home and sit with her for an hour. Next day, no one was allowed to go in, followed by the following day (yesterday) his dad was told he could see her for half an hour, but no one else can, and the same today, with the explicit instructions that he as to call first to arrange an appointment. M spoke to the head and was told that although he has only come from England and is within the safe-zone for travel she would not allow him to visit with his dad so he could say his goodbyes to her as she could go anytime. She knows we are staying with his dad, have had COVID-19 test and are clear, and his dad is part of our “bubble”, but no, she will not let him. I think this is really bad behaviour from the home. His brother is a painter and decorator and is in lots of peoples homes and was able to go in and see her, but M, who has not been out much at all cannot. His sister has come from LA and is also not allowed to see her, and they have both been told, not even through the window.

The woman is at the end of her life and the home have been given morphine and other things from the acute team to help her in her last days, but again, they said no, knowing that she could pass away any moment. There has not been any COVID-19 in the home or anywhere close, everyone here is clear but she keeps coming up with more excuses. The home has said things about the situation that we have checked with government guidelines and have found that they are wrong, but, due to what’s going on we have to tread carefully as they will stop all contact and that will be the end of that. It is criminal really that they are making it up as they go along.

Every one of us is sitting here waiting to find out what’s going on, but the home is keeping quiet and bullshitting us all. It has been suggested that her cardiac events that were not noted by the home could be considered negligence as they know her history as she has had three heart attacks prior to being there, also adding on to the fact they had not done anything about her not eating or drinking for close to a week.

This is Jack, he is M’s dad’s dog, a Roan Blue Cocker Spaniel. He is 7 months old and has become my shadow as I am constantly playing with him and his toys. His is very placid and playful but is mouthing quite a lot and when excited he clamps down quite hard, but all in all, he is adorable, and I would like to bring him home with us.

M and his sister do not get on, long story, and not for here as it is not my story to tell. Yesterday when we arrived M’s dad seemed happy to see us, but the sister decided to completely ignore us both and the atmosphere was terrible, so much so I was looking for an open hotel to book us into as I was not going to stay here. His dad seemed to be struggling with it all and thought it would all be okay, however, last night we heard her husband berating her, and to our surprise, this morning started talking to us, firstly by saying good morning to me, then a short conversation about getting stuff from the bakery to talking to M and having normal conversations. M’s dad seems a bit more settled now, which is the most important thing as this is his home.

Family hey!

I have written about my paternal side of the family in the past and the fact that they are distant due to my father and his lies.

For those who do not know, my father was having an affair from when I was a baby and continued for 15 years until my Mum filed for divorce. The man was a bully and outright shit! When Mum divorced him he told all his family not contact us and then told them that we had moved to another town and he had no idea where we all went. My Mum still lives in the same house and has done for close to 50 years. This was his way of abandoning his kids and becoming a father to her kids. That’s the long story short.

So, one of my cousins C contacted me and asked if we fancied meeting up, which I did, and we met up quite a few times with her sister and M too. I took them all out for lunch a few times too and we got to know each other all over again. However, September last year C and her husband were having a party as it was their 25th wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, we were in Ireland visiting M’s parents and could not make it. I let her know, and she said it was a shame, and that was that. A few weeks after she sent me some photos of the party, which looked sombre, to be honest, and I replied with “looks like you had a great time” and other platitudes whilst she told me how great it was.

After not hearing from her I decided to message her to see how everyone was and was told: “K and I have taken retirement, nice to hear from you, take care.” Well, that was short and sweet. M and I took it that her reply was a polite way of saying “fuck off I’m not interested”. Her attitude surprised me as she was the one who contacted me and wanted a social life with us. However, I would guess that our absence from her party is the crucks of her problem and she decided to spit out her dummy/take her ball home as we say. I even asked my friend who I work for what she thought and she agreed that it was exactly that, and maybe because we were not fawning about her then she was not interested. Obviously, not having contact with me for close to 40 years she would not know that I do not and never have fawned over anyone. It is not my style and neither is it M’s. We are sociable, but not to the point of a lot of people who do not seem to be able to function without others being around them. I find that type of life stifling. When I was young I was a social butterfly, but being old now, I have settled down. Again, we enjoy the company of others, but do not feel the need to be in the company of others all the time. Maybe we are the odd couple, but I know lots of people who are like us, as some who do not socialise at all.

I wonder how many readers are social butterflies or like us, happy to socialise, but it is not the be-all and end-all.