Every year, for the past twenty years or so, I have employed my meagre abilities and customized Christmas cards
for friends and family.
The family part of the equation, has slowly dwindled to nothing and I cut the final tie, quite deliberately, this year.
There comes a time, when one has to acknowledge, that the relationship one wishes for with someone, is never going to be the way you would like it to be and my cousin, finally went one step too far, in her push for family mementos and papers.
It has been a sad tale of attrition, with my contacts to my extended family, slowly eroding away as their complete lack of interest in me and my life, became apparent.
Way back, around the year 2000, in an effort, begun by my mother, to ensure that the family history, photographs and documentation, I digitized all the family stuff that I had and burned those files to a batch of CDs.
Then, I posted one of those data CDs, to every cousin for whom I had a contact address... and not ONE of them ever wrote back to thank me for it!
I should have taken the hint but I didn't and I persevered at trying to remain in tenuous contact, usually through the Christmas cards.
Unfortunately, while I would struggle, to write a brief note on my cards, giving some details about my life in the preceding year, none of the family members, who sent a card back to me,
ever bothered to do do more than scrawl a signature on theirs.
It has been 28 years since my mother died and 22 years since my father died. That is how long it has taken for it to finally sink in, that none of the people who are related to me,
give a shit about me.
What that means, unfortunately, is that all of the old photographs, documents, mementos and jewellery,
will become part of a landfill here in Ontario, Canada,
when I finally die.
And all because of an amazing lack of interest, on the part of my cousins and their spawn.
On that note, let me wish anyone reading this, all the very best for this Christmas Day and for the coming year.
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