Thursday, March 3, 2011

Helping Out Family, It's My Reponsibility

I recently posted about my responsibilities here in Chicago. One of those responsibilities is doing things for my family.  The post was a rant about being expected to go grocery shopping for my grandmother. I vented and accepted my fate of having to grocery shop with my mother.

I agreed to wake up early Saturday morning to go shopping.Well, that is not what happened. My mother went to my grandmother's house the night before to take care of the paperwork for her taxes that need to be filed soon. She told her that she would be back in the morning for her grocery list. My father was there as a witness to this very clear statement that was said at least twice.


But when my mother called my grandmother in the morning, she was told my mother didn't feel like getting up and giving us a grocery list. Also, it was snowing and she didn't want us to have to drive all the way over there and then do the shopping and then have to be back over there. Plus, my mother should have been thinking and gotten the list Friday night.


Well, that is complete craziness for a number of reasons. First, when my mother mentioned needing the grocery list on Friday evening, my grandmother told her it wasn't ready yet and she would have it by Saturday morning. Second, we always have to drive over there to do anything. That's what happens when people live 20-25 minutes away from each other. Travelling is built into the equation. Third, The snow that is falling are the light fluffy pretty snowflakes that small children dream make their way to the ground on Christmas morning. Seriously, there's about 1/2 cm of snow on the ground.


The only legitimate part of what my grandmother said is that she doesn't feel well. The waning energy is something she struggles with, especially recently. She has a much less active lifestyle than she used to. Also, her diet doesn't provide her with energy-rich foods. And her sleep cycle has been all crazy since she retired. So it's a vicious downward cycle/spiral that makes it difficult for her to summon energy and rally when she doesn't feel well.


I really do care about my crazy Grandmother. I want her to be taken care of. But it sucks when her being taken care of feels like warfare on my sense of logic and my desire to be on my own schedule. I figured I'd have to do some random shopping for her this week, and that's exactly what happened. My father as I were at Jewel Tuesday night searching for something I'd never heard of before. And neither had the manager at Jewel. But at least I went looking for her. And while we were there, we did some shopping for the house while we were there.

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