Sta.sh
I figured that since I haven't made up any new years resolutions yet, I might as well talk a little about how this year was for myself and for those of my family/friendships. I'd like to say that everything was all hunky dory and the good times never stopped, but the honest truth is that the good times rarely ever visited, and bad luck seemed our lot for the majority of 2011.
In the early months of the year, my mother's car was both hit by another motorist and then broken into within the span of a month. Later, in late August, a vehicle tore around the corner of the street we were living on then and side-swiped her vehicle, which was parked at the time. The culprits haven't been caught, but someone saw another car chasing them before taking a split, so we're assuming that it was a drug deal gone bad and we were the one's left the victim to it. Over-all this entire year, my mother's jeep was in the shop for at least a month in total, and she's yet to be able to get it in for that last hit-and-run.
My nephews Connor and Cayden had their birthdays, turning two and one respectively. I was happy to get the chance to be Cayden's babysitter from January until early September, during which time my sister found out she was pregnant and went back to work until taking maternity leave again. Thinking back on it, I should have saved a lot of that money that I was being paid to babysit, but I suppose that it's just a lesson to learn from and use in the future. Regardless, I have a very close relationship with Cayden now and feel obliged to say that alongside Connor, he is my favourite nephew. x]
Since last summer, my grandfather had been suffering from memory loss and a variety of other ailments. Unfortunately due to a long waiting list, he was unable to get into a specialist until May of this year. There were tests taken, and it was discovered that he had prostate cancer. He underwent surgery to remove the tumors and 'sew everything up,' as I'll gentle say. My grandmother, father and aunt decided that that moment would also be a good time to speak up about his additional memory loss; during an exam, the doctors discovered that he had a tumor in his brain, and the cancer from his colon had grown back, this time in his lungs. Apparently the regrowth in a different area is common with that type of surgery, but we had not even known that he had had a brain tumor.
During my grandfather's stay in the hospital, I learned that a very dear friend of mine - the mother of one of my childhood best friends - had died on May 31st. Reading her obituary, I was heartbroken to learn that it was something to do with her heart. She was only 52. A month later, my grandfather fell into a coma from which he would never wake up. He died on July 31st and was cremated.
Heavy in heart as we were, the majority of my family made the trip to Kelowna in early August to attend my only brother's wedding. Said brother had offered to buy my grandmother a plane ticket to attend after we learned that our grandfather had passed, but she declined saying that she needed to just be at home while our grandfather was being cremated. That said, we were all sad that neither our grandfather or our grandmother could attend the wedding, but it was an absolutely beautiful event none the less. The day cranked up to a boiling 43 degrees celcius, and the wedding was held at Summerhill Pyramid and Vineyard, overlooking said vineyard and the local lake. My brother broke down a bit during his reception speech, but otherwise it was a very joyous and wonderful event. My brother's wife looked amazing in her dress, and my brother was handsome in his pale sand coloured suit.
When we returned from Kelowna, we attended our grandfather's memorial service. There was a lot of tension in our immediate family because our eldest sister - the proverbial black sheep of the family - had sought to bring her bitch of a mother-in-law (not really, she isn't even married) who tried starting things up with my mother by telling her we were all raised poorly. In addition to this, my eldest sister also made an absolutely bull-shit speech which was virtually seen as said bullshit by we in the immediate family after she made certain allegations about our grandfather last November. I admit that during the entire speech, I wanted to punch her in her fucking mouth.
Shortly after that, the power at my house was cut off. The money to pay that bill had gone towards our Kelowna trip, and so we lived in pretty evident poverty and misery (hey, don't blame me - there was no tv, radio or anything! utter silence!) for almost a month. I was so fucking glad to get it back on, you can't even know. A brief time after this (on September 18th), my second niece - Teegan - was born. She looks so much like Cayden did when he was a baby, it's amazing.
Things have taken a decent turn this last month. We have had our heat/gas turned back on after it had been shut off since late April, and we've moved to a house that better suits our need. Admittedly, the entire family is suffering financial crisis' of one level or another - mostly in silence- but general speaking, every day we're still alive is a good day. My grandmother has been having a rough time dealing with being alone for the first time in 52 years and is considering moving to a senior apartment complex, but we're doing our best to lend her a shoulder to lean on.
I myself haven't been able to find a job yet and as such have only $1.70 to my name. It's been a difficult year emotionally speaking; there have been moments when I contemplated and even attempted suicide, but a few good friends really pulled me up out of that dark hole and I haven't had such thoughts in months.
2011 has been a very rough year for my family and I, but here's to hoping that 2012 will be better!
- iD
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