Sad news, but why don't I feel sad?

***Warning, Not a positive post***

Yesterday my younger brother called to let me know that our maternal grandmother had passed away the night before, that he had just gotten a text from the older brother I have estranged myself from.

I was bothered on many levels about the phone, none of which had to do with my younger brother Ben, or the phone call in and of itself... But My older brother is"sorry for not being there for us", again. He is now 44 or 45 and I still don't believe it. His pleas for family fall on deaf ears. I try not to feel bitter and resentful of his "alleged" neediness... but memories of my co-existance with him as a child and memories of how as adults he was too busy to talk and had to go just minutes after calling him because "his pizza had arrived" or he " was shopping for car insurance"... and this after not speaking to each other for almost 8 months to a year.

Time and time again he refuses to hear Ben's and my valid complaints about our mother, and he cares little enough to retain the reasons that we have explained to him (repeatedly) why we both need to rid ourselves of her insanity, mental and physical abuse and codependent mess. He asks all the tough questions but then ends the call abruptly, while Ben and I sit there shaking, near gastro-intestinal distress from having to recant it all. AGAIN.

To make matters worse, I feel nothing but a slight sadness in my grandmother's passing. I felt bothered by this last night, and as I sit here trembling over my realization this morning... shame taints my day today. I do not feel sorry that this woman passed. The woman who heard her daughters speak of abuse by their father, her husband while she turned a blind eye. Chances are that my mother would have had problems anyway because of the way my grandmother raised her... But her denials definitely contributed to the monster my mother is today.

What I have not divulged on this blog is that I can remember My grandfather watching me and a foster child they had taken in play "doctor". This woman, who had ignored pleas from her own daughters... left her innocent grandchild alone with this man, and had taken in foster children knowing his predilections.

And my mother was either helpless as to where my older brother and I stayed or was too far gone to care in a mental institution that my grandparents and birth father had had her committed to.

I don't know why he (my grandfather) never followed through, and I thank God every day that he did not... but I still wake at night screaming because in my dreams I see him standing in my bedroom doorway... I see the evil intent and filth in his eyes, and it haunts me still to this day.

So, as I felt no sorrow for his passing 2 or 3 yrs ago... I feel nothing for her as well. I don't have many warm fond memories of my grandparents as most people do, I can only remember being punished for talking to my foster sister after bedtime by being locked outside in the back yard for 3 hours after dark for not going to sleep...being beaten by my grandmother with a slipper for spilling god knows what... and night terrors of my grandfather to this day.

On a positive note, though I never have been a perfect parent... I thank God for giving me children after 11 years of infertility, for giving me a chance to prove that my gene pool is not beyond repair, for giving this family line another chance.

And now , even though this pregnancy has started off as a rough one, I thank Him for blessing us again.