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I've decided not to send any Christmas cards to relatives this year. I mean, I really only have four or so, extended family members that I even know. Two on my mother's side - aunts. One of whom, I see occassionally, but don't have an independent relationship with, outside of my mother. The other, I just met about 8 years ago for the first time. She's almost 80, and getting pretty damn senile.

On my late father's side, there are my aunt and uncle - one lives in Idaho and the other Utah. After my father's death, we communicated for a while. Cards and letters at the holidays. It's probably just my own paranoia or maybe a twinge of guilt, but I think they've had time to develop an opinion about me, and how I didn't visit my father in the hospital - at all - before he died. I think they've decided that wasn't very "daughterly". Nah. They both knew him too. Their lives are probably full of drama and I'm way down on their list of people to wonder about. (My uncle's wife had this really weird brain tumor, which turned out to be benign, but after the surgery, she didn't know him at all. She went back to living at home with him, but didn't remember him, or their 30 plus years of marriage - and didn't particularly like him either). My aunt's son, my cousin - got some girl pregnant, and in a dramatic turn of events - sought and won custody of the baby. Of course, since he was only a child himself, the grandparents - my aunt and uncle - adopted and are raising their son's child. See. It's not all about me - AGAIN!

December 21, 2002