i'm in new york!

i've been here since wednesday night, which is why i haven't been able to get to the blog until now. it's been a little rough up here. between the transit strike (which for a sista with two broke toes ain't a good thing) and trying to get around with no car, it has been chaotic.

so now i'm here at my granny's house in brooklyn. we played cards into the wee hours on thursday night. yesterday we just hung out until my uncle came home from the hospital. he's got terminal cancer and his presence here has been disruptive. he has been extremely mean to my granny and it has taken everything in me to not cuss the muthafucka out. i know brotha is dying and i know he's pissed off about it, but the way he treats her is just like he treated her when he was well. he never showed her the love and respect she deserves, always putting his girlfriends and/or wives ahead of her, allowing those women to treat her any kind of way.

my granny is in her fucking EIGHTIES. she has proven to be the epitome of feminine strength. in 1969, her sister died of leukemia. on the way to the funeral, her husband and son were in a car accident that put the husband in a coma. he died six days later. the son, distraught because he was the one driving when the accident occurred, fell into a pit of despair and ultimately became addicted to drugs. my granny would find him dead in her basement two years later. four years after that, my father (another of her sons) was killed in an auto accident. she was left with two sons and a daughter.

and now she's about to bury one more.

despite everything, she has remained true to her faith and has been devoted to her children despite how they act. it has always frustrated me because i would witness the treatment as a child and could do little to prevent or stop it. now that i'm an adult, witnessing my uncle's behavior towards my granny has become fucking INTOLERABLE. the only way i can make the situation better is by taking over his care so she doesn't have to deal with him at all. meanwhile, when we leave, what's gonna happen to her?

you know, i'm trying to be patient here. frankly, i'm not close to my uncle. he has never been mean to me but his treatment of other folk made me not want to get close to him. he's really not all that great of a person. meanwhile, i wonder what i'm supposed to do. he has done alot of dirt in his life. he's left many women to raise his kids alone. he's mistreated his relatives. he's murdered a man (i'll tell that story sometime in the future). in other words, cat has done alot that would justify folk just leaving him to die alone. meanwhile, i know nobody's perfect. i would hope that despite the things i've done in my life that ultimately folk will love me enough to take care of me if i ever need it.

so despite all of the fucked up things this muthafucka has done, i have to find a way to forget it all as i deal with him now. however, i fucking refuse to let him treat my granny any ole kind of way. let a brotha keep trippin. i don't give a shit if he's got cancer, he's gonna be getting cussed out.