Blood

The Gestapo have been complaining that I don't keep in touch with them. Even if I do happen to call, I keep it short, say 'yes' a lot and hang up for the next 2-3 weeks.

They're good people, my grandparents. Strong, self-reliant individuals who live principled lives. I've lived with them off and on for the first twenty years of my life, and amidst all the angst, the blame, the comparision, I stand firm in my recognition of their virtues.

They're just not good for me.
My relationship with them is volatile and precariously love-hate. My grandfather is a marvellous photographer. Their home is littered with photographs of me as a kiddie. He is a keen traveller, an upright man who once kicked a chair in the CM's face and quit his position as Commissioner of Police to maintain his integrity.
On the other hand, he is pompous and material-minded and refuses to accept that his granddaughter has taken up English Literature, and intends to study it forever.
My grandmum is the world's best cook. She is practical, makes her home beautiful and is wonderful at remembering things about people. Ask her the date of the wedding anniversary of her third cousin's wife's brother's daughter, she'll know it. She's also one of the most well-dressed women I know.
She is however insensitive, petty and a terrible nag.

What do I remember? That he has preserved the tapes that he made of me reading aloud and singing as a three year old, or that he will always make me feel like a disappointment because I won't be an M.B.A.
Will I dwell on how she always remembers that I like the leg of the chicken and lots of aloo in my gravy, or that she made me cry every day for four years?
They want a granddaughter they can brag about. All grandparents do, I suppose. And like all grandparents, there was a time when I was a bright star for them. I did things they never expected. I'm sure they were shocked, disappointed and hyper-worried. They decided to practise tough-love. By making sure that they reminded me every minute that I had failed their ideal of a granddaughter. We spent four years in the same flat...they, certain they were doing the best they could, I baffled, miserable. We were all trapped. They, forced to look after a 16 year old granddaughter they could not understand, who was no longer their bright little star. I, having nowhere else to go, being made to feel smaller all the time, not understanding how people who professed to love me were kicking me the hardest when I was down.
So we spent four years unable to reach each other in any way. Four years of red, screaming pain for me, which they never saw. Nor anyone else. And for them, it was very difficult. They were old, had just gotten back a flat they had been fighting for in court for 16 years. They really weren't equipped to handle the person I was then. I had just flunked a year of school, Mum had just moved to Spain and my maternal grandparents hadn't really wanted to keep me. I was raw, needy and determined not to let anything get me down.
And this determination irked them the most. How could I still smile and want to go out with friends! Why was I not ashamed! They were.
Maybe I should have told them that it wasn't bravado or carelessness. That I have a backbone that is used to blows and isn't used to bending. Had we tried to switch roles, maybe it wouldn't have been so bad. But we didn't. And now, they try to reach out in their way, and where I once would have humoured them and heard them out of sincere affection...I find my flesh shrinking at the thought of it. I am ruthless and I do not forgive. Rather than hold grudges, I simply cut people off.
I know I will be there for them if they every need to be looked after. They let me stay when others wouldn't. They've done a lot more besides.
But to give them a place in my life, or to make one for myself in theirs is not something I choose to do.
Blood is a weak link in my relationships. My family are those who are important to me, and a lot of them have no blood-tie with me. Therefore I will not have automatic affection for people 'because, after all they're family.' I rarely humour people, I either love them or I don't.
My grandparents will have my duty-bound self, I'll remember the DVD my grandfather wants and pick it up for him if I see it, I'll never, ever talk them down to other people...in short I'll do unto them all the duty they did unto me....and no more.