Family Portrait 1

In my family, it seems everyone is a victim. Very few of them choose to take responsibility and fix their lives. My aunt claudette is my mother's oldest sibling. She rented, yes RENTED, a house for 30 years or so. She could have bought that house 3 times for the amount of rent she paid, where it was and the condition it was in. What made her move out was that the floor caved in in part of the house because the landlord didn't take care of it. Then she moved in with her mother who lived around the corner. She was an RN, she could have made good money if she chose to get a better job than the one she had. After not speaking to my mom for 3 years or so, she called her up and asked to borrow $10,000 to hire a lawyer to sue her employer for some ridiculous reason. My mother said she'd loan her the money provided she received a notarized statement from the lawyer stating that they'd win the case. Needless to say, she never called my mom again. Her daughter, Amy, hates her for beating her as a child. She doesn't speak to her. My mother encouraged Amy to go to college. I know she graduated from Stony Brook for something to do with math, it was a hard major. I know she has two biracial children, one is 10 and the other is probably 3 or 4 by now. The last time I saw the older one he was 4 and I've never seen the youngest. She tried to get in touch with my mom by inviting her to her youngest's baby shower, but she never tried to get in touch with us before or after that. She wanted to stay out of trouble when things went wrong in the family, and yet she never found a reason to simply call us during the problems simply to say she loves us and still wants contact. Claudette was abused by Amy's father and because of that and being abused by her father she felt it was fine to beat the shit out of Amy when she was little. Amy was a bright little girl with a future and Claudette attempted to beat it out of her. She wanted Amy to stay with her and when Amy started packing to go live at Stony Brook, Claudette kept trying to push her down. My mother was always there for Amy for anything and told her she could live with us if she needed to but she needed to get out of that house. She needed to do anything and everything she could to go to college and make something of herself. Not to depend on a man and to do it alone. She even took Amy with us on a disney vacation. She paid for Amy to get down there and get into the parks. Amy just had to feed herself and bringing any other spending cash she needed. All my mom wanted was for her to succeed.