My partner Nick’s grandmother had been sick for some time. The family had been taking turns to visit and look after her. She was staying in a respite home for a while, but she didn’t think she “belonged there with all the sick and poor people who have no families to go to and end up in a home like this.”
At first I was able to handle the occasional visits and caring for her needs. However, after a year of it, it began to take a toll on me and also my relationship with Nick.
Every time we visited her she would complain non-stop, moan about wanting to die and never be happy with the family’s attempts to make her happy. Nick called me cold-hearted and inconsiderate on many occasions because my patience was wearing thin.
I never intended to be inconsiderate, but it was just so hard for me to see his grandmother complain and throw all the help she was getting in their face. My own grandmother, who lived overseas, was chronically ill at the time also and I would have given anything to see her and care for her. And I knew that whatever help she was given she would have been grateful for. So, I suppose this added to my frustrations of his grandmother getting attention form her whole family and still she had some issue to complain about.
So, on the day when Nick informed me that the family had decided on a long-term plan for their grandmother — involving her staying with Nick and I the guest room of our new house — I was livid to say the least. It was suggested by the family and Nick didn’t think I would mind. Of course, I would have had no qualms had his grandmother actually appreciated the idea. But no, she didn’t.
I expressed my concerns with Nick and he assured me it would all work out. The next day we visited her and, sure enough, she was already complaining about the idea. The list of issues unravelled and, according to her, the self contained room was too small, the suburb we lived in wasn’t the safest, she didn’t want to be left alone in her little room with nothing to do and, finally, she felt guilty for taking up our spare room and compromising our social life once she moved in.
It took a lot of strength for me not to lose my cool. Unless Nick and I increased the size of her room, came up with daily fun-filled activities for her, I quit my job to look after her full-time and then constantly assured her that looking after her was a dream come true, she was not going to quit her whining.
I had had it. I couldn’t bear to live with such an ingrate. I knew she was not at her best health, but I considered her lucky. She could still walk, breathe, eat and do a lot of things independently. And her family was there to support her. She should have been grateful.
So, left with no other choice, I came up with an idea that would surely throw a spanner in the works. I came home early the next day after work and began my plan.
Firstly, I knocked over a couple of my pot plants out the front of my house to make it look like reckless kids had attacked us. Of course, I knew I had to do more than destroy a couple pots of my lavender, so I went out the back and pushed over one of my huge vases that Nick’s grandma gave us as a housewarming gift. I smashed it all over the porch.
Then I grabbed a screwdriver from the shed and tried to jimmy inside a window and left a few noticeable marks on the screen. I didn’t want to damage my beautiful house, but I was desperate. Next, I armed myself with a can of spray paint and wrote some graffiti obscenities on our brick wall. This was conveniently getting rendered and painted on the weekend so I didn’t care about the damage there.
Finally, I grabbed a rock and smashed the window of the room that was to be our grandmother’s. Then, I went inside and tried to make it look like a robber had fumbled around the house for valuables.
I called Nick and ranted over the phone that I think we were robbed and the house vandalised. Nick came home quickly and assessed the damage. We checked the house and confirmed nothing was taken.
“Obviously just a couple of young kids doing an amateur number on our house,” I told him.
This wasn’t uncommon in our neighbourhood, so Nick believed it. We didn’t bother calling the cops but I made sure of it that we called his family.
As predicted, his hypochondriac grandmother went into a state of panic. We both tried to assure her that our new security system was going to be installed shortly to prevent this in the future. But she wasn’t happy with that idea. What a surprise!
She wanted to live somewhere where a person would be home with her 24/7 to ensure she was safe and look after her. I told her that as much as we wanted this, it was not possible. Needless to say, her accommodation plan changed.
Nick’s grandmother now lives with his sister. His sister works part-time and looks after his grandmother three days a week. And Nick’s mother, who is retired, looks after her the other four days.
I do feel bad about the lengths I resorted to, to ensure she would not live with us. And also, I feel sorry for Nick’s sister — she is a very nice person and doesn’t deserve to be put through such torture. But, the way I see it, it’s her grandmother, not mine. If my grandmother was that ungrateful, I would have said something a long time ago. I respect my elders but I don’t appreciate people walking all over me or my loved ones — no matter who they are.
Picture: Getty Images. Posed by model.
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