the extended family

i have a cousin who lives in california with his wife and one kid now i think. kim and i sent them a wedding announcement and i'm pretty sure we got no response from them. the first two years of our marriage we sent them christmas cards and such, but still no acknowledging our existence. i'm not sure what their deal is and i haven't seen them in about twelve years. so i'm done with them.

i have a cousin who lives in arizona who i care about and miss very much. supposedly she didn't get us a wedding present or acknowledge kim and i getting married because she already did that once for patti and i. if true, i think that was kind of rude and i haven't seen her or her daughter in about six years. however, they do send us a christmas card each year so they are doing a little better than the other ones.

my cousin's parents (my mom's sister) also lives in arizona. i also miss and love them very much. they were kind enough to send kim and i a lovely present and i continue to get christmas cards and weekly emails from my uncle with such topics as anti-immigration, anti-muslim, anti-liberal, pro-war, pro-bush, and many facts and stories that were made up five years ago and continue to circulate inboxes. i haven't seen them in about nine years.

my grandpa lives in southern california and i miss him the most. sadly, the next time i will probably see him is when he dies and i hopefully go to the funeral. i hope that's not the case though. the fond memories i have of him are some of the best memories floating around my head.

my dad lives in southern cal too. we only started talking about four of five years ago and our relationship today consists of an annual e-card for my birthday which is always some variation of a leprechaun dancing and/or singing some irish jig. otherwise we don't say much. we are at a point in our lives that we don't really need each other. why would i need a dad right now? and to be honest, i'm not sure if he cares too much about having a son either. i went most of my life without a dad, unless you count that faggot bitch ass who tried to raise me. to me, allen isn't my dad, but more like another distant friend of mine, which is not a bad thing. i'm very happy to have him as a friend. i haven't seen him in twenty years. and that's everyone. i come from a small family. there are others i suppose, but i hardly remember anyone now and i'm sure it's the same for them. somehow we ended up being the black sheep of the family, so we don't always stay in touch as much as we'd probably all like. and actually, it is not "somehow" we ended up like this. i know exactly why, but why point fingers? i used to have another set of grandparents on the sanchez side of the family, but now that greg is dead to me (i've always wanted to have someone dead to me), i guess they aren't family anymore. i never felt like i really fit in with them anyways. but they were a sweet family with a rotten asshole of a son (gregory sanchez jr., yes, you are the biggest asshole of all time). i can't remember anyone from my dad's side except for maybe an uncle paul. but even then all i can remember is a blurry snapshot of him that i'm sure is completely not what he looked like. i've been told of a grandpa chambers and i actually spoke to him a few years back when I (notice the capitalization) was tracking down my dad. it was a three minute convo and that was it. why do i have to do all the work by the way? why do i have to be the one to write my dad every now and then to see how he is doing? aside from the yearly irish jig, he's shown zero interest in me. and i haven't been the best either, but i really thought i tried to start a relationship between us. it's too bad. will i ever see him? will he ever get to meet his daughter-in-law? who knows. i sound like i'm being hard on him. i don't blame him though. shit that i don't fully understand happened a long time ago and we are all different people today.