St. Patricks Day!!!!!

Today is my favorite day of the YEAR!!!
I am mostly Irish, and all crazy!
My Grandmother, may the old bat rest in peace, (she and I have regular conversations)
this was one of the few days of the year she was sober. why? to cook the boiled dinner.
My grandmother Irate Irene (as my father called he and she called him chicken legs, when he was in fatigues from the air force looked like he had chicken legs, My father is tall and very thin as I suppose is my brothers, I wouldn't know as it has been years since I have seen any of them and just a few since I stopped talking to all of them. hey if the were going to be my family they would have been from the start. they aren't going to change, and I have no more energy to put towards a black hole. *it is what it is*, that is the way it has always been, and I deserve better, so I have better and no contact, it still hurts sometimes but all I have to do is remember some of my conversations, and *WHAM!* I am fine with my decision)
Grandmother, knew that she was going to die and about when, see she had given up, she starved to death, took her 3 months at a post op weight of 100lbs, and went screaming, whether or not it was a warning scream that she was coming or she didn't like what she saw, is kept with her.
I was very angry with her for along time. they said if she had chose to fight she will still be alive, and still have 20 years, (we live that long, My grandmother called us the cockroach of the Irish) My mother who will be 66 this October, has had Cancer 3 times, and is still kicking and she is 10 years out from the last one, Breast cancer!)
I would explain why I am still alive with all of my issues.
So Irate Irene spent most of her life drunk, and if you met my family you would understand.
she was the best one and still fruit toot loopy!
she would get sober and get out her cooking pot, Huge thing you could put her in it except for her tits. When my mother had her quad mastectomy (they took 1/4th of the Right breast, her tits finally matched at 12lbs each) I am a J cup myself.
So she would get out the pot, and get the brisket, and 4 to 5 heads of cabbage, potato's, carrots, celery, onions, and any turnips, parsnips, and rutabagas, that she could get her hands on. all went into the pot. the she would find huge whole beets. and she would take the tops off and put it in a pan, and steam the whole beet, then she would peel each one and with some salt and pepper, and butter. then the boiled dinner with horseradish, and some of her fresh bread we would make ourselves sick, worse than any Thanksgiving.
it was the last meal she cooked me before she told me on March 17th 1994, when she told me that she was dying and that it was probably cancer, (it was) and that she wanted me out of her life, she cut me off, she told me that she wanted me to remember her the way she was, and not sick and dying.
part of me died that day, the rest on that day in November in 1994, when she took her last breath, screamed her brains out, and died.
From there I went to hell myself.

My grand mother let me see her on a cold day in the beginning of October, she relented, or it was the morphine, she was on a drip, and in diapers and painfully thin, and old and mostly gone. she told me with tears in her eyes that she loved me and that I had to go.
that was the last time I saw her in that body.
I loved her, more than anyone. up until J. she was the love of my life. I don't even love my mother the way i loved her.
She did the best she could to protect me from the rest of the family, if I was crocheting with grand mother then I didn't have to nap with Grandpa!
that rotten bastard molested any kid he could get a hold of.
he was the first man to hurt me.
Grand mother was the one who took care of me after and threatened to kill him if he ever did that again. after that it was minimal, but still enough to want to be as far as humanly possible from that bastard.
She would cry and I would hold her. I would cry and she would hold me.
She taught me how to cook. she taught me how to do all of the arts and crafts that I do. she instilled in me patience for tedious repetitive work.
She was human, and as fucked up as the rest of them.
When I grew up she and I were going to live together, away from the family, and she was going to own a pot belly pig, she loved pigs. and purple cows. and Jack-a-lopes. she loved the fairies that lived in her garden and talked with people that no one else could see.
She and I are very much alike. and very different.
I am breaking the cycle that she was caught in.
she grew up in a different time with different rules.
and the things that her and my grandpa did to there children, and other children, and the children's children, were done to them. they learned these horrible things from generations of there families, My family. My people.
As a result I am the person I am today.
What they all did was wrong. I accept that that was the way it was, and it happened.
I DO NOT APPROVE!
AND, I am not continuing the patterns, the cycle.
I am in therapy, I am working very hard on all of me. I am loved. I love myself.
I have put my gun down. I couldn't understand what that meant when someone told me that.
I was in group today, and we are learning about distress skills.
*radical acceptance* complete acceptance, that is what that means to me.
As I am complete in my acceptance, My life is becoming complete.
Everyone is so amazed at how much better I sound, how much calmer I am.
I am not, I have been here doing the work.
I am nowhere near where I need to be, I do not have it all figured out, I may never.
I am where I need to be now.
I have to be where I am to get where I am going.
it is okay. I am okay. that I can and will enough for now,
Not for tomorrow. But I am still in today.
So here is to my favorite day of the year and to My Grandmother.
I understand now. I don't like it. but I understand.
I miss you more than words can say, and I love you.
Thanks for reading.