MY SISTER is a most generous woman.
My niece has two cats.
Keeping cats is expensive.
Often, love is in the tone, not in the words.
***
The other day, my niece called me.
She was crying. Nonverbal.
For a good three minutes, I was worried.
***
Are you OK?
What’s going on?
Where are you?
I’m getting worried!
***
No words. Just heaving and crying.
Let’s do this again:
Are you in a safe place?
Are you hurt?
Is someone trying to hurt you?
***
It turns out, my niece is in her room.
She’s 21.
But she’s panicking. She’s distressed.
She feels under attack.
By her own mother.
***
Her mother who just wanted some explanation, some information.
So she herself could have some peace of mind, and be able to go to sleep after coming home from a 12-hour graveyard shift at the hospital.
Because my sister is worried sick about her daughter getting into a $4,000 debt
***
My brother-in-law gave my sister a bouquet of flowers.
Very romantic, right?
My sister put them in a vase.
Because why not?
If the flowers are pretty, they should stay and make the house look pretty for a while.
***
One cat liked the flowers; chewed on the leaves.
And yes, there were lilies in the bouquet.
And they say that lilies can be poison to cats.
And they didn’t really see the cat eating the lilies, but, you know, my niece is a fur mommy for only two years now, and I don’t know how much she knows about cats.
***
She panicked, and took her two (!!!) cats to the vet.
Why there were two cats, I cannot really explain.
But let me just say that in May, my niece’s first-ever cat died around her birthday.
And my sister called me to talk to my niece fearing that her daughter might get depressed.
***
On her 21st birthday, my niece got a tattoo.
I don’t know if my niece had two cats at that time, but after the first cat died, she adopted another cat within a week or so.
***
And my sister being my sister couldn’t say no.
Well, I could tell her to f*ck off, too.
Because my niece turned 21, and she could very well do as she pleases.
***
Two cats, with $900 a piece for a few hours of critical monitoring, plus other tests, treatments, et cetera rake up to $4,000 in two days.
And, of course, my sister, a hardworking nurse gets crazy!
Starts yelling.
***
Well, I can understand the yelling…
But only up to a certain point.
***
You see, it’s so hard to draw out any information from my niece.
She just cries, and clams ups.
And that could be frustrating when you also have to deal with $4,000 that is not explained very well to you—
Mommy, can you come to the vet’s?
There’s $4,000 to pay!
***
But I tell my sister, the more you scream, the more my niece is going to clam up.
And you will not get any response from her.
And she will just bottle up her feelings and problems.
And she will just panic more.
And you may never get to her again…
Ever!
***
Actually, my sister doesn’t really scream.
But she can sound angry, and dismissive.
And she may sound dismissive, but she ends up picking up the pieces (and the bills) anyway.
But my niece perceives her voice as “yelling.”
***
My niece is neither a saint nor a better communicator.
She also has this low, dismissive tone.
Which can be irritating to my sister.
Or to any adult with any mind.
And I can only deal with it because I’m not her parent, and I don’t need to pick up after her.
***
When I overhear them, I often jokingly remind them to mind their tones.
Instead of “I already did it!”, I tell my niece to make the statement longer so that it doesn’t sound curt and brusque, or rude.
“Mommy, I already did it a few minutes ago.”
That will change things.
***
I mean, you can hardly teach old dogs new tricks.
And if my sister isn’t changing her speech pattern any time soon, my nieces (I have two) can change theirs.
With patience and efforts on their part, I don’t think my sister will stubbornly keep her “yelling” if there’s no reason to yell.
If my sister gets an explanation, I don’t think she will remain crazy… unless she really is mental./PN
