Search This Blog

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Hershey Park-that I missed as a child and missed again


BL has a niece and nephew. Since the children have been born, she has done her best to be a good aunt, making frequent visits, planning vacations, and picking out thoughtful gifts. She loves than as if they were hers.

This weekend was supposed to be a special weekend. BL's niece (NE) never requested a special trip before, unlike her brother A who always had a destination and route etc., so we were really happy when she perked up when we mentioned Hershey Park and said "Can we really?" Wow! Pay dirt! "Can we stay in the park?" Sure, why not!

So we planned. The night before, the mother we called the mother to make plans. She said, "NE is growing up so in the future, could you please "not do anything" 'or get a suite.' Do anything??? When we are with then we are the perfect aunties and neither of us has a pe*is, by the way. We have never done anything inappropriate in the sight of the children's eyes-or any ones. Homophobia runs deep in this family.
 
I left work early on Friday to pack-time I have little of because of my recent brush with surgery and hospitals which has still left me exausted much of the time. Neither of us could sleep on Friday night, so we got kind of a slow start on Saturday-actually I was up, but Sue can catch up and slept late.

Gaily we set up toward Pennsylvania. I love the state having grown up in Ohio. We finally arrived to find the niece and father, who had visited the zoo. The ne chastised us for arriving late and stopping for lunch-a slice of pizza and a pee stop! Uh-what's going on here? BL, brother and ne visited chocolate world, but I finally had to take a nap. We finally had dinner at a HP restaurant-overpriced and not so good. Then fireworks.

The next day I was up at my usual 6:00-late for me. I hung around the lobby for an hour. then went swimming-nice pools.(didn't want to wake the sleeping beauties)  I finally got a call around 10:00am. They were up. I went to the room to fine BL and ne deep in conversation about sensitive topics related to the family. Finally that ended. It was Brunch time, we brunched. Finally park time."I really don't feel like going to the park, my stomach hurts and the rides might upset it."NO PARK!  So BL and ne went to the butterfly garden. I took another nap-it was 3:00 by this time and I was tired and had a headache. I won't go into the talk in this venue. Later we sat around the room. playing cards until the ac broke, then it was replaced-the Hershey folks were quite gracious and I ate way too much chocolate.

The next day was worse.

Shortly after we got back on the road, BL had to pull over because she was crying too hard. She cryed on and off for the rest of the evening worried about what she had done wrong. Since the children have been born, she has done her best to be a good aunt. Now she feels she is losing then due to the imminent divorce of the parents.

3 comments:

Terri said...

I'm sorry...I doubt she did anything wrong...kids are emotionally "fickle" - and more so when their world is topsy turvy with a divorce...hopefully she can just hang in there, and continue to be the good aunt she has been....although it won't be easy. It helps if we don't take personally the fickleness of emotions from kids...you know, be that non-anxious presence, that holding environment...ok...that coming from a mom who has lived through the teenage years of one child, daughter who will be 20 in August, and is living through the teenage years of son, who is 16....some days I even try to heed my own advice...

Rev Dr Mom said...

I'm so sorry...family relationships can be so difficult some times. I hope that it will be possible to maintain contact with the kids and that over time they'll realize (more likely remember) how wonderful it is to have aunties who love them, no matter what.

Auntie Knickers said...

I think Rev Dr Mom is right, this too shall pass. Keep yourselves open to the kids and, I think, eventually they will realize what a good thing it is to have you in their lives. It's hard though, when it's happening.