Old folks

 I phoned my grandfather this afternoon. Talking to him was a bit awkward. He told me that my father hasn't talked to him in months, maybe a year. I know that my father hasn't been talking to my grandmother for a while either. She has phoned him several time but V, his girlfriend, picked up and screened each time and won't put him through. My father hasn't talked to my uncles for years. It is more and more obvious that he is estranging himself from his own family and I can't help thinking that V is pushing him toward this. It's sad and silly at the same time.

I can't really talk much to my grandfather. My mother said he was quite talkative but it doesn't work with me. We have never been very close to each other. My mother, on the other hand, calls him frequently, even though my parents have been separated for 18 years now so technically they aren't related anymore.

It's touching if a bit weird. I don't think they got along very well when my mother was still his daughter in law, but they got to know each other apparently. My mother has also found a great deal of inner peace in the past few years, she said so herself on Xmas Eve. And I know she bonds quite a lot with elderly people. For a couple of years she worked in a retirement home and as an inhouse caregiver. I think she quit when she realized that seeing the old people she cared for die was too upsetting for her. Anyway, it seems that she tries to be there for the old folks in her life.