My grandmother died this afternoon →[More:]at the care facility. My mother, oldest uncle and Patricia, the decent caregiver were with her when she died. Patricia had put up a picture of the virgin of Guadalupe over the bed...though she's from El Salvador.

I found out when I came home for the night. When I talked to my father, he said there would be something in a month, but I feel like I need to come to LA now; something nice needs to be done for Patricia. The other caregiver is the one who is here illegally and didn't report the abuse by the woman who had been working the longest because she wanted to save her own ass--though most likely my mother would have blown her off like she did everyone else.

Daddy started to tell me about my youngest uncle (when he came to visit my grandmother he was bragging about all his possessions and how a famous record producer's son lived in one of his places) and my mother started screaming at him in the background.

I don't ever want kids because of her and my mother. As I said before, I didn't like or love her. Frieda, the friend of the family who died last summer, told me she remembered me telling her that "Gramma scares me" when I was around five. I never felt safe enough to lean on my mother or grandmothers (most of what I remember of my paternal grandmother is her lying in bed smoking, doped up on codeine) like I've seen my cousins do.

This was a shitty life and I don't want to repeat it, though I'm not an alcoholic and I know that Prince Charming doesn't exist.
Minimizing, denials and hypocrisy were the order of the day when I grew up and I refuse to tolerate them now....even if this means that I will be alone for the rest of my life. The idea of being dependent the way my grandmother has had to be fills me with horror.

I have to make my arrangements to leave Sunday.