Wow, so this is what it's like to be in a dysfunctional family. All my life I have felt overly privileged because I wasn't born into a family with divorce, abuse, and/or parents that molested me. Well today the bombshell hit.

With my grandfathers apparent death, my father found out that his father (my grandfather) was going to screw him out of his will because he wants to give my dad one more disapproving slap in the face. Now it's not the money that makes this an issue, because both my parents don't need nor want his money, it's that my grandfather swore my father's step-mom and stepbrother and stepsister to secrecy because he wanted to nail my dad one more time before he died.

As the reader you might be thinking, "What's so dysfunctional about that?" Good question. This is actually not what makes us dysfunctional, it's more of an example. What makes my family dysfunctional is the deceptive mind games that my grandparents directly play on my parents and indirectly play on me.

My first example is from the summer following my 5th grade year at school. That summer my house burned down, along with hundreds of others, in a large runaway fire that swept through my hometown. The day of the fire my family fled our home and with no other family near by to turn to, we went to my grandparent's house for help.

There we thought we could collect ourselves and figure out our next move, but what we found instead was a hostile environment. Instead of embracing us, they shunned us, instead of tending to our wounds, they made them bigger and instead of loving us, they added to our pain.

In this house of cold and empty love, my parents were yelled at for something they had no control over by these petty people I unfortunately must call grandma and grandpa. They actually went as far as to refuse to share such items as their soap and shampoo despite knowing we had just fled our home with what few clothes and personal items we could get out with. This of course eventually forced us to once again flee somewhere that should be safe.

This one event is one in which I draw much of the animosity towards my grandparents from. But this is not the beginning of my family problems. Those of course have been going on since my father was young.

To truly know my grandfather you must understand that he used money to manipulate people to his will. This of course caused a rift between him and both my parents and me. When my father was graduating from high school, instead of going he went to Europe because it was a good time of the year to go. Then when my father wouldn't study in college what he wanted, he cut my father off and forced him into the Vietnam War. And when my father married my mother instead of someone they preferred, he tried to stop him with the threat of cutting him off.

Asshole!

My mother and father are the greatest people I know. They have never done me wrong. They have never beaten me, molested me, or fucked with me mentally. The only reason I know my fucked up grandparents is because my parents wanted me to at least know my grandparents a little. That was the only thing my parents did wrong. How were they to know these two money grubbing and vindictive people wouldn't want to know their first grandchild.

You can only imagine how the Christmas and Thanksgivings went when we went to their house. Lets just say I have been to business meetings that are less formal and rigid then these family gatherings.

It's funny when I look back on the memories I have of my grandfather. Being the first death I have experienced, I didn't know how to react. The reasoning behind a funeral, I feel, is to not only say good-bye but to look back on all of the good memories you shared with that person.

Well, I looked back when I was at my grandfather's funeral and guess what, I can't remember one time we shared that was a good time. Not one. It really is a shame. I'm a great guy to know. Most people get along with me. I haven't met someone who considers me their enemy. I guess some things were never meant to happen.

There is one thing my grandfather did teach me, indirectly mind you, is that I will never treat my wife, children, and grandchildren the way he did. I want to know my family and I want them to know me. I want my kids to be an everyday part of both my life my parent's lives. And I want to make sure I never let money decide what the heart should.

So with my grandfather�s passing, and the hopeful death of the dysfunction in my life, I move on and learn a very valuable lesson from the stranger I called grandpa.