Near Death Experience

I can't sleep. This doesn't happen often, and it's probably hormonal, not stress related, but my mind's racing and I had this "experience" I need to document....
I don't write about Nana. At least not publicly. I'm a wuss, of grand proportion. I'm afraid she'll find out.

The other day, after eating breakfast, on our way to the grocery store, Nana looks at me and asks, "Do you think I'm a positive person?"

I am a deer in the headlights of a speeding eighteen wheeler....and the road's wet and the brakes are out...

"No, you are the most negative person I know. You hate blacks, Jews and men. You hate all of your neighbors, especially the ones you've never met. You've hated every job you ever had. You hate your daughter-in-law and her children from her first marriage. You think your youngest son is an idiot. And, even though you coerced and shamed him into calling you once a week you use that time to criticise and fight with him and then complain to me. You hate football, basketball, and baseball even though you watch the games. You think your oldest son, the one who lived with you for seventeen years as an adult, and would do anything for you, is a waste. You used to talk to me everyday on the phone, crying about how he was going to drive you insane, you couldn't live with him anymore. When he comes to visit you now, you criticise him for everything, even for using your bathroom too many times. He talks to you everyday on the phone, and his conversation annoys you.You bring up others' perceived shortcomings over and over again. Even your "best" friends have "no sense". You don't like my husband, you don't even acknowledge him except with veiled criticism. You have accused us of emotionally abusing our son. Most of the time you don't recognize that I AM a mother of grown children. You treat me like a mentally challenged adolescent. You accuse my daughter of taking advantage of me. You criticise my grandsons' HAIR! Your condo is noisy, where you lived before, being driven insane, no one was allowed to breath, apparently before 9am or after 5pm. Here, apparently, "anything goes". Your next door neighbor, whom you've never met or talked to is a whore. I have to sit with you on the 4th of July, because the fireworks scare your cat. You tell me you can't die before your cat because no one can take care of her like you can. Be that as it may, she is a CAT. But, you used to have 12 of them. And, they couldn't do anything right either. You're lonely, but you don't want company. When people come to see you, they stay too long, talk too loudly, have opinions that you don't agree with, or don't show proper appreciation for your hospitality. It's always too warm or too cold. You can't see anything out of your windows. The borough doesn't take proper care of the roads. The little league teams, and the peewee football teams that play and practice outside your home on improperly prepared fields, are "pigs". So are Hispanic people. So are the people we see at the grocery store. So is the UPS man because he doesn't put your package where you want him to on your porch. So is anyone that doesn't do everything exactly the way you think they should. You hate the Channel 8 News Team, especially the weather man. You take offense for imaginary slights of sports figures by their coaches and managers, and celebrities by their fans and the paparazzi. I can't get out of your way fast enough, even though you use a walker. I screw up the grocery list. I don't open packages of cereal properly. I don't sit still long enough. I'm not allowed to do anything else while I'm talking to you on the phone...BUT I DO, and then I lie about it. I spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to figure out what to tell you and what to say so as not to upset you or cause a negative reaction. I fail miserably 100% of the time. You never remarried after Dad died because you didn't want to give my brother and me a step father....we were 13 and 16, we would've been grown by the time you dated, fell in love, became engaged and married. You tell us that we children are your life....you hold it over our heads like a sledge hammer. You obsess over minor details of which you have no control. And then your day, week, month, year, life is ruined when someone or something deviates from your expected plan. You have always been this way, it has nothing to do with your age."

I gather my wits and what I actually say is, "I sometimes worry that you're not happy."

Nana ignores me and continues, " T. said that I amaze her with my positive attitude."

"Yes, Mom, I think people can see that in you."