MUSINGS FROM THE MIND OF AMANDA

So, I have an aunt who is hands down the meanest person I’ve ever met in my life. Always has been. We’ll call her “D.” She and her siblings, including my Dad, came from a rough home with parents who weren’t really parents because of their childhoods…generational curse, I guess. She’s married and divorced twice, and lost a child at birth and a grown daughter several years ago. She has no living children and told me “I raised my brothers and sisters and now they’re gonna wait on me.”

Well, then.

She’s always been a hoarder. That’s part of the curse of growing up with nothing in her case. Unfortunately, it resulted in a house so full of stuff it wasn’t livable. Stuff that she swore was in perfect condition, and I guess it was, if you were a rat looking for a home, or maybe a colony of mildew looking for a home. When the water quit, and she couldn’t use the bathrooms in her house, and no plumbers would come because they couldn’t get to the pipes because of the hoard, she chose to go live with a sister. Decided she was sick, with who knows what. Diabetic neuropathy, and a I guess some other things…

And D proceeded to verbally abuse my aunt, and my aunt’s husband, and refused to wear clothes because they hurt her. D continued to hoard, and started stacking up my aunt’s house, too. After a couple of years of demanding to be waited on hand and foot, my uncle decided that between the attitude and the nakedness, it was time to get D out.

D decided the next logical thing was to move in with her other sister. She moved into her trailer and proceeded to demand she be treated like a queen. D held her sister basically hostage, through verbal abuse and threats of failure with her there to make sure things worked out. The sister, S, had to go back to work in her seventies to continue to earn money, as D had burned through S’s savings. And, since she was so handicapped, D just stayed home and played online all day, ordering useless stuff and making friends.

For years, she swore she had a boyfriend in Dubai who was going to come get her and build her a dream house and take care of her forever. I guess I can see how, to a girl who grew up with nothing and feeling like she’d been forced to work, it must’ve seemed like a dream come true. A whole princess fantasy, just waiting to come true. Except it didn’t. He wasn’t what he claimed to be, obviously. To me, it was a classic scam, but she believed. Phone calls, texts, emails…he must be what he said he was.

After a few years, she decided that it wasn’t working. By then, she’d hoarded Aunt S’s house to the point that there was only one bed, and my Aunt S, with multiple artificial joints, had to sleep in a recliner because D took over the bed. She refused to wear clothes, or even let S change the sheets. It was just too painful. Besides, her new boyfriend, Trace Adkins, was going to make it all ok.

I guess I should say that in addition to being the meanest person ever, my aunt was also a really smart person. But you’d never know it, because she held to it tooth and nail that she was ol’ Trace. Even when his tour bus drove practically past their home without stopping. Aunt S tried to get her to admit it wasn’t true, but she just wouldn’t let go. And then, she got a better offer.

At some point last fall, D believed she married Hank Williams, Jr. Over the phone, of course, because he was in the hospital and couldn’t make it to Texas for a wedding. Whoever it was even provided the worst photo shopped edition of a marriage certificate ever, with Hank Williams, Jr. copied and pasted onto the line for groom. And his voice sounded different on the call because he has to disguise his voice. People listen in on his calls, you know. And he wanted to come to Texas, but that darn knee replacement kept him home. And don’t worry that the internet claims he’s married. That was something the record company made him do, and she just won’t let go.

Sigh. D started posting on Facebook about how she was married to the love of her life. She was moving to Tennessee and taking Aunt S with her. Each appointment to move got cancelled because he couldn’t make it for some reason or another. And she continued believing this farce. And she continued to curse Aunt S and belittle her and be an awful person in general.

I got a voice mail telling me Aunt S poured boiling water on her and left her alone for days and it was so cold, and the puppies were probably dead and could I please find S and see what she was doing? Fleeing. That’s what she was doing. D finally pushed her too far and she left. Told me to call in a welfare check, which I did. Got a call back, telling me that due to the condition of the house, she’d have to be removed. They were going to take her to the hospital. She’d been alone roughly 24 hours. She was mean to the EMTs and registered as Mrs. D Williams in the hospital. They assigned a social worker. Finally, we thought, someone will force her go someplace where they can help her.

Nope. She managed to convince everybody who could help that she was sane. God knows how. But don’t fret! Ol’ Hank was kind enough to send Jennifer Garner’s husband to sit with D till he could make arrangements to get her to Tennessee. Yeah. I’m not making this up. They’ve been living in a hotel together since then. She claims Aunt S tried to kill her and she’s heard that Aunt S is living in her car with all the dogs. Neither of those things are true.

I spoke to D a few weeks ago. She’d been texting a few of us frantically, saying Mr Garner had left and she didn’t have any food or meds and she didn’t know what to do. I guess calling 911 didn’t occur to her. So, I called in another welfare check, and it was even more disappointing than the first. They had her call me and tell me she was fine. Mr. G was kind enough to leave a note for the hotel staff explaining that he would be out for a while, but she needed to be fed a lot while he was gone, and that you had to be careful what you fed her because she farts a lot. She said he’d gone to see his wife.

I just couldn’t. I told her it wasn’t Jennifer Garner’s husband. Her response? “Well, he wears her ring.” I told her it was A ring, but not Jennifer Garner’s and she informed me they matched. Aside from a few texts later asking me to deliver my son’s used underwear to Walgreens or Walmart folded and wrapped in twine so they could deliver them to Mr. Garner (he came back!) I haven’t heard from her much.

I don’t know how to help. She’s vicious when she wants to be, and she wants to be all the time. How can you help someone who is so obviously impaired but still clever enough to convince people she’s fine when they come to check? Do we just play along till someone calls to tell us they found her body in a hotel somewhere? She’s 77 years old. We can’t make her do anything. She thinks the whole situation is perfectly logical. I can’t even.

I guess I should add a disclaimer: I do not believe that the real Trace Adkins or Hank Williams, Jr are involved in this at all. This is the work of a scammer who took advantage of an older woman who had mental issues and was an easy mark. She has two sisters and a brother still living, so it’s not all my responsibility, but still…I mean, c’mon Uncle Hank….send that limo.