Mamaranting’s Weblog

So I am friends with hubby’s half-sister on Facebook. We’ve known each other for years, and her and hubby have gotten along really well and known each other for years. They have the same father, but different moms. The dad was out of sis’s life until she was about ten or so, at which time the dad and her mom hooked back up and stayed together, having 2 more kids. During those ten years, he fathered my hubby, and at least 3 other children-none of which he is involved with. I’ve never met the man-I’ve probably seen him around, it is a small town that we are from after all, but I’ve never been able to put a face to the name. Until today.

Hubby’s half-sister commented on a picture of their dad and her mom-I can now see the picture and the mans face. I wish I could comment on the picture, I wish I could reach into the computer and smack the man in the face. I never realized that I could feel so much hatred for a picture of a person before. I have always been bothered by the situation, more so than hubby. He had a great childhood-his mom is a saint that was both mom and dad to him-she taught him how to shave! His grandparents were really involved, he had lots of aunts and uncles around too, he never felt he missed out by not having his dad there. Which he didn’t-he was probably much better off without his dad.

I guess what bothers me most about the whole thing is how easy it was for this man to walk away from not just one child, but four! Maybe the other moms involved didn’t allow visiting, didn’t want him around at all, but hubby’s mother was always willing and open for the dad and his family to be involved. It was their choice not to be. I just look at my wonderful husband, my beautiful children and am angry that someone out there who is related by blood has made the choice not to be involved with them.

My 17 year old cousin has changed his relationship status on Facebook from ‘In a relationship’ to ‘engaged’. He’s asked me not to tell any of the family.  Which I won’t, I want to stay far away from this mess.  I did tell him that I though he was way too young though.  He’s not a very mature young man either-his mom coddles him and does everything for him-I don’t see this going well at all.

It seems like everytime I hear the news, there’s something horrible going on in the city.  Bodies, and parts of bodies being found all over the place, stabbings and shootings, there’s an arsonist running around, a woman got sexually assaulted while out jogging, and on and on.  That’s just in the past week too!  Working at the hospital, I have access to the ER listings, and why the patients came into the ER.  Stabbings, beatings, drug overdoses-we hardly even hear the half of it on the news!  Yesterday a co-worker of hubby’s got a phone call-his son was in a knife fight and got cut up really bad, they wanted the father to go to Calgary ASAP.  Another co-worker of hubby’s looked at him and said ‘You get your children out of Alberta and never bring them back.’  Sad huh?  Not just get them out of the city, but get them out of the province.

Regardless of how I feel now, Alberta has been my home for 10 years.  We’ve had lots of good experiences here-met some wonderful people that I hope will be friends for life.  I’ve given birth to my 2 beautiful children here, there are some great memories that I will always associate with the province-it makes me so sad that there is so much violence here.

Well something happened at work this weekend that I feel was handled very unprofessionally by the on-call manager involved, one of the employees involved, and I believe came very close to compromising patient care.  Ugh.  Now I am going to have to talk to my supervisor and her supervisor about it-I can’t let this slide, plus I don’t think others will either.  I think I’ll write up an email, and then tell them to call me about it-I won’t be able to get in there in person tomorrow, and this is not something to chat over the phone about.