Hello, I have been here before. Now I am back. I am in trouble. I have family problem that has blown up into a disaster. I loath, I dispise what I call a Jerry Springer lifestyle. My son's inlaws live lives right out of a Jerry Springer set. They thrive on it. I have been able to avoid getting enmeshed in it until now. The problem, big problem, is it has happened around the birth of my first grandchild. Below I will paste my journal entry of today. I hope it is not too confusing. The names have been changed for privacy's sake.

The nut of the problem, not completely clear in my pasted journal entry, is that while waiting for the scripted moment for me to see my grandson, a friend of the family and I looked at a digital camera to see a picture of him. In doing so, we saw perhaps 4 or 5 tiny pictures. One of the pictures had my daughter in law's breast in view, another had the baby's head crowning from her vagina. In my family, nudity and the realities of birth, have never been a "naughty" issue. I respect that this is not true of others and in so doing set aside my wish to view the birth of my grandson. My daughter in law's sister "told on us." This unfortanate and unneeded event gave rise to what can only be called a total family disaster worthy of any best of Jerry Springer show. I have aplogized profusely about my looking at the camera uninvited. That is not good enough. I have to somehow take on much more remorse and responsibility that I cannot see the ultimate value in doing. Also, to put my daughter in law's claims to extreme modest in context, it was not but a year or so ago that she and my son lived in apartment with inadequate blinds. At least one time, maybe more, she made amusing comments about how she went about her house naked "giving the neighbors an eyeful."

Here goes. Here is the journal I wrote today. I pray someone can help me sort this out.

Who is who:
Stan is the baby
Mark is me
Sarah is my wife
Larry is my son
Karen is my daughter in law
Terry is Karen's sister, a nurse
Clarice is Karen's mother
Jane is a friend of the family who initiated the look at the camera

Today is Saturday. My first grandchild Stan is 2 days old. I saw him for about 2 hours of his life, and at this time I cannot look forward to seeing him again in the near future. I am a wreck. I truly believe I have accepted responsibility for my part in this mess. Sarah understands this, but she has not been implicated in the “crime” and so is able to march on without so much damage. Larry and Karen resolutely refuse to take responsibility for how they took a trivial incident and turned it into a disaster. They expect me to take this on. Perhaps I should, but at this point cannot.

To clarify a point in yesterday’s journal. It was not Clarice who was the tattle tale, it was Terry, Karen’s sister. It is almost worse this way. Clarice is a nit wit. Terry is an intelligent young lady who has nearly graduated from nursing school. She certainly has been exposed to the training and should have learned that some things in a difficult situation must be handled with exquisite care and consideration of the consequences. I do not profess to being a “perfect” person who has not made mistakes. I have made considerable mistakes, and repeated them, too. I do think that for the most part I have been willing to take responsibility for my mistakes, admitted what I have done wrong, and make restitution where it could be made.

Earlier I hand wrote out a metaphorical story for Sarah to take with her to read to Larry and Karen at the hospital where she has gone to visit without me. It was something like this:

How to use a match to burn down your house

I was in your home (the hospital) and in the dark. I was told to wait in the dark. For a long time I waited in the dark. After many hours of waiting in the dark I was told a light might soon be lit. I continued to stumble in the dark, getting tired and anxious. At last I found myself in the company of others in the dark, including my friend Jane. Jane said, “Mark, there is a pack of matches (camera with a baby picture) on the table. Let’s light one to see where we are.” I said no, we were asked to wait in the dark. She said, “It’s only one match, just to see where we are for a few seconds.” I thought, what would it hurt to light one match, and did so. We were rewarded with a peek at the room (the baby) and found the room was also full of combustibles (bits of naked Karen). The match quickly burned out and was set in a fireproof tray to cool. We were very careful with the match and took care to dispose of it properly. We did not see any problems whatsoever and found ourselves relieved to have a glimpse of where we were.

Unknown to us in the now redarkened room, Terry picked up the tray with match. The match still had a spark in it. Terry did not want this match to go out without telling the homeowner’s (Larry and Karen). She took it to her mother, Clarice. The examined the match, blew on it and brought it back into flame. They were aghast at what they saw. Mark had lit this match. “Now look at how hot it burns!” This had to shared with Karen and Larry. They must see this burning fire I had lit. They brought it to Karen and Larry who were shocked. They held it by their curtains to prove how hot it was and the curtains burst into flame. They called me on the phone. “Look what you have done! You lit a match and now our curtains are burning!”
I told Larry, “you should not have lit the curtains. You should pull them down and extinguish them.” He insisted “No! You must do this. You lit the match, now the curtains are burning. You did this. You must put out the flames.” Several times this same thing went back and forth while the curtains burned and Larry refused to pull them down. I tried to suggest that he was very tired and not seeing this clearly. That he might pull the curtains down and at least set them aside until tomorrow when he could then do the right thing. I tried to point out that I did not set the curtains on fire, they did.

Larry and Karen refused to take down the burning curtains. In their minds I started the fire and so must be the one to stop it. They continued to let the curtains burn until the house caught fire. “Now look what Mark has done! He lit the match that has burned our house! He is a terrible person!”

Well, I, Mark, have a different view that seems to me to make more sense. I made a mistake to light the match. I could have resisted the pressure to light it knowing that I had been expected to remain in the dark. I did not. I lit the match and put it down carefully. The match left unattended would have quickly gone out and thrown away later without a thought as to why and where it had been used.

Problem number one was Terry, who should have known better, took the match as proof with which to tell the tale. Why? Heaven only knows what was in her mind. Maybe it made sense to bring it to Clarice, Karen, and Larry’s attention, but given the inflammatory nature of it with no positive foreseeable outcome, what on earth was good enough reason to do that?

Clarice is a histrionic nit wit. Her behavior takes extremes. She seems thrive on commotion. As said before, I think she is very jealous and would take any opportunity to introduce trouble that improves her position.

The biggest problem is Larry and Karen. They want me to take full blame and responsibility for their burning their house down with the match I lit. They refuse to hear my apology for having lit a match as being a full and remorseful one because they don’t see it as big enough to cover their burnt house. The refuse to see how Terry and Clarice took the match then used it with great irresponsibility for their own reasons. They refuse to see how they let their own house burn all so as to maintain the blame on me as the perpetrator of the crime.

I am so, so, so sorry this has all happened. If there is any way I could unlight that match I would. I did light it. But I put it down in a safe place. Terry and Clarice, then Larry and Karen are the ones who burnt their house.

What can I do at this point? What they want is for me to accept the blame for their house burning. That might help things move along, but at the cost of their continued belief that I was the arsonist, and an admitted one at that. No one wins there. I don’t – I am forever a criminal. They don’t – they now have an admitted arsonist grandfather for their child. One who did terrible things on the day of his birth. I did not do terrible things on the day of his birth! I can’t have that be my legacy! This is not only a matter of my pride, but it is a matter of perpetrating a lie that will cause endless damage. I could try to figure out everything they want me to say and say it. If included their denial of what they have done to themselves, me, and most important their child, and their refusal to take responsibility then it is certain to fail sooner or later. The wounds would scab, but not heal, and would fester with seen or unseen infection.

At this point I think the only re-starting point that can possibly work is if they can see and take some responsibility for their total bungling of the situation. The house burnt by their hands, not mine. It can never be rebuilt that way it was, but a new one can replace it. The memories of the tragedy will always linger. This can’t be helped. It is the awful part of telling the truth, but a new house built on the truth will stand stronger than one built on lies.

I am very, very upset with what is so right now. At this time I cannot see a happy outcome possible. A new chapter in my life, as a grandfather, opened and closed in one page. My brief time with my grandchild, Sam, was about 10 minutes and of the most extreme delight. I can only try to compare it with how it might have been had I summited Kilimanjaro, probably better than Kilimanjaro. But, like summiting a mountain, it is only a brief moment of joy. You cannot live at that altitude. You must come down. Sarah will be able to return to the mountain top many times over the years. I know, again like with Kili, that I cannot climb it again. I am glad I got to have what I had, but am willing to move on. I am sure Larry and Karen will be superb parents to Sam. I don’t know what they will tell him about me, his grandfather, but expect it will not be that they drove me away from him. I will be painted with a brush tinted with at least some **** in the brown. That might be what he sees, but he may never know that the **** the sees on me was put there by his parents.

Now what? What’s next? I don’t know.