Over a decade ago, when I was in my early teens, I stayed with an aunty for a while because my uncle and parents were in Spain caring for my nana who'd fallen ill with cancer while we were on holiday over there. During this time, aunty was looking after her own 3 children plus me, alone, and took us for a long scenic walk to try to keep us occupied. While on said walk, aunty and I had an accident and fell rather clumsily part way down a hill.
Aunty's reaction, rather than checking I was ok, was to start screaming at me at the bottom, under the impression I pushed her. She then stormed off and left me there, bruised, bleeding and not knowing the way back to the car.
I called my mum distraught at the time while I was finding my way back, though it was more for comfort than anything - I knew she couldn't really help. Back at the house when things had calmed down, both my uncle and my mum spoke to me on the phone several times saying they knew it was an accident but sometimes people need to apologise to keep the peace. Circumstances being what they were, I tried several times to clear the air. The apologies were thrown back in my face every time, right up until the attempt the evening before my mum came to collect me.
I was never left in my aunt's care again. Because they live half the country away, this meant I only saw that half of the family when they came to us.
Fast forward to present day. There are several people with long standing issues against this aunt, all separate from my own issue. My mum though has recently chosen to try to bury the hatchet to help her relationship with her brother and they've added each other on Facebook.
There were several of us chatting about a photo of us all as children which my mum had posted to sort of dedicate to me in a way (I'll be giving birth very soon as I'm 10 days overdue). The aunt has 'misunderstood' an in-joke (easy for her to do really as there were quite a few of us there who'd cut ties with her at one time or other) and made an almighty leap...
She asked if we were all talking about the time I pushed her down a hill.
I am so extremely sorely tempted to give my tuppence worth now that I'm older, no longer in such delicate family circumstances and don't have to blindy do as I'm told. I've never once aired drama on Facebook but I'd love to tell her how any normal person would have shown concern for the child after such an accident rather than react the way she did.
It really isn't worth the drama, is it?