Currently I'm sat on the 9:35 to London. En route to collect my aunt from the airport. It's a beautiful and sunny day. I have a coffee, croissant, music recommended by a friend (perfect by the way, thank you) and paper to keep me occupied, but my heads splitting I'm trebling a little and my stomach is in knots.
Because my aunt has been deported from India after having a mental breakdown and I'm terrified of how she will look. I'm expecting her to be thin and malnourished and have a frightened look in her eyes. But I'm also expecting to be pulled aside by security and told she kicked off on the plane. I think it's the fear of unknowing that is getting to me.
I'm alone on this adventure. She's upset so many of my family that only myself and the youngest of her siblings would consider the journey. I'm alone because its all short notice and my aunt was unable to get time off work. But she's sorted hotels and got her flight details and been the one woman show behind the logistics. I will after all this tell her how grateful I was to not be the only one who didn't want to leave a family member alone in London.
See my crazy aunt has pissed off so many people. She came off her medication (rightly so it was far too much and she was more dead than living), but she doesn't think she has a mental health problem. She wrote vile letters and said even more vile things to my mother. I shouldn't even be on this train helping her but I am, because if it was me I would hope that I have one person in my life that would do the same for me.
I have valid reason to want her to rot too. When she had her last break down she became obsessed with my sister. She is the prettier one really and has a much more likeable character. One weekend my little sister was on a shopping trip with a friend. My aunt came round and she told me about Jesus talking to her and how she was going to marry Gaddafi or Sadam or one of those (it was around the first gulf war), she then told me how my sister was going to be saved by her and she was going to heaven. I said I didn't believe in all that and she told me "that's why I won't save you and you'll go to hell".
As a child even when you say you have no faith the idea of hell is still a scary concept. So I too have a reason to for wanting he to freeze to death behind a bin, but when she telling me all this my brother was in his room getting high so I'm more annoyed with him for leaving me alone with a women they all knew was acting a little crazy.
I feel like No one in my family what it means to be a family. You take the good with the shit and make the shit good. She doesn't need buckets of meds and a straight jacket. She needs someone who will listen and not judge her but also tell her she's gone too far. I don't want to be that person, but I think I'm going to have to be.
I'm on this train for selfish reasons too. My mother would die if her sister vanished and she learnt she died (because my aunt would vanish, I think she's close to breaking or broken). My mum would break apart inside because she was an idiot and didn't want to deal with something as hard as getting her sister well. It's for my mum I'm doing this because she doesn't cope well in a crisis.
On discovering I was alone in my quest to return my aunt to the motherland my mum rang me and started to offer to come with me. I was short and blunt and really wanted to tell her to fuck herself in the arse with a whisk, but I just said no. Told her she couldn't cope and I didn't need the stress of getting her across London. She no doubt cried after that call. If my brother had spoken to her after he'd of been on to me then saying I made my mum feel bad when she shouldn't. But she should, because her daughter is alone on a train collecting her crazy sister from London Airport.
There's another reason too. My heart is full of guilt as I was never there for my uncle when he was sick. He died two weeks before my wedding and I never got to say goodbye. It's for him I do this because at the lowest darkest blackest times he helped me. He helped me by just being there. He never judged me or told me off for being a dick. He just listened. Jesus Christ I miss him. I hope he'd be proud of me.
I failed my uncle and it hurts more than words could ever say and it's with him in my heart I made the choice to be at the airport with a train ticket home and a familiar looking face.
I'm also a bad person. She has no where to go. I don't want her in my home. I don't want her to know where I live. Not yet. Not when I'm in work 13 hours a day. Not when I don't know how bad her breakdown is. I can't have the time off work to look after her I also can't trust her to not smash up my house. She's in a hotel tonight and homeless outreach in the morning. That's if she's decides to come back with me.
She might decide she doesn't want to come back and I don't think I'll try very hard to convince her to. But then I think of my gran and how happy it'll make her to see her daughter returned. I will keep that image and find the energy to mean she will be on the train back with me.
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