7th Blog Post

As a kid, my step grandmother always seemed to be in a sort of pain. Whether that pain was from a minor surgery or a simple headache, she was always in pain. She was a heavy drinker, we knew that- the WHOLE family knew that. I figured she drank to release whatever demos she had inside of her. She was always drunk at family events, going through wine bottle after wine bottle, beer after beer. Her and my grandfather never got along, why they were together, no one really knew. She was "the devils mistress" as my dad used to say. Every story of her that I have stored in my memory bank, is of her being drunk at a family Christmas, or a cousins birthday party.
This summer, she passed away of an enlarged heart. It turns out it wasn't the drinking that killed her. It was the copious amounts of pain killers she took along with the drinking. We went upstairs in their house, where we were never aloud as kids, and unladed boxes upon boxes of expired pain killers the she had stored up over the years. My step grandmother wasn't just a drunk, she was a drug addict.
As a kid, I figured she was always drunk to have fun, as recreation. After she passed, I learned that it wasn't for fun, it was because she couldn't stop - even if she wanted to.
While the story is pretty dark, it relates to The Ocean at the End of the Lane because like the narrator, we both find a truth about their childhood that looked completely different in our minds as children.

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