Caterwauling

Well, now that Dr. Finn (Chris O’Donnell) has debuted on “Grey’s Anatomy” as the hot, hot veterinarian (how come my pets’ vet doesn’t look like THAT?), I’m just going to call him McCreamy, as McDreamy and McSteamy are taken and that ain’t the easiest word to rhyme. 😉

Anyway.

“Grey’s” is my favorite show because it breaks my heart again and again and yet I cannot turn away because I see myself in it every freaking Sunday night. This week, Meredith met her half-sister, but she didn’t reveal to the sister that she knows who she is. And the sister rambled about how overprotective her dad is (Thatcher, also Meredith’s father) because she’s the younger child. And when Meredith asked her to elaborate (clearly hoping that the girl knew about her), the girl alluded to a sister in med school at Harvard. (Meredith went to Dartmouth.) Gah.

Gah indeed.

Reminds me of, oh, 1992 when I met my father for the first time. We actually went to dinner and he was talking about his son and I asked how many kids he had. His answer? “Oh, just two — a boy and a girl.”

And for that brief, brief moment, my heart soared — maybe he considered me to be his after all. But nope, the two kids were Ryan and Shannon. I didn’t count. I didn’t even factor into the fucking equation.

He treated me like a stranger that night. He insisted I looked nothing like him (bullshit). I guess he missed every single detail down to the same laugh. But whatever.

We never saw each other again. I stayed in touch for awhile until he broke my heart (a story for another day or, even better, NEVER), although let’s face it, I should have expected it. I guess I’d just thought that once he realized what a freaking awesome kid he’d missed out on, perhaps it would be kind of me to awaken his senses and let him come to them.

No such luck.

But no matter — I’m just kinda tired of seeing my life showing up on “Grey’s” every week. 🙂 I wonder if Meredith and Thatch will try to forge a relationship, given Ellis’ declining health (that Richard told him about! Eeep! The two men in Ellis’ life talking — hoo BOY was that uncomfortable!).

But to go off into TV land for a second, if the sister is 22 and has a sister in med school and Meredith is a first-year intern, that means Thatch started his new family pretty quickly after Ellis supposedly left him when Meredith was 5 years old. Maybe Thatch was the one who left first after all. Hmm. Ponderous. Or perhaps he just found himself a nice housewife-type who wouldn’t be in surgery all day while he was alone with a toddler, waiting for her.

It still gets me, though, how a parent can outright abandon his child. The words “self-preservation” come to mind for reasons best left unexplained, but going back to my own father, I set fire to the two photos I had of him when I realized that he was content to remain worthless in my eyes. And there are days when I wonder what I’d say to him if he found me and needed a kidney or money or just someone in the world who is required by law (via bloodline) to give a shit about him.

And I respected my family (my mom’s side) a whole bunch more after that for never having said a bad word about him my whole life. For leaving the door open for me to meet him on my own and to reserve my judgment for the man I met and not the reputation that preceded the meeting. (I guess you can’t call it a reunion if you’ve never crossed paths before.)

Anywho, I loved Laurie Metcalf’s character and all the wonderful nuggets of wisdom she passed along to her teenage daughter about marriage and babies and life.

My grandmother did that for me a long time ago. Not when she was on her deathbed — her death was sudden. But she always told me the truth, and even though I know she might disagree with some of the choices I’ve made and the course my life is heading down, I also know she would have relented (even if only in her own mind and not in her challenging of my decisions) when I proved her wrong. Which I loved doing more than anything else. 😉

That was a bedrock of my relationship with my grandmother. Proving each other wrong. Her motivation was to protect me from any more hurt (see: dad, deadbeat) — she just wanted me to listen to her advice and live a quiet, pain-free life; my goal was to show that nothing could break me and that I had the power to overcome any level of challenge.

I think she’s the reason I’m so damned uncomfortable when I’m not in forward motion — any movement that’s not in that direction seems like a setback and an outright failure. And maybe that was her grand plan all along — to make me tough and to ensure I don’t ever settle for stasis. I owe it all to her that a stiff breeze doesn’t send me running back to the idiot father or anyone else who isn’t worth more than a minute of my time.

Bringing it all back, I hope Meredith ignores that stupid father of hers. Fuck him for leaving her. I know she needs family — I know what it’s like to not have anyone you want to bother when the mind gremlins get the better of you. That’s why I’m rooting for Finn, as I hear she’s going to make a choice between McCreamy (ahem) and McDreamy before the season’s over. Choose wisely, Meredith. Your real-life counterpart is rootin’ for ya to win for a freaking change!!!

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 2nd, 2006 at 10:48 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.