Man. Is She on a Roll ...

So. I'm on the phone with Mom and we're talking about her dying.

I've been talking with my mother about her death for my entire life. She and my grandmother were both completely obsessed with death. Especially death by cancer. Basically, they both threatened me and my sister with my mother's imminent demise from cancer (probably lung since she was a smoker, but definitely exacerbated by the undue stress A and I put on Mom and Grandma.)

This conversation, (Mom on the cell driving somewhere, me on cell at home) was based on a talk she apparently had with V, my niece. Somehow my mother and my 11 year old niece had a talk about who V would want to live with should Mom die. (By the way -- this is a conversation I, as an 11 year old Princess, had with the very same mother. I chose my Aunt G -- but only because I knew that was the right answer to please Mom. I actually hated the thought of living with Aunt G and her husband H who was a minister. I couldn't bear the thought of going to church every week.)

V chooses to live with me in Brooklyn. So Mom adds a twist ... What about A? (A, my sister, V's biological mother)
V: She can come too.
M: No she can't. We tried that once before and it was awful.
[My sister came to live with me in New York years and years ago. It didn't work out. Everyone has moved past this ... except my mother.]

At this point I'm thinking, here she goes again. I can't believe she said these things to V. Maybe she's exaggerating and she didn't actually say this to her 11 year old granddaughter. Then, I hear someone in the background.

Not only was my mother re-counting her awful comments she made to V. She was doing it with V in the car next to her.