OK...so perhaps I was harsh...

...yesterday when I discussed my children but I have days like that. When I spend too much time remembering what my daughter did to me beginning this past summer and continuing to this very day, I go a bit nuts. She is withholding my grandson from me and the pain is to the core of my soul.  I know it hurts him as well but as her father before her, my daughter has an easy time accepting that separating loved family members is an acceptable practice...pain and damage it causes be damned.)

I won't totally defend myself, because to do so would be to do irreparable harm to my daughter and I can't do that and still face the chick in the mirror. But the last day I saw my daughter and my beautiful grandson, I was tackled by 2 Los Angeles police officers (With the dishonest and unnecessary, "Stop resisting". I remember Officer Maier repeating it over and over) handcuffed, led through an apartment complex and escorted to a mental hospital where I was held against my will until I could see a doctor who deemed me no danger to myself nor others. I was then released after being locked up in a hideous place for over 24 hours.

Pardon me as I digress for a moment, but I feel the need to tell this story. The officer, another one who mistake my hands for cuff-able, cuffed me behind my back and tossed me onto his back seat made of hard plastic. I immediately removed the handcuffs. I kept my hands behind me and held on to each cuff but still, you'd think he would have noticed while he escorted me out of his car and into the hospital. Whatever. I was led to a small waiting area where the cop and I chatted. After all, I'm NOT nuts. He bragged about being a recon sniper in some mid-east country (something you don't often hear from a vet .) and actually stated, "If it weren't for people like me, Americans would have no civil-rights." The irony of being taken against my will to a place that I did not belong forced guffaws from deep in my gut.

For the cops to have taken an obviously sane woman to a padded room doesn't just happen. I knew they had to have some reason that they were putting so much effort into finding a reason to take me away. I wasn't suicidal (I'd tell you if I were, you know that), I certainly didn't want to hurt a soul, I had been spending 98% of my time literally sitting on the floor playing trains, playing with puzzles and putting my grandson up in the air on my feet so he could "fly like a bird." We had done those things that morning. Up until then, my daughter had left him with me often saying, "I do anything to keep him away from my mother-in-law." My daughter doesn't like the woman who can't even speak English. She even developed a new Thanksgiving tradition of leaving town to avoid her in-laws. Those are her words. Anyway, that baby and I fell in love immediately and nothing can take that away from us. My daughter can try, but she know her son adores me and she is refusing to allow him to brag to his grandma that he knows what a "Q" is. I was teaching him letters and he was having trouble with the letter Q. He tried to tell me but the phone was swiftly cut-off.

Then one morning, my daughter asked when I was leaving. I had planned to leave her home that day. Of course, I would still visit, but living together wasn't working. I only moved in after being robbed twice (at that time). I had held out through the week-end and my daughter and I were OK with the decision. On Tuesday, when I said I was leaving, she asked me to wait there until Wednesday because it was her day off and she would be able to give me any rides I might need. That, and the chance to spend more time with my grandson, made for an easy decision. I agreed to spend one more night. My daughter immediately began her argument du jour but she was on her way to work so she only had time for a few caustically hurtful words and then she was gone.

I sat in a chair crying for about a half an hour and there was a knock on the door. Assuming it wasn't for me, I ignored it. Then a booming voice came through an opened window, MARGARET!!!. THIS IS THE LA PD!" Having nothing to fear from the law, I went to see what they wanted. They told me that my daughter had told them that I was suicidal. For over a half an hour I tried desperately to convince them that I was fine, but obviously upset over the words my daughter had fired at me. They kept leaving to make phone calls and "discuss" the situation. At one point they asked the question, "Have you been eating properly?" I explained my weight loss over the summer due to a broken jaw and numerous broken teeth, and as I was getting to the part where I was about to tell them that I drink a lot of Ensure, they stopped listening to me. As I continued to try to reason with them, they decided to tackle me for "resisting". I watch Cops, I'm not going to ask for trouble. But I got it anyway.

As I said, those cops were intent on taking me away. Obviously they knew something I didn't. My daughter would "NEVER" do this kept going through my mind. I now know that she told them that she was in fear for her safety as well as that of her son's. She told them she didn't think her baby would be safe with his best friend...his grandmother. Since then, she refuses to let me speak to him and blames it on her husband. After her daily reports of how "mad", "really mad" and eventually "beyond mad" I was making her husband, (Hell, I don't even know what that means!) I finally approached her him myself, Fausto, and told him that if he as any problems with anything I do, I wish he would be so respectful and mature as to come to me to discuss any issues. I am not unreasonable but he wouldn't know because the daily "fights" with Fausto never stopped.

At some point I'll probably explain some of the complaints that annoyed Fausto so much, (a biggie...I taught the kid the Spanish word for fart) but whatever you know or think of me, you must know that I couldn't have done anything to deserve what I received.