What is wrong with people, or, what is wrong with people?

I drove down to Florida to visit my Gan for Thanksgiving. I kind of think she was almost more excited to see my dog, but she was glad to see me too. I had some topics I wanted to discuss with her and, as it turned out, she had some she wanted to discuss with me.

Her daughter, my aunt, lives there in town with her husband, who has been dying of cancer for many years. The doctors keep saying he's about to go, but he's been hanging on which, I will grant, makes for high stress. But this aunt of mine didn't speak to her mother for 10 years, though they lived five minutes apart. It was over money. It was spiteful and hateful and hurtful and embarrassing for my Gan. Then, all of a sudden, she came back and couldn't do enough for her mother. That lasted only a little while. Now, inexplicably, she's back to not speaking to her mother. She pretty much won't speak to anyone else in the family, either.

Since I was in town, my parents had asked my aunt if they would allow me to come visit them and my cousins. She grudgingly said okay. (Needless to say, we weren't invited to Thanksgiving with them.) When my Gan called to see if we could stop by, my aunt went into a tirade about how I didn't care about them, and her son was leaving in a minute to go back home and we could only stay a minute. We decided that we could just not go at all, and prove her theory that I don't care about them right, or just go.

We went with our heads held up. Aunt greeted us at the door with a hateful glare. My uncle, who is long-suffering in every way, was his usual friendly self, but of course, he didn't say anything to his wife, like, "hey, quit being such a bitch, why don'tcha?" One of my cousins barely looked up from his video game to say hello to me and say he was leaving in an hour (not right then, as we had been told), totally ignoring my Gan. My other cousin was taking a nap. We were there three minutes. I gave my uncle and cousin a hug. They did not hug Gan. Aunt didn't hug anyone, nor smile one time.

We left with our heads still held up, knowing we'd done the right thing, or the best we could.

How can people be so cruel to people who love them and are loving towards them? It makes no sense.