On thanksgiving, I had appendicitis. I spent the day in the hospital. My holiday dinner was a festive orange Jello. I watched any and every talk show I could that day, mainly because I was in great pain and could not leave my bed.

My sister visited me with her son, who had recently turned 6. He loved to see my scar, thinking it was the coolest owie one could possibly have. I told him that my cat had jumped on my stomach as I lay in bed the night before, and the pain had been unbearable.

So my little story of a cat causing pain gave him the idea that the cat had given me the infection. I patiently explained my affliction in 6-year-old terms. I had an owie in my tummy and the doctor had to cut me open to make it better.

A week later, he asked me why I had gotten sick. My brother told him to take that up with god. He was a smart kid, and immediately inquired about contacting god.

"Want to know a secret?" I asked him

"Uh-Huh"

"God isn't real."

His eyes got very wide at that point, and he told me I was wrong. But I could tell I had gotten through to him. I figured no one should have a problem with it; my sister was an atheist, as was my brother, my parents, my sister's mother, and the kid's father. There seemed to be no conflict of teaching. I had wondered who had taken it upon themselves to teach him about the overrated non-existent deity in the first place. I got my answer soon.

His father had not arrived on the scene until he was almost three. So naturally I wondered what his basket case of a paternal grandmother was doing at my doorstep, yelling at me about corrupting her grandchild.

I told her the truth. Your god isn't real. Your son has no job and can't make his child support payments. I am the primary male influence in his life. I taught him to ride a bike. You have a right to be a part of his life, but you can monopolize his religious education over my fucking dead body.

I haven't seen her since, so I assume she got the message. What angered me though is that she had the audacity to assume that since she shared chromosomes with him, she got to decide how he would be brought up. I want to see him grow into an intelligent young man. She wanted him to be just like her. I could tell she was ashamed of her own son for many different reasons.

How can people be like this? What doesn't bother me that much is her insistence on her grandson being Christian. I know she is deluded, but she means well, and I respect that. What I don't respect is that she thinks that because she exists and she is a woman she gets to decide about his life. She was not there to change his diapers, nor did she even try to contact him until her son decided to try to be a responsible father. (He is not a great father, but he tries his hardest.) Her arrogance makes me want to tell her grandson that his father is not really his father. (That's not true. I am just pissed)

Meanwhile, at our Christmas celebration, my cousin visited. He was shooting a home movie on one of those camcorders that costs so much the only time you use one is in your wildest dreams and at Radio Shack. He asked my nephew to give the last word of his home movie. He said, "I've never seen god."

Progress has been made. Although my nephew still believes in god, he is questioning everything he knows about him, and his parents laugh at his sharpness. As far as I can tell, his grandmother understands that she does not trump me. Hopefully, not every family contains one of these.