(remember, october is SARCASTIC month)
my parents were supposed to go out of town this weekend. i found that a bit odd in itself, seeing as how they planned on going out of town TOGETHER and my mom had taken to going either by herself or with my sister. it isn't anything extravagant mind you, it's usually a trip to either wv or ga to visit her sisters where she can extoll on her virtues and talk about what a terrific mom and grandmother she is. anywhoo--they didn't go this weekend.
you know why? um, because my nephew (not gameboy) has pneumonia so my mom had to keep my neice for the weekend. huh? first of all, my aunt, who works in the dr's office my sister uses says he doesn't have pneumonia, he's got a little crud and is on antibiotics. second, even if he did have pneumnoia, why would my mom need to keep my neice for the weekend? my nephew is not contagious. and there are now two adults in the household since my sister got married. hmmm. thankfully my kids don't get sick a lot (really, thankful for that) but if one IS sick i don't ship the other one off somewhere. wtf?
the story coming from my mom will no doubt be how she sacrificed her weekend away to stay and take care of my niece and then how on top of that they had to help with my grandma this weekend.
the hubs gave up his sleeping in morning today to help my uncle take the screen door from my grandma's house and install it on her new garage apartment. i'm sure my parents are present, though not doing anything to help, and i'm sure that will be part of the excuse as to why they didn't go out of town as well.
i don't get it. i really don't. i've been doing a lot of thinking lately about my parents and my feelings/attitudes toward them. it started w/ the kiss the girl gave me at the bus stop that morning. recognizing the power she held over me and assuming that power will only grow as she gets older, i wondered how i might have the power to make my relationship w/ my parents better.
also, i have so many friends who are dealing with aging parents. they are either taking care of them in their own homes, making the tough decisions to put them in a nursing home or dealing w/ a parent that doesn't want to do either but obviously needs round the clock care. and, it isn't necessarily done once they've died. one friend, who was excluded altogether from a parent's will, was contacted about being sued for the balance due on a house that was left to her sister for god's sake. i can sympathize with them because they are my friends but in the back of my mind i always think---not going to be me because i'm not taking responsibility for my folks, my sister (yeah right) can do that.
and then i think of maybe how wrong i am toward my parents. i have held them, and my sister, at arms length for years. admittedly it is a defense mechanism because i really can't take any more shit from them. i sometimes think i'm being too hard on my parents because some of the ill i feel toward them stems from my childhood. and lord knows my greatest fear in life is that i will have the negative impact on my kids that they had on me. i sometimes try to make excuses for them thinking, you know, they're only human, they did the best they could. they were young (they got married at 19 and had me at 20). but that can't excuse everything. but, can i really judge them?
however, it's not like after my parents "grew up" they started making the best decisions or changed their points of view and became stellar parents and grandparents. their selfishness (for that's where SO much of their problems stem from) continues to this day.
3 comments:
I, too, think about what will happen when my mother gets older. I'm an only child, and I live many hours from her, which is NOT an accident. I only see her a couple of times a year, and really that's only because I feel obligated. I try sometimes to forgive her for the things she did to me, the choking and swearing and hitting, but I can't really seem to get past it enough to actually love her. I think that forgiveness is one thing, but forcing myself to want to be with her is entirely another. When she gets old, she will not be living with me. She will go to an assisted living place that her medicare or insurance will pay for. If she's lucky, I will visit her once in awhile, but only if she chooses to be in a home nearer to me, since I'm not flying there all the time. If she were anyone else, I would not be in contact with her at all, ever. I actually hope that when her time comes, it will be quick, and I will not be forced to make these choices for her. Since she refuses to wear a seat belt, this may actually end up being the case. It sounds cold, and I know it is, but... to sum her up, she once told me that she has left me everything in her will, and nothing to her partner of twenty years, whom she has known all her life, and who would not be able to afford the rent on her apartment if she were gone. She doesn't want to provide for him, it's too much trouble to change the will. She didn't go to visit his sister in the hospital, who she had also known all her life, even though everyone knew she was dying. The woman was in the hospital for six months. She didn't go because it was too much trouble, even though it was a half hour away. Yet, the greatest irony of all is, she's a nurse. I think she likes it because it's a position of power she has over her patients, who are largely old.
One of the best things that I've done, lately, is scout around for brilliant women to follow in the blogoshpere. (I hate that word, but it fits)
There isn't anything that I can offer in this set of comments, but I want to thank both of you for being as open and honest as you have been in this post, and with astarte's comment.
Each of you have helped me realize that I'm not alone and in a world of "right and wrong" uncertainty, that's a big plus.
Thank you.
astarte--i'm sure we could swap stories on our childhood. i've thought a lot about posting the gorey details of mine, but not quite sure i'm ready for that.
sher--thanks for hanging w/ us : ) one thing blogging has done for me is make me realize i'm not quite as alone in my fuckupedness as i thought : )
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