Bad Son

I haven't talked to my family in weeks, and I haven't seen them since Christmas. Readers might be shocked, in fact, to learn that I have a family, as I tend to never mention them ever in my blog. I'm not estranged, I'm not in any kind of conflict with them. It's just rough. Rough rough rough.

I have no idea why. When I went home for Christmas, I was pretty wrecked for a while afterwards. I don't know why. There was no single event while I was home. It was more of the sum total. And so with one exception, I haven't called, and without exception, I haven't visited.

Who are we talking about. There's my father and my step mother, my step sister, my brother, and his wife. Literally, that's all the family I have. My parents are elderly. My mother has congestive heart failure. She doesn't have much in the way of oxygen that's reaching either her brain or anything else these days. The situation gets worse and worse. Well, a better way to put it would be that her abilities deteriorate. She continues to be (weirdly) chipper and upbeat. My father is somewhat despondent. Today, talking to my brother, I learned that the doctor had provided my mother with a 'comfort kit,' which my brother referred to as a 'death kit.' It's a shot of morphine. And she has skilled nursing care, and an LPN who visits. Someone basically has to be there to make sure that she takes her pills. Most of that work falls to my brother, who lives nine miles away from them. Talking to my step-sister today was comforting in a way. She's kind of freaked out about her mother. She said that like a computer hard drive that has no available memory, she doesn't take anything else in. Her recently arrived great grandson, who should be the light of her life, doesn't seem to stick in her mind. ("Does Joseph have any children?" she'll ask again and again, referring to her favorite grandson.) And, my step sister noticed the last time she was home that her mother (my step mother) sort of gets into little loops in terms of behavior: struggle to get up from the chair, step step step step, say "Ooh! I almost fell there," step step step step, say "Almost there; when did this get to be such a long trip," step step step step, into the bathroom, close the door, emerge moments later, step step step step step step step step, say "Is that footstool in my way? No?" step step step step step step, sit down. Here's the jarring part. Wait three or four minutes, then repeat.

Now, part of the reason I don't go to visit them (I can make the drive in about an hour and fifteen minutes) is because I'm busy busy busy with GMSMA and softball and the endless whirl of fabulous parties and pressing social engagements and... y'know... whipping men. But that, of course, is just part of the reason. The other part of the reason is that it makes me sad. Not depressed, just sad. It could be in part that my last trip home coincided with Boss Sunshine's initial total fuckin freakout that left me wondering what would be worse, getting fired and not having a job, or having a job and facing that every day. But I think that it's just about the sadness. And I can't figure that out. It's not like I have any great unresolved business with my parents. Those battles have been fought. I am resigned to the fact that I will never receive from my father the unqualified support that I've always wanted. He is only capable of duck-and-hide when things get too intimate. So we talk about the Civil War and current events and World War II and opera.

I think that in part what I'm doing is steeling myself. You see, chances are good that I will bury all of them. My brother is fifteen years my senior. He's retiring this year. Eventually, I'm going to be left all alone. As the span of my life had compassed the deaths of two mothers, my grandparents, and my sister, I'm not expecting any great shock. If my father died, I'd go back to Pennsylvania for the funeral. If my dog died, I'd be inconsolable.

Just now, when I was talking to my brother, he told me that I had to call my parents more often. He told me to not be so selfish. I guess it is selfishness. Can't be bothered to take time out from your fun life to spend some time with those tiresome old people. And, possibly, there are elements of revenge in there as well.

Ah well. What to do.

Call your Dad, for one thing.

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