I ate lunch with my mother today. She was just a shell. She wasn't really there. Her eyes, cold and dead. Unknowing and unseeing. Her uncoordinated fingers trying to manage the half sandwich in her hands. Managing but just barely. Dad took the sandwich from her, arranged it just so, handed back and said, "Get it together already."
I hated them both at that moment. I am a monster.
They (he) invited me at the very last moment. Seriously. On their way out the door. I had started to make a sandwich, and I left it where it was. I figured they (he) had a reason. And so he did. He asked me to take her to a dermatology appointment later in the week. He asked almost as we had finished our lunch. Mine was unsatisfying: yucky fish in a yucky sauce on a bland wild rice blend. Get it together, kitchen staff. I hate this place sometimes. I am a monster.
I just returned from a few days of R&R and loved every minute of it. The countryside, the friends, the food. No doggies to take for walks several times a day. No piles of animal poop to pick up. No need to satisfy the unquenchable need of a chihuahua for constant cuddling. No neighbors to put on a happy face for as I make my way down the hallway to retrieve the days mail.
We returned and had several messages on the phone. Dinner dates to be made, maid services to be rescheduled. I heaved a large sigh. We're back. No longer in the land of make believe.
Suitcases to unpack, laundry to be done, grocery shopping schlepping to do. God it all seems so dreary.
My mother's dermatology appointment is the day after my angiogram (outpatient hospital procedure). I believe I will be sufficiently recovered to do so. But damn, he didn't even ask about the procedure. He is 86 after all, and has difficulty keeping track of things. Many things. He asked me again about a computer problem he was having. I told him once again that I am hopeless on PCs and if he only had a Mac I could help. But, I told, him, he was shit out of luck.
I am a monster.
(With apologies to Elizabeth, who so brilliantly uses the phrase, "I am a monster.")
Sending love. You are in good company having the monster experience.
ReplyDeleteThis breaks my heart in every way. Sadness on top of sadness. It makes me wish so much that we all lived in community together, the old way, the 10,000 years ago way. Now it's the modern world of everything colliding with the modern world of everything all the time. Thinking of you and your mom.
ReplyDeleteNo! YOU ARE NOT A MONSTER! You are a kind and loving daughter who has gone the extra mile for your mother and your self-centered father.
ReplyDeleteA word of caution from an old nurse: depending on how the procedure is done, your groin might be too sore to do much walking the next day. Hopefully not, but your father may need to make other arrangements or change the appointment. Give your doctor's office a call to ask if it is reasonable for you to assist your mother and do that much walking the day following the procedure. After all, a dermatology appointment is hardly an emergency and could be changed.
robin andrea's comment is so interesting to me -- I'd never thought of it in that way. I like to imagine that the "monster" feeling has occurred to all humans doing the messy things of life just as the joy and honor.
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