Anyone want a houseguest if I die before she does?
When Mom — who took care of my great-grandmother, great-aunt, grandmother and grandfather till each died — got to the end of her rope and declared, “I can’t take this anymore” about each of them, they passed. Quickly and unexpectedly and very painfully for them.
And for her because she to this day carries a guilt complex about a chain of events that start in 1987.
After an absolutely miserable day that had two high points I can’t even think about because I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE, she said fine. Now she’ll die.
I know she’s in excruciating pain. I do. But she won’t sit home. I have to drag her around town and drop her off and pick her up at the doors and do the running around in the stores and today, I didn’t have it in me.
I’ve been up since 3 a.m. thanks to one of my medications. But I ran out of steam somewhere around 2 p.m. in Wal-Mart. She has a terrible memory now and she didn’t bring a list so it was ALL THE CIRCLES, running around like a twit every time she thought of something.
I finally said goddamn it, woman. There’s $100 worth of shit in the basket and I told you Ill be out of town and I’ve begged you to get enough food to last. But if we can’t get out of the sewing aisle when you don’t sew and the car aisle when you don’t drive anymore … I am very sick and need to leave.
So I get a, “Oh WAAAH it’s all about you.”
Well, yes, yes it is. My money, my time, my day off and MY HEALTH. We already know no one at any job I’ve ever worked wants me to take time to care about my own health, let alone hers.
And I have to do a whole lot of things for her, and most of those things have to get to crisis proportions for me to deal with them. And if I put myself AFTER her on the to-do list … yes, actually, it’s all fucking about me.
I can’t really say though, “You try not knowing what’s wrong with you.” Because she doesn’t know what’s wrong with her but it’s a LOT. So she ALWAYS WINS the health problem battle. She wins the pain and fatigue battle. She wins every goddamned battle.
And then she spent the rest of the day cornering me, blaming me for this and asking me why I hate her for that.
Her new thing is to ask me why I get nasty every time I’m about to leave town. Which, I NEVER leave town. And two, GOD HAS BLESSED ME WITH A FIVE-DAY REPRIEVE FROM YOU. Maybe I’m mentally on vacation already and you keep TALKING TALKING TALKING!!!!!!!!!
This will be one of those posts I pull down when she eventually goes over to the other side. But today, when faced with a fuzzy diagnosis that could either be an inconvenience or a life-threatening issue, it scares me to say which way I wish the coin would toss.
And in that case, I don’t think I’d be sad if it was quick.
Of course, as she said to me earlier, “Can you give it up with the ‘poor me’ shit?”
You first …
GOD I HATE VIRGOS.