An incomplete longitudinal study of post-adolescent orphan-hood. Year One.
I called in sick this morning.
Couldn't face another shift of being lied to by amateurs.
Not today anyway.
So I drove a few towns north to put fake flowers on my parents grave. (Yes, they share one)
And I can't help but think of what a time it's been these last few years, and this last year in particular.
On the one hand, there have been so many times I would have loved to have them to talk to,
to ask for advise or comfort.
But on the other, I'm so glad neither of them lived to see this shit-show of a year.
And now matter how bad 2021 is, at least I have two fewer people to worry about.
And I realized driving north this morning that they spent my entire life preparing me for this world.
For navigating the daily stupidity of a society bent on consuming itself.
For a world without them.
But I got a fair amount done this year.
Got their affairs half in order.
Fought and won with lawyers and accountants.
Got engaged.
Got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
Quit drinking.
Got diagnosed with absurdly high blood pressure.
Got it under control at least long enough to have the septic molar pulled and a big chunk of the infected bone removed.
Kept regular (more or less) after a half dozen rounds of horse antibiotics.
Survived the Rona, at least so far...
And in spite of being an essential worker in an office that caters to the ever increasing hordes of homeless destitute and newly (or not so newly) disenfranchised wanderers, I have long since stopped counting the empty desks.
And the constant cussing and wailing is, for the most of times anyway, a background hum.
It's January
it's already been a long year
in spite of the short daylight hours
days pushing pencils and nights spent in long negotiation
weekends of toil
constantly losing ground
vultures circling
she died on the solstice
we buried her on new years eve
in a hand made pine box
copper and cold iron to keep the path
silver on her eyes for the ferryman
a rubber chicken in her hand for luck
Well that's the reason why I'm here. Are you ready for a new sensation?
So I've been gone for a bit.
Not a lot of poetry involved.
Been playing nursemaid and in home support specialist.
You know, I've done a lot of things over the years, and had a number of experiences, both good and bad.
And figured I was ready for most things at this point.
Two nights ago, when my sister left the room to get ice chips and a new dressing, my mother asked me to kill her.
Not in the 'please make it stop' way.
In the coldly lucid way only of someone who knows they're experiencing one of their last moments of mental clarity.
Wasn't ready for that.
I know she'd said she wanted to die, and couldn't wait for it to happen.
She's been saying that for a week or so at this point.
But as far as I know that's the first time she's asked someone to do it for her.
Which is kind of a bold step for an Irish Catholic girl.
Just this side of suicide.
And it's a weird mix of feelings.
I mean on the one hand it's terrifying, the person who was always so scared to lose control is in enough pain that she wants someone to kill her, and has repeatedly requested to be kept doped up until she goes.
On the other, she trusted me enough to ask.
And a part of me wonder's if that's why she signed over the medical POA to me a few months back.
Figured I'd be the one who would be able to let her go.
I didn't tell my sister, she's under enough stress.
And the fucked up thing is that a small part of me is completely unsurprised that she has no qualms about asking me to destroy my future to improve her level of comfort.
There's no life support, palliative care only.
There's nothing to do short of actual homicide
And she knows this.
Yes, I'm making this about me.
This is the only place where I can.
No, I don't give a shit what you think.
Fuck yourself.
If you've been through that, then you know that you have to withdraw and look at these sorts of things from an external point of view.
You know that there's a time, after who knows how many weeks of sleeping 45 minutes at a time, tending to bed sores, cleaning the shit and puke out of everything, and (in the less coherent moments) being the target of a lifetime of anger, abuse, and pain.
You know there's a point where, if only for a fleeting moment, you come to hate the ones you love.
And you know that the months/years of sleep deprivation and worry and heartache can dull your common sense. And that the things you once saw as obvious reactions to certain situations now require thought.
You stop reacting to things at an emotional or even moral level, and have to weigh the pros and cons of your situation with a sort of detached objectivity.
If you haven't been through that, then kindly fuck off with your condescension, judgment and uninformed hypocritical bullshit.
And I didn't do it, in case you're wondering.
Call it yet another failure. A stubborn and selfish unwillingness to perform my filial duties.
I spoke about it with the hospice social worker, who said that this is more or less normal for people in this stage of liver cancer.
And don't mistake me.
I love my mother.
And when this is finally over (possibly in the next few days) I will miss her fiercely.
I will be sad.
Weary.
Depressed.
Angry.
At myself.
At the doctors who couldn't figure out her 'mystery illness' these last five or six years.
At the world.
And a small selfish part of me will be angry with her.
Angry that she asked.
No.
Expected that of me.
Just one more unpleasant job for the replacement son.
Come on kid, don't be a pussy.
And I will do my damnedest (in public at least) to stomp that down and do what's necessary.
Because, of all people, she'd be the one to tell me to stop being a pussy about it.
And I'll go home alone, cry and drink myself unconscious for a week, because that's the level of grief that's acceptable for a middle aged misanthrope.
It's an interesting mix of feelings. Sort of an ambrosia salad made from differing grades of human feces.
And, of course, I can't talk to anyone in the real world about feelings, that'd make me some kind of pussy.
So I get to write about it on the internet like some whiney adolescent.
Anyway, that's what I've been doing for the last 8 months.
Longer actually, but we've only had a tentative diagnosis since February, and we've only had a name for it since October.
I'm rapidly reaching a point where I can't throw a dart at a calendar between February and June without hitting the anniversary of someone or another shuffling off this mortal coil.
But I have a new job
A fresh start at a fresh life
Regular sleep (so far as folks like me are capable of sleeping regularly).
I have enough to eat.
I have a roof over my head.
I even live someplace where I can have a pet now.
I'm getting in shape.
I'm going out into the world (in a non-work related way)
And most nights I don't wake up screaming, or coughing out the smell of my nightmares. Or with afterimages burned to the inside of my eyelids from things I would rather not have seen, found, stumbled across or experienced.
