Count the Days

I'm a good kid. You're a terrible parent.

There. My anger has a name. It does me no good, of course, to be angry with a person so helpless about things that happened so long ago. I cannot bring myself to speak the words because I know that it's cruel. I am not her. I believe that cruelty is unnecessary. However, I am still angry. That anger festers in my brain and my heart is shrouded in a sooty darkness. With every criticism, I feel it thickening. I look at ambitious people with an envy so deep that it makes me wonder what is happening to me. Once I have served my time as caregiver, I am not sure who I will be. 

Each day that passes chips away at the optimistic and hopeful girl I once was. I see no future. I see no reason to believe that there is anything good waiting for me. I live in a fantasy world inside my head every minute that I have free. All my creative energy goes into the fantasy. All my hopes and dreams are alive in the fantasy. It is the only place where they are safe. 

I have a few hours free three days a week. I often use them to have pleasant conversation with strangers at the store or play video games. The rest of the time I am an automaton, taking orders and doing the things that are needed to keep the old lady alive and well. It is much easier to be completely detached. If I don't feel anything, I do the job very well. If I don't allow myself to consider how deserving she is of kindness, which she is so apparently incapable of demonstrating, I have no problem with it.

She has no friends. I see why. Whenever she tries to start a conversation, I immediately shut it down. The only things she talks about are other people's shortcomings. She insults people. She gossips. No, I have no interest in participating in any of it. Do not attempt to involve me. If that's the only way you can carry on a conversion, then I guess we won't have any. I often change the channel on TV when she starts bashing celebrities because I just don't want to hear it. And so it goes. I am fulfilling my duties as a daughter, and that is all.

The Beanstalk

When I saw the neighbor's ice cream truck on the way home from mom's dialysis, I pulled over and bought some cheese fries just like the ones I ate for lunch every day in Jr High. He asked about mom, and I told him about her new dialysis port and the convenience it will afford her once the temporary one has been removed and healed. I'm just as excited as she is about getting her back into the pool and hot tub at the gym.

Rudy looked troubled, so I continued talking about the little things that mom and I deal with every day. He told me that I had a good heart. I said that I know this opportunity won't come again, so I must take it. Any other plans I have can wait.

Rudy told me that he lost his mom seven months ago to liver cancer. She was a breast cancer survivor, but the doctors didn't diagnose her liver early enough for treatment. They gave her eight months to live. She died two months later. He misses her; It shows in his eyes. I asked him a few relevant-but-not-prying questions to keep the conversation in motion so he wouldn't cry and feel embarrassed. To clarify, I don't mind if he cries, but he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would be okay doing it. I understand much better these days that people need a release of these emotions. There's no reason to feel ashamed, but do many of us do. I have no idea what to do with the shame - theirs or my own. I don't know how to comfort someone who feels ashamed of their vulnerability, but I do often find myself in their company often. I suppose we hold space together by "coincidence" (which I do not believe in). We don't recognize anything in particular that is wrong with us, but we just don't feel right... or maybe we are okay and the world around us is broken. Whatever it is, it connects us on a much deeper level than anything that divides us.  At least we can agree on that.

Anyway, I told Rudy that I lost my dad in 1989 to cancer, and I didn't get the chance to care for him or be with him at the end. Although it is difficult to watch someone you love suffer, you want to be there to help in whatever way you can. Despite my intense admiration and adoration, my dad died alone and far away. I wasn't given a choice in the matter. This time it will end differently.