My auntie (Becky) has cancer and has gone home to the family to die. She's being taken care of by my other aunties along with hospice workers. She's staying with Cathleen, and Lue and Debra are helping out. Becky is smoking like a chimney and has basically given up. Lue (my father's twin) is a fixer, and she's remarkably like me. Well, I'm remarkably like her, since she came first.
She isn't handling well the idea that anyone can just give up and die. She has a special heat bed that she has been foisting on her family, and she has been suggesting different things such as vitamins and healthy foods in order to help Becky get better. Some other aunties are giving her the smackdown for it. They are giving her such a hard time because she cares enough to try. I know you're wondering how many aunties I have. Well, it's a bunch.
There are ten aunts and uncles, and seven are female. Yikes. Anyway - Lue is driving herself batshit over this, and I feel her pain. I've been as supportive as I can, and I've been trying to help her fend off the bad aunties and crazy cousins who are basically psychotic on our family website. Ann Marie is the worst auntie, and Gail has been a fucking psycho for some time. She has really been off the edge since I have known her. It's incredibly hard for anyone to deal with death, especially when the person and the caregivers have totally given up and seem resigned to it when there is hope.
My mom and I didn't get along until right until the end before she died, and she wasn't doing anything to prolong her life at that point. She knew she was going to die and didn't care and god that really PISSED ME OFF! I mean, I was only a kid, what was I going to do? I couldn't convince her to get on the list for a heart transplant, or surgery to get a defibrillator like the one I've got. She wanted to die.
I ended up deciding to go and visit her and really just spend quality time with her for her last birthday (she died 6 months later). It drove me crazy how sick she was, and she was concerned about making sure she gave me things she wanted me to have before it was too late. My lesson there was that she had made up her mind she was okay to die regardless of the fact that she had me, Tina, Julie and Dave as well as Chris and Angela who were 11 & 9 who still needed a parent.
I know she decided a long time ago that she was done being a mom to me, I remember her saying that her "kids were grown" so she could go and have a life, but I was 9 at the time. That's hardly grown.
My point is she didn't care who she left and didn't care that she was going to die and she could have stopped it. She did not have to die the way she did. She did not have to leave before she and I worked our shit out. I spent years just being so fucking angry with her that she never gave us a chance to get our shit straight. What kind of mother does that?? Jesus Christ. I'm still so fucking angry that she didn't care enough to live.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
She isn't handling well the idea that anyone can just give up and die. She has a special heat bed that she has been foisting on her family, and she has been suggesting different things such as vitamins and healthy foods in order to help Becky get better. Some other aunties are giving her the smackdown for it. They are giving her such a hard time because she cares enough to try. I know you're wondering how many aunties I have. Well, it's a bunch.
There are ten aunts and uncles, and seven are female. Yikes. Anyway - Lue is driving herself batshit over this, and I feel her pain. I've been as supportive as I can, and I've been trying to help her fend off the bad aunties and crazy cousins who are basically psychotic on our family website. Ann Marie is the worst auntie, and Gail has been a fucking psycho for some time. She has really been off the edge since I have known her. It's incredibly hard for anyone to deal with death, especially when the person and the caregivers have totally given up and seem resigned to it when there is hope.
My mom and I didn't get along until right until the end before she died, and she wasn't doing anything to prolong her life at that point. She knew she was going to die and didn't care and god that really PISSED ME OFF! I mean, I was only a kid, what was I going to do? I couldn't convince her to get on the list for a heart transplant, or surgery to get a defibrillator like the one I've got. She wanted to die.
I ended up deciding to go and visit her and really just spend quality time with her for her last birthday (she died 6 months later). It drove me crazy how sick she was, and she was concerned about making sure she gave me things she wanted me to have before it was too late. My lesson there was that she had made up her mind she was okay to die regardless of the fact that she had me, Tina, Julie and Dave as well as Chris and Angela who were 11 & 9 who still needed a parent.
I know she decided a long time ago that she was done being a mom to me, I remember her saying that her "kids were grown" so she could go and have a life, but I was 9 at the time. That's hardly grown.
My point is she didn't care who she left and didn't care that she was going to die and she could have stopped it. She did not have to die the way she did. She did not have to leave before she and I worked our shit out. I spent years just being so fucking angry with her that she never gave us a chance to get our shit straight. What kind of mother does that?? Jesus Christ. I'm still so fucking angry that she didn't care enough to live.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
This really hit home for me. I'm in sort of the same situation with my family. My mother wants to die, has wanted to die since I was 12. My family and I haven't been the same since her last brain surgery. I didn't speak to them for 6 months and then came home for Christmas because my mom threatened to kill herself if I wasn't there.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand it either, how she can look at her grand children's smiles and still want to end it. Very selfish. All I can do now is keep quiet about her health and the way the rest of the family wants to go about treating her. I throw my hands up!
Oops sorry for taking over. I just know how hard it is to deal with this. I'm so sorry that you had to go through that with your mom. It's not something you can just get over, the pain feels so fresh. I wish you as much peace as you can possibly get.
xo
Hi Christine,
ReplyDeleteFeel free to take over at any time. =)
I'm so sorry that your family is going through such a rough time with your mom. It sounds like it won't truly be over until she gets what she wants. What a hard situation to deal with.
At least my situation is over except for the leftever anger because so much was left unresolved. Her unnecessary death led to so much worse trouble because she left her small kids with a very bad person. They are adults now and I've heard that their lives were hell after my mother died.
WOW!
ReplyDeleteSo many parallels here.
My mother died almost 30 years ago from leukemia. She fought for every day she had, and ended up living almost 6 months longer than she was supposed to.
I also lost a brother 2 years ago in a car accident. My father has since tried to take his life, twice.
We've had him Baker acted, and he's gone into psychiatric treatment on his own, but he still says he wants to be with his 'family.'
The heartbreaking thing about that is, he still has 2 kids (myself and an older brother), and 5 GORGEOUS grandkids.
The selfishness of his actions tears me apart, but what can I do?
If he wants to die, he'll find a way .... no matter what any of us say or do.
Thanks for writing such an honest post. I hope that some day you'll be able to release the anger you feel towards your Mom. I too was angry for a long time, but for a very different reason. I was angry that she choose NOT to tell me she was dying. I was only 10, and knew that she was sick, but had no idea that she was dying.
I wish ALL of us peace! :)
Blazingfyre- Thank you so much for sharing your experience with me. I can fully appreciate how it is when someone says they want to be with his 'family' by dying when in fact he's surrounded by loving family already.
ReplyDeleteMy mother seemed to conveniently forget that she was still needed by all her kids, even us adult ones. What I will never understand is how a person can just decided they're done being someone's mother.
I do have a lot of unresolved issues - one day I'll deal with it all. Thank you again for sharing with me.
=^=Peace=^=
My mom was suicidal -almost taking me w/ her more than once- until she was diagnosed with cancer. Suddenly she wanted to live, but it was too late by then. I guess sometimes we never really know what we want.
ReplyDeleteAllan: I'm sorry you went through that. I hope your mom found at last what she was looking for...
ReplyDelete