OK, so first, this happened at my local park for Easter:
In a way, it’s this perfect metaphor for life with my parents these days. A good 80% of my brain occupied with logistics. How is this even happening? Am I somehow misconstruing the weirdness of this situation? How did they get insurance to do this?!
I’d say another 15% of my brain is watching in stunned, horrified anticipation. Is this the moment before the blood-works start up? Is this the fleeting second of sunshine dappled happiness before the real show starts? How about now? How about…. now?
The last 5% is totally involved with amazement, but the good kind. I get to see this. It’s on my heart forever now, and nothing that happens later will erase it.
PS: In quite the literal sense, I touched an alligator. It exceeded expectations, being not plastic and tough like a lifetime of toys had taught me, but meaty and supple under the thick skin. Also, in the quite literal sense, my husband asked if the alligator had been drugged up prior. The handler said no, just well fed. These are photos from earlier in the day. Towards the end of the show, the alligator tried to get off the card table it was being displayed on. The handler wrapped arms around the gator’s neck and hugged it back into position. I don’t know what the back-up plan was – thing was totally off leash.
*
Here’s the update for any of you reading this like a handbook (Oh God, I CANNOT get the title of “What to Expect when You are Expecting… Your Parent to Die of Dementia” out of my head, complete with adorable little old folks on the cover instead of babies).
My dad is doing a little better on the meds. I saw him a few weeks ago as my husband and I went up to review my parents’ finances. Dad had a great morning (told my mom it was the best day of his life) and a tough afternoon (accused Mom of stealing all his money) followed by a so-so next day (didn’t remember who we were, but spoke at length of his plan to get his driver’s license back).
(With the surprisingly wily Matlock-style argument: “Even the doctor doesn’t know what’s wrong with my brain. How can they prove I can’t drive? They can’t bar me based on a diagnosis I don’t have!”)
My mother is busy putting my name on all her accounts, so if something happens to her first, I can easily transition my dad to a care facility. We spent the weekend going over what will happen when she dies, and what she wants done with her things and her body. She said to put Dad in a home, but left no instructions for which one. She agreed to put in writing the harder part of her wishes to avoid potential fights. (Exception being, of course, what to do with Dad. Guess she can’t turn her mind to it.)
My paternal grandmother died a few years ago, and my mother insists she is doing all this work because she now understands how difficult it is to manage another person’s estate. Mom wants it to be easy for us. Is gift!
I had a breakdown. Not because I can’t accept that she’ll die. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that by being complicit, I was giving her permission to go.
I told her, “This feels like being mugged*. Like how they always say, ‘don’t fight, just give over your purse, and they won’t hurt you.’ But somehow, when you just let it happen, it’s like an agreement. Like later you think, I should have screamed just so I knew it wasn’t OK.”
My mom hugged me, and I could feel it was less of a hug than she’d ever given me before. Not because she’s physically weaker, but because the promise between us is dissipating.
Maybe I’m just jumping at shadows, but I feel like I’m getting mugged and all I want to do is scream, SHE’S GOING so even if I get knifed for my troubles, at least I can stop pretending that’s not what’s happening.
*I was mugged at knife point when I was in my twenties.
I so enjoy reading your blog, which makes me feel guilty because of all the swirly painful stuff happening but all the same I’m over here nodding because yes…I get that. And holy fuck to being mugged.
I always worry I’d get myself stabbed because I cannot go quietly. Ever. I had a traumatic event in childhood where I was too naive to even put up a fight and now I have no ability to keep those feelings tucked in neatly. I am working on it.
Kudos to you for at least overcoming the urge and being an adult about it. I always have some glimmer of hope that making a scene will somehow magically change the whole situation but it never does. And instead of just you feeling shitty and panicked everyone feels shitty. Being an adult is absolute shit sometimes.
After nearly a year a half of fighting with my parents about not making any plans at all, I am ready to throw in the towel. I am sure there is no easy way to do any of this … but having had to help with the estates of two people who did not have anything set up, I have to agree that it is a gift.
And, WOW AN ALLIGATOR!
I wish there was some way to make this better. I’m so sorry
Also, ALLIGATOR!
Oh boy. Honeyyyy.
When I was 19, my parents and younger sister went overseas for a few months (I was studying, couldn’t go). My dad cheerfully sat me down before they went and cheerfully explained to me all about his & Mum’s wills, and he cheerfully told me that “If we peg out, you need to look in this file”, and he cheerfully told me, “If we peg out, you need to talk to this person,” and so on.
It was… useful, I suppose? But it was also really baldly confronting and his blitheness didn’t help. (They didn’t die, though my mother was about ready to strangle my little sister for telling her that a particular rollercoaster wasn’t too bad – my sister didn’t realise my mother would then use that information to decide to go on it herself.)
Which is my long way of saying holy FUCK I sympathise, and also if I threw a ripe banana at a wall every time my parents freaked me out, I’d have… a perfectly clean wall because my hand-eye coordination ain’t so good, but you get the idea.
How did you know I was reading this like a handbook?
My mother is in the stage of extreme denial, as in “oh, I’m sure your dad was just nervous, and that’s why he can’t remember what someone said to him 30 seconds ago.” Right, Mom.
Also, I feel like my dad is more lucid/on top of things when he’s at home (we live 4 hrs away and they visit us every couple of months–we visit them less often). Now I’m faced with trying to get them to move near us so that I can help support my mom (they have no other family willing/able to help where they are). It’s not working so well. See above re denial.
My mom has started mailing me worthless shit in her house under the “I don’t want you mad at me when I die and I have all this crap” excuse. I can’t even blog about it (I’ve tried). Aside from the fact that all the crap is now at my house in advance so what is the point…is she telling me something? She’d lie if I asked her outright.
I’d tell you to write your feelings down but obviously we’re all here so I’m useless today. I’m sorry.
Yup…. nothing says “Happy Easter!” and “Welcome Spring!” like hanging out with a gigantahlinormous reptile.
As for the other… I am sorry she’s going when you don’t want her to. I am sorry it hurts, and it’s brutal and it’s scary. I don’t know why mortality is so full of hurt, but I am beginning to have some strong suspicions. I think it’s gonna be okay. Not right now, and not next week or next year… but it’s going to be okay. That’s what I am clinging to, anyhows.
June (and everyone else)
PLEASE do not feel guilty about enjoying the read — frankly that is the only redeeming feature of going through the shit to write it. If I hadn’t gotten feedback like yours, I would have given up a long time ago.
It makes it better somehow to know something good comes out of this pile of fertilizer, and it gives it meaning to me instead of just bleakness.