Wednesday, December 21, 2005
T'is the season
I don’t much like the holiday season. For lots and lots of reasons. Just generally, the season is so hectic and stressful, that in and of itself is bad enough. Add to it the anniversary of my Aunt’s suicide on Christmas Eve, and the fact that I have not been able to spend Christmas with my own family and friends now for 5 years, and I’ve been a bit miserable this month.
Yesterday we can add James’ mother being taken to hospital. She’s been having chemo treatments for several months now, for liver cancer. This is her 4th bout of cancer of some sort or other, and is just trying to hold on long enough to see her grand-daughter graduate high-school in the spring. Yesterday she went to hospital with fluid in her lungs and surrounding her heart. She’s not doing very well at all. James called me at work around 4:30 to find out when I’d be done, and considering the time that it was, I figured I might as well just finish my day, because my co-worker likely would not have been able to get there much sooner than quitting time anyway. So after work I headed over to the hospital to sit with mother-in-law for a while. And despite James saying she didn’t need it, I took her a box of chocolates anyway :-p I had only just bought her 2 boxes for her Christmas gift earlier at my lunch break, I figured, just in case, she should at least have the opportunity to have some of her favourites before bed. I hope she ate as many as she could before her midnight cut off of no food.
Today they will be implanting a drainage tube in her chest to try to drain the fluids. I noticed on her in-room info board (at this hospital, they have a white board in every room, with the patient basic information written on it, along with last vitals readings and who their primary care in the hospital is etc…) that her weight is only 101 pounds, and her body temperature is below normal. Not good. They’ll be putting her under anesthesia to insert the chest tube, and in her current condition, this could be risky I imagine. James has gone to see her this morning before they take her to surgery, then we’ll both go back this afternoon or evening when she’s awake. Gods willing, she will wake up.
I believe I’m torn about how I’m supposed to feel about all this. There’s no secret that she doesn’t particularly like me, for whatever reason. General distrust of women who marry her sons being part of it, and she’s just never quite figured me out, and I think doesn’t like my attitude or habit of tellin’ it like it is. Of course, she’d never say as much to me, to me she’s outwardly polite, just not overly friendly. Much like a lot of people I’ve met in this town since I got here. To James however, she has said some things that basically means she doesn’t like me or trust me, and figures I just married him to get at her money and possessions. All I have to say to that is “huh?”
James is also unsure of how he feels. Tho he hasn’t said much other than he’s not feeling quite right, she is his mother, and she is suffering. They’ve never had much of a loving relationship; he was mostly raised by his grandmother. In the past couple of years though, since his father got sick and bought us this house to keep us close, she has at least on occasion tried to be civil. He does what he can for her, out of a sense of duty as a son more than anything I think.
Its all very confusing and I’m quite sure that unless you have also had a similar relationship with a parent, you just wouldn’t understand. I have a somewhat similar relationship with my own father, I really could live without him, but for years, out of a sense of duty, and because he was still living with my Mother, I tolerated him as best I could. Which was not very well actually. My parents divorced, and I moved to the States, so I haven’t talked to him in 2 years. I send Christmas cards and that’s it. I feel no obligation to do any more than that, even when he calls my sister or cousin to ask them when I will be calling him. I have no need or desire to speak to him, so it just ain’t gonna happen. But I do for some reason feel it is at least necessary to send just that one card per year to let him know I’m still alive.
Where does this duty to parents come from? No matter how badly they treat us our entire lives, how can we still feel duty bound to them? Why? Is it biology? Is it that DNA connection or something? I don’t get it. I’d be interested to know if any studies have been done on the chemistry of parentage. If there is some sort of actual scientifically explainable connection between parent and child that creates this sense duty, despite abusive treatment or abandonment. Do people who were adopted as small children feel anything like this toward biological parents if they meet them later in life?
*sigh* well that’s enough to make your brain hurt eh?
Today is Winter Solstice, and if this was a “normal” day, I might be thinking about doing some sort of celebratory ritual. As it is however, I’m just not in the mood. All I may do is open a beer or something and tip my glass to the Gods. I don’t have energy for much more than that. And depending how mother-in-law’s surgery goes this morning, we may not even have time for that. I’m very much debating whether to go do everything I had been planning to do today or not. I have a couple of customers up in Marion I was going to go see to get some orders, but that’s half an hour away, and if something happens, I’ll want to be here for James if he needs me. Ugh….maybe I’ll just go to the store and buy a new floor mop and clean my floors. Again. Bleah…
Happy Holidays. I for one wish it was over already :-p ¶ 10:24 AM
Yesterday we can add James’ mother being taken to hospital. She’s been having chemo treatments for several months now, for liver cancer. This is her 4th bout of cancer of some sort or other, and is just trying to hold on long enough to see her grand-daughter graduate high-school in the spring. Yesterday she went to hospital with fluid in her lungs and surrounding her heart. She’s not doing very well at all. James called me at work around 4:30 to find out when I’d be done, and considering the time that it was, I figured I might as well just finish my day, because my co-worker likely would not have been able to get there much sooner than quitting time anyway. So after work I headed over to the hospital to sit with mother-in-law for a while. And despite James saying she didn’t need it, I took her a box of chocolates anyway :-p I had only just bought her 2 boxes for her Christmas gift earlier at my lunch break, I figured, just in case, she should at least have the opportunity to have some of her favourites before bed. I hope she ate as many as she could before her midnight cut off of no food.
Today they will be implanting a drainage tube in her chest to try to drain the fluids. I noticed on her in-room info board (at this hospital, they have a white board in every room, with the patient basic information written on it, along with last vitals readings and who their primary care in the hospital is etc…) that her weight is only 101 pounds, and her body temperature is below normal. Not good. They’ll be putting her under anesthesia to insert the chest tube, and in her current condition, this could be risky I imagine. James has gone to see her this morning before they take her to surgery, then we’ll both go back this afternoon or evening when she’s awake. Gods willing, she will wake up.
I believe I’m torn about how I’m supposed to feel about all this. There’s no secret that she doesn’t particularly like me, for whatever reason. General distrust of women who marry her sons being part of it, and she’s just never quite figured me out, and I think doesn’t like my attitude or habit of tellin’ it like it is. Of course, she’d never say as much to me, to me she’s outwardly polite, just not overly friendly. Much like a lot of people I’ve met in this town since I got here. To James however, she has said some things that basically means she doesn’t like me or trust me, and figures I just married him to get at her money and possessions. All I have to say to that is “huh?”
James is also unsure of how he feels. Tho he hasn’t said much other than he’s not feeling quite right, she is his mother, and she is suffering. They’ve never had much of a loving relationship; he was mostly raised by his grandmother. In the past couple of years though, since his father got sick and bought us this house to keep us close, she has at least on occasion tried to be civil. He does what he can for her, out of a sense of duty as a son more than anything I think.
Its all very confusing and I’m quite sure that unless you have also had a similar relationship with a parent, you just wouldn’t understand. I have a somewhat similar relationship with my own father, I really could live without him, but for years, out of a sense of duty, and because he was still living with my Mother, I tolerated him as best I could. Which was not very well actually. My parents divorced, and I moved to the States, so I haven’t talked to him in 2 years. I send Christmas cards and that’s it. I feel no obligation to do any more than that, even when he calls my sister or cousin to ask them when I will be calling him. I have no need or desire to speak to him, so it just ain’t gonna happen. But I do for some reason feel it is at least necessary to send just that one card per year to let him know I’m still alive.
Where does this duty to parents come from? No matter how badly they treat us our entire lives, how can we still feel duty bound to them? Why? Is it biology? Is it that DNA connection or something? I don’t get it. I’d be interested to know if any studies have been done on the chemistry of parentage. If there is some sort of actual scientifically explainable connection between parent and child that creates this sense duty, despite abusive treatment or abandonment. Do people who were adopted as small children feel anything like this toward biological parents if they meet them later in life?
*sigh* well that’s enough to make your brain hurt eh?
Today is Winter Solstice, and if this was a “normal” day, I might be thinking about doing some sort of celebratory ritual. As it is however, I’m just not in the mood. All I may do is open a beer or something and tip my glass to the Gods. I don’t have energy for much more than that. And depending how mother-in-law’s surgery goes this morning, we may not even have time for that. I’m very much debating whether to go do everything I had been planning to do today or not. I have a couple of customers up in Marion I was going to go see to get some orders, but that’s half an hour away, and if something happens, I’ll want to be here for James if he needs me. Ugh….maybe I’ll just go to the store and buy a new floor mop and clean my floors. Again. Bleah…
Happy Holidays. I for one wish it was over already :-p ¶ 10:24 AM
