friday blahs
yep. i've got the friday blahs.
following yesterday's weirdness... which never went away... i'm in a strange funk this morning, and i want to escape. not escape as in run far away... just escape to the arms of someone at home, and not THINK. I'm tired of thinking for a while. I'm tired of not knowing what to think. I'm partly just tired.
i know all families are weird, and mine is no exception. our dealings with extended family are... messed up to say the least.
i got two phone calls from my mom yesterday. in one, she told me they found a truck cap for me for $50. WOOHOO! and that a quilt she was making for me was finished! WOOHOO! and that my dad still hadnt tried to install the modem. *sigh*
well, I got a second call about 10-15 minutes later, if that. my uncle is on his (literal) death bed, and had asked to see my dad. she didnt say if he was going to go. i expect he might, but i say might because to my knowledge he didnt go see my other uncle when he died 2 years ago. (but then again, there was nothing left of him -- a virtual terry schiavo... his body ravaged by strokes and heart disease and (i think) cancer.) this time, it's lung cancer. my uncle has asbestosis. i knew around christmas that he was dying; my dad had told me my uncle was jaundiced and his doctor had also put him on antidepressants to keep him from thinking so much about his impending death.
my uncle asked for my dad. if you knew how odd that sounded. about 30 years ago this summer, they were fighting like cats and dogs, and after that, they never were the same. to say they had a falling out would be a gross underestimation of what took place... I know they physically fought, and my dad won, and then we rarely ever spoke of either uncle, and they rarely ever came to visit my grandmother, and then only if they knew my family wasnt going to be around.
I met this particular uncle TWICE. EVER. Once when I was 8, my grandmother and I ran into him at the fairgrounds, with my cousin in tow. My cousin was 4 years old, youngest of 5. That was the last time I saw him. Then, when I was 26, the weekend before my grandmother went to the nursing home, my uncle, his second wife, and another cousin (a few years older than me) showed up at my grandmother's house while I was taking care of her. That was the first and last time I met that cousin, and the only time I met my uncle as an adult. He and his wife had each had bouts with cancer at the time, and my cousin and I caught up a little on 26 years of not knowing each other.
The rifts in my family will never be healed.
My other uncle, the one who died in Jan 2003, made his peace with my father while his brain was still functioning. I'm not certain this one ever has, really. I hope so. I really hope so. My cousins are all at his bedside.
My real problem is, apparently there's going to be a burial, and a service. They've decided to not tell my grandmother, as it seems she doesn't even remember her other son is dead, despite his memorial card hanging on her bedroom wall. They had the discussion that this uncle has lung cancer, and "you know he won't recover." She's seen my uncle over the last few months, while he was still mobile, jaundiced and frail, when he would come to visit. She's seen her husband, her father, and her grandfather all die of cancer... so she knows what impending death looks like. It's just putting it all together that her brain doesnt seem to do well. She cried a little, mom said, when she realized he wouldn't recover.
My dad's not attending the funeral? Ok. Sure. My dad not telling his mother that his brother died? Kind of sad. Some cousin is going to tell her, I'm sure, even though they've probably all agreed to not tell her. Someone will slip. Hell, maybe I will. I'm horrible at that, and if she asked me, I dont think I could keep it from her. Is it more horrible to not tell her, or to tell her and chance her remembering and the depression it would bring? I don't know. Nobody wants her to give up on living, and if she ever realized 2 sons were dead, she just might.
And then there's the fact that the sons arent living past age 64, and the thought of my mom by herself terrifies me. My grandmothers both in nursing homes, my mom without her husband, and without family anywhere nearby? Yeah. Happy thoughts. I'm digging myself a deeper depression by the minute.
I told Nala I might be going home this weekend, not for a funeral, but to fix my dad's computer and pick up a truck cap. There's $100 I didnt plan on spending, and at least 6 hours worth of wasted house-time.
So, I'm a little out of sorts, and I'd much rather be at home, working on the house, than at work, trying to keep my mind from dwelling on all this death and dying crap.