What do you do when you feel guilty about something you've done or not done, said or not said? Do you confess? Do you ask for forgiveness? Or do you keep the guilt inside and hope, through time, it will be diluted like iced tea on a hot summer day, that it will float away like smoke in a breeze?
What do you do if the person you feel the need to confess to is dead? Do you go to a gravesite where there is nothing but a marble headstone, get down on your knees, and ask for forgiveness? Or do you sit, alone with your thoughts, and hope that somehow the person you feel you have wronged knew you meant no malice?
My childhood was normal, uneventful by my way of thinking. Both sets of grandparents lived close by, I was raised with my cousins as my playmates, my parents were married to each other until the day my Mother died.
My Mother and I had a typical mother daughter relationship. Before I started school, I wanted to be her. As a teenager, I didn't want to have anything to do with her. As a young woman, I sometimes sought her advice. When I was older, I understood her suffering, but was impatient with her.
My Mother had osteoarthritis, which is a chronic breakdown of cartilage in the joints. Her spine had compressed so much, her vertebrae were bone on bone. She was in constant pain. Her list of pain meds was long, but at the same time, she would always say that she didn't want to get hooked on them. "Mother, you're 70 years old. Who gives a shit if you're addicted to painkillers or not."
Honestly I cannot imagine the type of pain she was in. She was in the path of pain where there is no end in sight. The grip of It where she would have done almost anything to escape, anything. Pain that made her not think of anything else but her pain, her misery, her suffering. And that kind of pain makes one lash out at those whom you love most, because they are the closest to you and they should understand, but they don't.
And because of her overwhelming depression, she was prescribed Prozac, Valium, Xanax. She would take them as prescribed, until she thought she felt better. Then she would quit. Then she would turn.
Every day I would call the house to check on them, but really to check on my Dad, because he was my Mother's caregiver. Often, I would hear a crack in his voice. I would not say a word. I would just listen to what he would tell me they did that day. Then I would try to steer the conversation away from Mother and onto him. "Daddy, did you get to go to DQ this morning? Did you drive out to the golf course? Who all did you see today, Daddy? Oh, you didn't? Dad, you need to get out of the house more and take care of you." Then it would happen. My Daddy would do the one thing that would tear my soul out. The one thing that would crush my heart. He would cry. No, that's not right. He would sob. He would open the gates of his sorrow and let it flood over us both. And he would tell me that my Mother, his wife of over 50 years, whom he had to bathe now, and dress now, and do everything else for her now that she could not do it on her own, would yell at him, scream at him, be so ugly to him that he didn't think he could go another day.
No child should ever hear her parent express such anguish. No daughter ever needs hear her daddy cry, but every daughter needs to hear her daddy cry. Every daughter needs to know that her Daddy loves her enough to let down the Father armor.
After this episode, I jumped in my car, and drove the 20 miles to my parents' house, my childhood, happy home. I walked in, kissed my Daddy hello, and marched to the back of the house where my Mother was laying in bed in their bedroom. I leaned down, kissed her on her cheek, and said, "You may think that you do not need your antidepressants, but if you do not start taking them again, I will drive up here every day and force feed them to you. You will not be ugly to my Daddy again."
So, who do I say I'm sorry to?
What do you do if the person you feel the need to confess to is dead? Do you go to a gravesite where there is nothing but a marble headstone, get down on your knees, and ask for forgiveness? Or do you sit, alone with your thoughts, and hope that somehow the person you feel you have wronged knew you meant no malice?
My childhood was normal, uneventful by my way of thinking. Both sets of grandparents lived close by, I was raised with my cousins as my playmates, my parents were married to each other until the day my Mother died.
My Mother and I had a typical mother daughter relationship. Before I started school, I wanted to be her. As a teenager, I didn't want to have anything to do with her. As a young woman, I sometimes sought her advice. When I was older, I understood her suffering, but was impatient with her.
My Mother had osteoarthritis, which is a chronic breakdown of cartilage in the joints. Her spine had compressed so much, her vertebrae were bone on bone. She was in constant pain. Her list of pain meds was long, but at the same time, she would always say that she didn't want to get hooked on them. "Mother, you're 70 years old. Who gives a shit if you're addicted to painkillers or not."
Honestly I cannot imagine the type of pain she was in. She was in the path of pain where there is no end in sight. The grip of It where she would have done almost anything to escape, anything. Pain that made her not think of anything else but her pain, her misery, her suffering. And that kind of pain makes one lash out at those whom you love most, because they are the closest to you and they should understand, but they don't.
And because of her overwhelming depression, she was prescribed Prozac, Valium, Xanax. She would take them as prescribed, until she thought she felt better. Then she would quit. Then she would turn.
Every day I would call the house to check on them, but really to check on my Dad, because he was my Mother's caregiver. Often, I would hear a crack in his voice. I would not say a word. I would just listen to what he would tell me they did that day. Then I would try to steer the conversation away from Mother and onto him. "Daddy, did you get to go to DQ this morning? Did you drive out to the golf course? Who all did you see today, Daddy? Oh, you didn't? Dad, you need to get out of the house more and take care of you." Then it would happen. My Daddy would do the one thing that would tear my soul out. The one thing that would crush my heart. He would cry. No, that's not right. He would sob. He would open the gates of his sorrow and let it flood over us both. And he would tell me that my Mother, his wife of over 50 years, whom he had to bathe now, and dress now, and do everything else for her now that she could not do it on her own, would yell at him, scream at him, be so ugly to him that he didn't think he could go another day.
No child should ever hear her parent express such anguish. No daughter ever needs hear her daddy cry, but every daughter needs to hear her daddy cry. Every daughter needs to know that her Daddy loves her enough to let down the Father armor.
After this episode, I jumped in my car, and drove the 20 miles to my parents' house, my childhood, happy home. I walked in, kissed my Daddy hello, and marched to the back of the house where my Mother was laying in bed in their bedroom. I leaned down, kissed her on her cheek, and said, "You may think that you do not need your antidepressants, but if you do not start taking them again, I will drive up here every day and force feed them to you. You will not be ugly to my Daddy again."
So, who do I say I'm sorry to?
That's as good as writing can get and as hard as it can be
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Mike. It was hard. Thank you, also, for the nudge.
DeleteWow. Well done. Stop torturing yourself. You did your best for your dad and owe him no apologies.
ReplyDeleteI would have done the same thing with your mom because I am doing the same thing with mine.
My mom is the same way, won't take pain meds because she doesn't want to be addicted and is being mean to my dad because he has dementia. She says he's always surly and in a foul mood which he NEVER was before, but he is only in a foul mood because she taunts him. "That's your alzheimer's moment for the day" she says to him when he's floundering around trying to remember something.
I told her the time before the last time I was there to stop taunting him with the alzheimer's thing or, when she gets it (it runs in her family), that I would remind her every day until the day she died that she had it. She stopped. Dad is like my old dad now except he can't remember shit.
I know that I will live with guilt after they are gone but, truthfully, that's a part of life we just can't avoid because we are not perfect and are learning as we go along. Being sympathetic has never been my strong suit. And while I am totally sympathetic to my mom's plight and my dad's, I have still decided that I am going to throw myself off a bridge if I live to be over 85 which is when everything turned to crap with my parents.
Thank you, Jean. I'll be right there with you on that bridge.
DeleteIt was interesting that I wrote this and posted yesterday. I did not realize until today that yesterday would have been my Dad's birthday.
I guess Dad was on your mind, huh. Mine just turned 94 on Oct. 8th and, except for the dementia, is healthy as a horse. His grandmother lived to be 102 so he's got some really good genes in him.
DeleteAlso, I'm pretty sure we won't be alone on the bridge. Everyone I talk to lately (our age) is having similar problems and similar thoughts. See you in 20-odd years...
"All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into little jagged pieces beyond repair." Mitch Albon from "The Five People You Meet in Heaven"
ReplyDeleteMelinda, I believe we've all felt that pang guilt that somehow never seems to go away. Relationships with parents are bonds that will never be broken, yet they are tested so many times in so many ways that like Mr. Albon says the lines of our psyches get a little smudged from time to time. Others times, more often than not, we are the receiving end of commentary and, yes, insult that will hurt more than the crack of a willow tree branch. I think that recognizing that parents with their best interests at heart are eventually doomed to failure on many levels. After all, no one was there to hand them down the wisdom and care needed to raise a child. They, like their parents before them faced the task with new challenges every day and hung on to the hope that the next decision would the right decision never really knowing the end result until perhaps many years later. We can become copies of their mentors where the cycles of misguided instructions leave us as weak visages much like worn out punching bags. Mettle comes from within and here we stand. If it wasn't for the damage incurred and the poor choices we followed from their direction we may have never been able to withstand the onslaught of life and its many complexities. The one thing that remains constant is the hard wired love we have for them and them to us. As I have told my children on so many occasions I am just another guy with a truck in the driveway, and old pair of jeans and a torn t-shirt, but I still show up for the challenge every day and try to do the right thing. Thankfully, they understand that and have sworn their allegiance and love to me no matter what shit I made them go through. They know it was with their best interest at heart even if it was flawed and too complicated for anyone to execute. On top of that, they forgive me.
Bless you, girl. You have laid out your heart in this. We are here to let you know you are not alone in this.
Thank you, David. The damage ends with me. I do not have children of my own. However, I do want everyone to know that I loved my mother very much, and I understood from where her behavior came.
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