Wednesday, February 15, 2012

excerpt from a letter to a friend

I hope you'll forgive me for writing with the same old story.

The fact is that if I leave my parents,no one will do what I am doing. My two sisters are not merely selfish; they seem to be in some way infantile or regressed, stilted. Neither works and both devotes time to purely
self-centered activities. (I don't say that if a woman doesn't work she performs no useful activities. But, my complaint is that the genuine needs of my parents are not getting the attention they should. One sister sleeps excessively (apparently the result of medicines she takes), reads religious books, and knits. The other has two dogs which she
treats as though they were human. The sister
with dogs has no young children at home, and the dogs seem to be some sort of substitute. (Neither sister has young children at home, and neither husband needs help the way my parents do. Both husbands are healthy adults who can take care of themselves.)

But what's disgusting is that I recently overheard a conversation between my father and my older sister (the one with
dogs), and my sister went on and on and on about the health condition of one of her dogs.
(It was necessary to amputate one of the dog's legs.)

At the same time, this sister never once asked my mother about her health. She is more concerned about her dog than she is about our parents.

And that conversation happened after a six (or eight or nine?) month silence.

So, who is going to take care of my parents if I leave?

Today my father is more senile than ever before. My mother is weaker and weaker. They are both frail.

On the other hand, I have been depressed, anxious and suicidal every night after they go to sleep
because I feel as though I have no life.

It's not as though I can talk to my mother about this. If I raise the subject she becomes upset. She rightfully fears abandonment. The other day she did express hope that if
my father is stable and she can solve her bladder problem, maybe they can stay here and cope on their own.
But it's not so simple. They simply cannot live here on their own. There are a million small things that
neither of them can do. In fact they cannot even open the windows safely. There is so much clutter in this
house that the activity of opening a window is dangerous. You have to climb on something or lean forward
to a dangerous extent (dangerous for a frail eighty-something year old).

The other day I saw my mother climb on top of the toilet seat to open a window in one bathroom.
She is frail and if she fell, it could be very serious. She should not be doing that. But she said
that she has to do that when I'm not home (I told her I could do that for her when I was home) and, she mentioned that I am not always here. That felt like an accusation.

I see no solution. My parents want to stay here, and go on as though they were not frail.
My sisters are not willing to give them they help they need.

So, you see, I keep going round in circles.

Thanks

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