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Got an email from my sister today. She said that mom had surgery yesterday to replace both her knees and, during the surgery, mom's blood pressure and heart rate dropped dangerously low and her kidneys failed and she had to be put in intensive care. According to my sister, mom's doing better today, but I'm not really sure what doing better means in regards to something like this.
I've been in a fog since reading Sally's email. I keep feeling like I should be upset or concerned about mom, like that's the appropriate or dutiful response, but I don't feel that way at all. I haven't seen or talked to mom in over four years, I cut off all contact with her because I couldn't take her pain, abuse, and psychosis anymore, and not having any contact with her has been one of the best things I've ever done for myself. And now, when I get knews that mom's health is bad and she nearly died in surgery, it's difficult to get upset over the problems of someone whose caused so much pain and destruction. I lost my mom a long time ago and I've already grieved and mourned that loss, but I didn't realize until today just how much I'd also let go and moved on. Technically, that's a good thing, but the realization was startling and did come with a sense of sadness over how screwed up our family is. And that's the one real emotional part of this, the simple fact that families shouldn't be this way.
But, sadly, some families are this way and today I find myself facing certain facts I haven't wanted to think about or deal with. My parents are getting older and starting to have serious health problems, and that's an incredibly difficult situation in uber dysfunctional families. You're supposed to care about and take care of your parents in their old age and poor health, and yet at this moment, my brother, sister, and I are all silently yelling, "not it!" in regards to which one of us will take on the role of the caring child. It makes me think about all the times mom sarcastically used to say that she knew that when she got old, her children would just take her to an old folks home, park her in front of a tv with a bag of potato chips, and never visit her again. Who knew mom had such foresight or actually had problem solving skills? But that still leaves one problem - how do you fit potato chips through an iv tube?
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