...Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave. No one was saved

My dad is dying.  He has stage 4 lung cancer, it may even be stage 5 by now.  He's at the "make him comfortable with pain medications" stage, whichever one that is.  My mother is in denial (she is the queen, after all), my brother is spending up their money, getting his inheritance now before someone else (aka me) gets it.  It's fucked up.  Like really fucked up.

And I'm conflicted.  Actually, that's about as 80's understatement as it gets.  I'm supposed to be feeling pain, mourning the inevitable loss, holding my mother's hand.  Instead, I've visited twice, I've helped a few times with doctor's appointments and various tests and scans....  I know I should do more to be the "good daughter" but I can't move past my childhood.  I should be the bigger person, but I just can't.  I'm weak.  And I don't want to give them the satisfaction of seeing me hurt.  I promised myself when I was 16 that I would never ever let them get to me again.  It's like his dying of cancer is his last revenge, his last way to get to me.  I know that's not it, but it feels that way.

When I was a kid, my father was miserable.  He worked for the government and every day, day after week after month after miserable year, with enormous resentment emanating from his core being, he went to work to support his family.  To support me.  Ours is the classic dysfunctional family and I'm "it".  I'm the martyr.  I'm the Jesus, made to suffer for their sins, to absolve them of their own failings.  Everything was, and still is, my fault.

So as I watch my father dying, from a safe distance, I, too, am trudging along through life.  Something I always swore I'd never do, yet here I am.  Day after week after month after miserable year.  And it makes me panic.  I see my father at the end of his life, sitting on the same couch he's been sitting on for the past 20 years, watching the same reruns he's watched since I was a kid...  and all I can think about is, I don't want the end of my life to be like that.  My heart breaks for him and for all the things he never did, because he chose not to do them.  Like hug his daughter.  His loss.

And I'm still conflicted.  I feel sorry for him.  And I feel compassion.  Despite his nasty, grumblings and his name calling and the bitter resentment he has towards me because, I'm sure, his cancer is also my fault...  I see this frail, broken man, who was frail and broken even before I came along, withering away.  Slowly disappearing before my eyes.  I see the panic in my mother's eyes as she loses her partner of 50 years.  I see the selfish, greedy side of my brother growing with intensity as he watches his father dying, and I know it's how he's coping.  It's our family motto...  money solves everything.

I want to be angry, I want to blame, I want to detach and say, "well, old man, you did it to yourself".  And I can't.  The compassion in me is overriding the anger, and I hate it.  I want to be angry, he doesn't deserve my compassion.  They don't deserve my compassion.  Yet something inside me won't let me be any other way.

My father told me one time, in a fleeting moment of very slight bonding, that his favorite song was "Eleanor Rigby" by the Beatles.  I've always been a Beatles fan, and when he said that to me, I got it.  The way he treated me wasn't his fault.  He had been abused.  He wasn't equipped to love his family.  So as a child, even though I was suffering my own misery, I had compassion for him.  I should have been too young to understand, but I still did.  It was probably the only thing he and I had in common.

I know I'll never get an apology.  I'll never have that moment with him, as he's on his death bed clinging to his last life, where he turns to me and says those words.  It's just not going to happen.  And I really am OK with that. He was the adult and I was the child, he could have chosen to be different but he didn't.  And I can't blame him for that.  He did the best he could. 


Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles:

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near
Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there
What does he care?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

All the lonely people (Ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people (Ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all belong?

And if you go no one may follow, That path is for your steps alone.

First, some self-shaming is in order.  It's been two years since I've blogged.  My life has sucked, loved ones have died, another is in the battle for his life, someone close to me betrayed my trust and killed my faith in humankind.  So just the usual.  You know how it is when things get overwhelming and it's just too much to think.  It's easier to retreat to that place that's beyond thought where routine takes over.  

Sometimes, though, thoughts manage to seep into my daily life and sometimes it's not too overwhelming to let them in, so on those rare instances, I'll let them.  And then in an ever increasingly rare moment, I'll write it down.  I'm not sure why today's the day but I'll go with it.

I've had a recurring thought lately, not one that's keeping me awake at night, necessarily, but it's still something that makes me stop and be quiet and listen to my brain for a while.  

When I was younger, in my 20's and 30's, I would amuse myself with the thought of people "having regrets".  There were catch-phrases floating around that were moronically overused, the obvious one in particular that amused me the most was "no regrets".  I thought it was the dumbest thing anyone could say, who would possibly have regrets?  All you have to do is do what you want to do, be happy, live your life.  Duh!  Come on, old people, get your shit together already! 

And then I hit my 40's. 

What I've realized, with wisdom come regrets.

I mean the kind of wisdom that can only come with experience, and the experience that can only come with age.  So, therefore, as one ages, one has regrets.  It's like some magic life algebraic equation.  Well, fuck. 

I don't regret never having jumped out of an airplane (oh HELL NO!), or not climbing the Himalayas (again, nope!).  My regrets are small, haunting little bastards.  Moments missed.  I wish I'd made that phone call to Mary and talked to her one last time before she died.  I wish I'd recorded all of those long, boring stories my grandfather used to tell so I could hear them all again.  I wish I'd let my dog die peacefully in her home instead of rushing her to the emergency vet where she died.  I should have hugged that 3 year old who was having a meltdown instead of getting frustrated.  I should have been nicer, more patient, more generous, more understanding, a better listener, a better friend...  those Himalayas don't seem so tall now....

So I'm not saying that one shouldn't live his or her life to the fullest, you absolutely should.  Dance in the rain, ride the roller coaster, try the extra hot pepper sauce.  Get shit-faced drunk at least once.  Fall in love, fall out of love, then fall in love with someone better.  Take vacations.  Travel the world.  Life will happen and it will hit you hard, no matter how prepared you think you are, and there will be plenty of things to regret.  So don't end up regretting the easy things.



Ripple by the Grateful dead.  Because it's one of the best songs ever written.  

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung,
Would you hear my voice come through the music?
Would you hold it near as it were your own?

It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken,
Perhaps they're better left unsung.
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air.

Ripple in still water,
When there is no pebble tossed,
Nor wind to blow.

Reach out your hand if your cup be empty,
If your cup is full may it be again,
Let it be known there is a fountain,
That was not made by the hands of men.

There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night,
And if you go no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone.

Ripple in still water,
When there is no pebble tossed,
Nor wind to blow.

You, who choose to lead, must follow
But if you fall you fall alone.
If you should stand then who's to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home.