Family Matters

I know how I write when I don't feel like writing.  It's bad, very bad.  Well, now is one of those times so settle in, readers.  Monday afternoon we arrived at my parents house.  We sat with Mom in the kitchen, ate pizza and chatted a bit.  Shawn helped Mom get Darrell get into the bathroom, sat him on the toilet and watched as Darrell promptly fell asleep.

I gratefully thanked him for that.  It's not every day you have to help an in-law onto the toilet and idly stand nearby to make sure they don't fall off.  Later, Darrell sat in a wheeled chair (not a wheel chair, a sor of stool like chair with small wheels on the legs) and slept.  His breathing was labored.  He'd take three breaths.....he stopped.  His belly didn't move, nor did breath enter his lungs.  And just as suddenly as it stopped, it started again for three more breaths and it stopped again for several seconds. 

"Is that normal?" I mouthed to my mother with tears in my eyes.  She nodded solemly.  As we were preparing to leave many hours later Darrell's estranged wife (only unestranged around the time his disability payment reaches his cash card--a very long & tiresome story) and his two sons arrived.  As we opened the doors to our vehicle, Molly, Mom's silly, stupid dog came bounding across the front lawn.  Lately, this is not so uncommon as she has been prone to find a way through the fence of the biggest backyard in the county and make for the streets.

"MOLLY!" Shawn hollered as she reached the gravel road.  I whistled and called to her, standing a bit behind Shawn.  Molly ran like a cougar, fast and swift straight to Shawn, suddenly turned and came straight to me where she promptly sat and begged with her eyes.

To the backyard we went and tried as best we could to plug up her new hole.  I had a few words with the youngest son and we left.  I cried silently almost the whole way.  I stared at the beautiful clouds int he sky, some half full with rain.  Darrell has always said it would rain when he died.  We laughed at this because it rarely ever rains.

Today is Thursday and Darrell is still alive.  He's tired and ready to let go.  He hasn't eaten in days, nor has he peed.  But he can still kind of talk if you are concentrating very very hard on his muffled noises.  He has no teeth and his face has slid so much, it affects his chatter now.  With no energy left to even help him sit up, his manner of speaking requires your entire focus.

His own sons drove 2.5 hours to hang outside and drink beer and smoke whatever it is they smoke.  One I think has quit that mess, but none the less, was conquered by peer pressure of his brother and step-mother to party outside or to go off miles into nowhere to hung for arrow heads.  I am no fan of the wife.  She shows up around the 3rd of each month and whatever money Darrell has given her winds up in a crack pipe, I'm sure.  I could say the same for the eldest son as well, most likely.

Between the three amigos there and my parents, there was more drama than was needed, as is always the case with a family matter.  Just so I am clear with my 2 or 3 readers, I personally do not care if I ever see any of them again as long as I live and most of us here feel the same.  Maybe Darrell wasn't the perfect father to them.  Certainly, he wasn't a fantastic uncle.  But I have gotten to know him again and I found that I love him again, all past transgressions forgotten and forgiven, I had begun to see Darrell in a new light, after his anxiety was controlled by drugs, of course.  To be fair, most nurses I've spoken to say that sort of meanness is quite common in a body fighting death.

I'm not sure God hears my prayers any longer.  I have prayed for Shawn to quit smoking for that last I don't know how many years.  I have been praying for Darrell to go quickly, quietly, painlessly and peacefully.  He's done things that probably deserves punishment, but how much longer must we go on to be punished for watching it?  What has my mother done to deserve this?  Again?!