This past year or so have been difficult for me. I tried to keep a good outlook when my mom was sick and I doggedly and determinedly got her through her illness but I neglected my father in the process. I put him totally on a back burner and then when he went to the hospital I felt guilty. I feel guilty now that he's passed that maybe, if I'd been giving him some of the attention mom was getting from me, he would still be here. I would have maybe discovered he'd stopped taking crucial medications. I would have maybe taken more of an interest in his financial problems. Instead, the few times he came to me to complain about his hardships, my answer was basically, "let's just get mom through the end of her treatments and then we'll sit down and figure out what to do about your problems." And I meant it. I couldn't deal with both of them drowning at once. I needed him to keep himself afloat long enough to get mom on dry land, then I was gonna come and get him too. But before I could do that he drowned. And I feel horrible. And it's made me question everything.
I feel hollow. I feel like I let down my dad in the worst way possible. On top of being mistreated by my sister for most of a year and feeling depressed about that. On top of being burdened with mom's illness and his own runaway diabetes, his oldest daughter was putting him on a back burner. Who was there to care for my father in his final months? Did he feel alone and scared? I think he did. One day when mom and I got out of her chemo session he looked like he'd been crying in the car. At first I thought it was something that had happened, a phone call, a fight with someone we didn't know about, but I could tell he was deeply unhappy. He put on a brave face, but I made a mental note to ask him about it. That must have been around early December. Weeks went by and he was just getting more depressed, I could tell, but I still kept saying in my head, "mom only has treatments now till end of January, then I will sit down and talk to dad." A couple of times I basically told him to suck it up till then. I said mom needed us to be strong for her and we would deal with the rest of our problems once she got through all her chemo and radiation. I wonder if that made him feel even more desperate. I worry I made him even sadder. He didn't make it. January 19, 2009 came and knocked him off his feet. He wouldn't quite get back on them and then April 27, 2010, he was finally completely bowled over. And so was I.
I hoped he'd get at least well enough to have a talk with me about all that. So I can tell him I was sorry if I'd neglected his well being over mom's. I wanted to ask him if I'd failed him somehow. But for most of that year all I could do was be there, tell him I loved him and once or twice sing to him. I remember him at his 66th birthday, when he was well enough to show his appreciation to all his friends who showed up. He cried and pointed from his heart to all the people in the room. I know he loved us all for being there. He felt love for us and us for him. I felt he loved me too but sometimes I felt he was still a little angry at me for not coming to save him sooner when he was drowning.
It's very unfair. He didn't deserve anything that happened to him. And I don't think I can believe in the God he prayed to all those years. That God he held sacred above all other things could have given him a few more weeks till mom's treatments were over. I would have sat down with him and gone over his finances, maybe then he would have divulged that he stopped taking his Plavix. I would have insisted he get back on them immediately and maybe, just maybe, what happened didn't have to happen. God could have bought him a few more weeks but chose not to. Why?
People will say that he was a grown man. He should have gone to his doctor. He should have done this or that. But mom had become a full time job. He had no time or energy for anything else. I totally get how his own health got away from him. I lament not having been paying closer attention. One day he called me, when mom first got sick and told me she was a tyrant. She expected him to be there all the time. Demanded too much of his attention. I went all tough on him and said, "Look... she only needs this from you for a few months to maybe a year. You can do it. When I was a little girl you would make me sit at home with her while you went off to your church meetings and stuff. If I could put up with her all those years, you can do it for a few months." It was kinda tough to say this to my dad, but at the time I needed him to suck it up and deal with the situation. Now I regret it. I had no idea it would kill him. I think it did. It literally killed him. He was not cut out for it.
And so I have lost my faith in a greater good. I have lost that innocence that says, "things will somehow work out." As far as I can tell, it's all very horribly random. Worse than that. It's all horribly clustered. One person gets more than their share of misery while another gets more than their share of happiness and good fortune. Whoever said life wasn't fair knew about this clustering. And yes, there are reversals of fortune and changes in fate. But those seem pretty random too. So what is there to have faith in? A moving target? Cuz that's all I see now. A moving target. No way of knowing when end of the arrow you will end up with or for how long or how deep. Totally fucking random.
I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this new information after a life of being told to have faith in the Lord. He will provide. Provide what exactly?
