I Am Horrible

Over the last week, I came to realize that the outside world might regard me as a terrible person.  My parents came to see us recently.  They were going to stay a few days then I was going to leave with them for a quick visit back to my hometown.  But on the very first day, my dad took a tumble and broke his hip.  He was rushed to the hospital and had surgery the next morning.  Of course I felt awful for my dad- he is in his 70's but he is very healthy and extremely active and still works full time by choice.  For the next few days, he was in pain and stayed pretty much in a drug-induced stupor.  He slept constantly, waking up only briefly as nurses came and went.  The first physical therapy session the day after his surgery consisted of him walking over to a chair and sitting down.  I was impressed- after my recent shoulder surgery, I couldn't move my arm for at least two weeks and dad was up walking across the room two days after his hip replacement.

I shuttled my mom back and forth from the hospital so she could be with my dad.  Some days I stayed there for hours on end, sitting.  Some days I would stay for a bit then tell her I had to go back home to take care of things, and I'd be back in awhile.  If that had been J, I would have spent every moment at his side- but that was not my husband in the bed, it was her husband.  To me, dad was simply sleeping after a very common and successful surgery- there were no life-threatening issues, and the doctor said he would be moving about independently using a walker or crutches, in two weeks.  My mom likes to hover, I do not.  A 24-hour a day vigil was not needed, although that's what my sister did, sleeping there in my dad's room for her first two nights in town.  I'm sorry that by 7PM I wanted to go back home for the evening and had to take my mom with me- we'd been there since 6:30AM to see him off before his surgery.  I was tired, I was hungry, my back hurt from sitting in his room all day, I wanted to go home and my mom was depending on me to drive her back and forth to the hospital.  She had to leave when I was ready to leave, and I physically couldn't stay there a minute longer.  That must make me a total bitch.

Yes, my sister couldn't stand it anymore and drove the 500+ miles here.  Basically to take over, because that's the kind of person she is.  To her, me sitting with my parents at the hospital while my dad slept, was tantamount to doing absolutely nothing useful, and that wasn't good enough.  As soon as she got here, she convinced my mom to stay in a hotel with her, instead of at my house, because I was a 20 minute drive away compared to the Hilton that was around the corner.  My dad was moved to a rehab center, where they said he would need to stay for another 2-3 weeks for physical therapy.  My sister was hysterical, both she and my mom cried the minute they put him in there.  Because there were "old" people there in wheelchairs, and there was an assisted living facility in the same building, he shouldn't "be" at that kind of place.  Whatever.  In a moment of wakefulness, my dad said to me "well you know your sister and your mom are drama queens, but don't say anything to hurt their feelings."  By the next day, my sister had called in favors and arranged private transport for my dad, and got him admitted to a rehab center back home.  Today, Monday morning, after 9 days of back and forth to the hospital and rehab, they are all gone.

And I am horrible for being very glad of it.  I love my family, and maybe it's because I left my hometown almost 20 years ago and my sister still lives there, but I can only tolerate being around them for very small doses.  My mom and my sister talk incessantly.  They talk to each other about people back home who I don't know, and when they chit chat I am always left out of the conversation.  Being alone with my mother is torture for me, she can't let there be one second of silence.  And she speaks in a baby talk tone to me, which actually makes my stomach ill.  She has to fill the void with words, many of them pointless.  If we are in the car and I'm not talking, she will read street signs and billboards and store names to me, just to have sound in the air.  I can't stand it.  I am very comfortable with not speaking for periods of time, and having quiet around me.  Even when J and I are together, we are okay with not talking.  And I don't speak if there is nothing to say.  It hurts my mom because I don't want to talk nonstop, but that's just how I am and I don't mean to be disrespectful.  I listen, I just don't always feel the need to comment back to her.  And my mom has a tendency to repeat herself multiple times, to the point where I have to say "yes, you told me that already" when she's started the same story for the fifth time.  I just can't take it.  And I know I should be more kind and patient with her, but I'm not.  And I get stressed out too, I just don't always externalize it.

I'm glad that my dad could go spend his recuperation back home- he will have family and friends galore come visit him, his own doctors to take care of him.  If it was me, I would not want to spend a month away from home either.  He was fortunate that he has a good friend who owns a private ambulance company, and that his doctor has political pull to get him into a prominent rehab facility at a moment's notice.  I am glad that my mom will be back in her own home again, comfortable.  I'm sorry that I didn't weep over my dad's hospital bed like my sister and mother did.  It doesn't mean that I don't care.  I just don't necessarily equate sobs and hysterics with love and compassion.  I rarely cry, about anything, but I don't want others to see me as cold and unfeeling.  It just means that my eyes don't leak saline at the drop of a hat.  

If my dad had to stay here in rehab for a month, and my mother had to stay at my house for a month, and I had to drive her back and forth for a month, and if I had to spend my hours sitting in a hard chair every day staring at my dad in bed for a month- I would have done it.  Not with overwhelming joy in my heart, but with the dedication and responsibility a child has to help out their parents in a time of need.  Although I am honest in saying all this, it also makes me feel like a selfish and ungrateful turd.  I'm sure that's exactly what my sister thinks of me right about now.

I'm sorry that I'm relieved and happy that today my house is completely quiet and empty, and I'm not obligated to be anywhere or be around anyone, and I can sit down long enough to finish a cup of coffee and get a load of laundry done.  My dad is where he should be, and his wife and other daughter and grandchildren and friends will all dote on him, instead of him being stuck here with me where no one would come to visit him.  I know my limitations, and here in this town I have no contacts, no influence.  Whatever the doctors said to do, wherever they wanted to send my dad, however long they wanted to keep him there- I could only dutifully show up and drag my mother with me.  Even if I didn't cry over his pain, everything turned out for the best.  And my lack of tears had nothing to do with it.

MISS GEE