Family

I’ve been thinking a lot about family lately. On my dad’s side, there is no one left but me and my daughter. Everyone is gone. I can’t imagine how he must feel outliving everyone in his family, including his wife. My dad grew up without a father. He was two years old when his dad died from TB. His 22 year old sister also died from TB and he really never knew her either. I grew up with no brothers or sisters and I swore I would have more than one child—well, that didn’t happen and so I have only one daughter.

My mother was the oldest of 13 children. Now, there are only 6 left. After my grandfather died, it seemed that the family never got together again. My grandmother died when she was 88 years old, but she didn’t seem to want everyone together. There were times when she didn’t even speak to my mother. They had a disagreement about something and my grandmother had a tendency to hold a grudge for a long time.

My husband, Charles, has 4 daughters and after his divorce from his first wife, they were all older and never really had anything to do with him. When he first got sick in 1996, I really didn’t know if I should even call them. My mother told me, he is their dad and they need to know—so I did. One daughter started coming to see him almost every year and then when he went on hospice she came down and seemed to act strange. When she got home she wrote him several emails that were so horrible—how he was such a terrible dad. Charles never got over those emails and never mentioned them to her. The youngest daughter drove here from Florida to ask her dad to forgive her for never getting to know him. They both cried. All 4 daughters came to his funeral, how I wished they had come together to see him before he died. The one who wrote the emails told me that they didn’t want people to talk about them if they didn’t show up for the funeral. It’s funny how people think.

Now my dad is in assisted living—if you can call it “living.” He’s in diapers now. He can barely walk some days. Sometimes we can carry on a pretty good conversation, which is better than I could with my mother. He couldn’t accept that my mother was sick. I knew she was but never in a million years would I think that when I brought her to my house she would be here less than 24 hours. She had fallen—not broken a hip—but couldn’t walk. She had Alzheimer’s/dementia and usually didn’t know many people. That evening she knew everyone and kept saying how thankful she was that I had brought her “home.” She visited with 2 of her sisters, some nieces and nephews, and my cousin brought Charles downstairs to see her. He was in a wheelchair then. He rolled right up to her and she said, Hi Charles, how have you been? My mother ate her last meal of fried chicken, gravey, creamed potatoes, homemade biscuits and ate another biscuit and gravey before she went to sleep. She never woke up the next morning. Two weeks later my husband died.

Family—what does that word mean to you? I sit here all alone and most of my family is gone. Thank goodness I have a daughter who means the world to me, but she’s not here in this empty house with me.

I thought I was the only one with a dysfunctional family—but I have learned a lot in the past few years. There’s a lot of you out there. Brothers and sisters who hate each other, sons and daughters that seem to hate their parents.

I go to assisted living and some of those poor people have nobody. Yes, it’s hard for me to see my dad like that and I usually cry all the way back home.

This Thanksgiving what are you thankful for? Are you thankful for your family, or are you holding grudges against some of them?

I see a lot of people on Facebook telling daily what they are thankful for, but are you really thankful? Life is short. You’re only a breath away from eternity. I’ve seen it and I know. This year, call somebody and tell them you love them. Better yet, go see them. Go visit a nursing home and then you can truly see how thankful you are that you have good health.

Family—how is yours?

DR
11/14/11