hummingwolf (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hummingwolf) wrote2002-05-15 12:05 pm
hummingwolf) wrote2002-05-15 12:05 pm
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I could be wrong, but I think May 15 is the day my father officially died. Not that he hadn't had the sense to leave his body a few days earlier, but his heart was stubborn and kept beating beyond the point it had any reason for its work.
After each of my parents died, there were plenty of people around I could spill out my grief to, people willing to listen when I needed an ear and people willing to be quiet when I needed silence. But even when someone says they'll listen to anything, there are things you're not supposed to say.
You're not supposed to talk about seeing your father in his bedroom naked covered only in his own shit, dehydrated so much with his skin so sunken in that he looked like a deflated balloon rather than any man, struggling to stand when you offer him a glass of water and mutely miming drinking it, with you standing there wondering if his brains are so scrambled that he actually believes he *did* drink from the glass that you still hold in your hand. You may be allowed to talk about screaming in your panic, stupidly asking him, "Do you want me to call 911? Do you want me to call 911?" when any idiot could have seen that he was unable to speak; but you are not allowed to belabor the point. You can talk about finally having sense enough to call both 911 and the neighbors, and you can talk about how those same neighbors were killed instantly in a car crash a week later (that was on the news anyway); but you don't talk about how much you envy their daughter who never had to see their helplessness--and nobody wants to hear about the ugly facts of helplessness, ever.
So you don't talk about how seeing your father obviously brain-damaged reminded you of the way your mother died eleven years before that. You talk about the fact that she was too obstinate to die until the final trip to the machine-embroidery convention was over; but you don't talk about the fact that on that trip she regularly passed out in the motor home on her way from the wheelchair to the bathroom, pissing on the floor as her eyes rolled up in her head. You don't talk about the stains in the carpet that never completely went away. You can talk about her hallucinations from the drugs she was on if you make an amusing anecdote out of it or draw some moral about paying more attention to your body tells you than to what the doctors say; but you do not talk about how much this frightened 14-year-old you, and how during the hotel stay you wanted to spend your nights in the motor home in the parking lot rather than having to hear her moaning and crying. You don't talk about how you selfishly wanted to get away from her unless you speak in generalities. You don't talk about how you begged and pleaded and screamed and cried to spend the night *anywhere* but with your parents, or about the fact that you refused to visit your mother during her last hospital stay.
Well, a girl pretty much gets over it eventually, even if she's not supposed to talk about it. She can grow up into a woman who still feels like she knows more about death than she knows about love, but she can still love with all her heart even though she knows how it can hurt. The woman can be strong in the face of things that drive other people insane and strong in the face of her own physical weakness. But there's still a little girl in there who wondered why Mommy and Daddy had to die or be in pain or be so helpless when they used to be so powerful, and sometimes that little girl needs to talk to me about things she's not supposed to say.
After each of my parents died, there were plenty of people around I could spill out my grief to, people willing to listen when I needed an ear and people willing to be quiet when I needed silence. But even when someone says they'll listen to anything, there are things you're not supposed to say.
You're not supposed to talk about seeing your father in his bedroom naked covered only in his own shit, dehydrated so much with his skin so sunken in that he looked like a deflated balloon rather than any man, struggling to stand when you offer him a glass of water and mutely miming drinking it, with you standing there wondering if his brains are so scrambled that he actually believes he *did* drink from the glass that you still hold in your hand. You may be allowed to talk about screaming in your panic, stupidly asking him, "Do you want me to call 911? Do you want me to call 911?" when any idiot could have seen that he was unable to speak; but you are not allowed to belabor the point. You can talk about finally having sense enough to call both 911 and the neighbors, and you can talk about how those same neighbors were killed instantly in a car crash a week later (that was on the news anyway); but you don't talk about how much you envy their daughter who never had to see their helplessness--and nobody wants to hear about the ugly facts of helplessness, ever.
So you don't talk about how seeing your father obviously brain-damaged reminded you of the way your mother died eleven years before that. You talk about the fact that she was too obstinate to die until the final trip to the machine-embroidery convention was over; but you don't talk about the fact that on that trip she regularly passed out in the motor home on her way from the wheelchair to the bathroom, pissing on the floor as her eyes rolled up in her head. You don't talk about the stains in the carpet that never completely went away. You can talk about her hallucinations from the drugs she was on if you make an amusing anecdote out of it or draw some moral about paying more attention to your body tells you than to what the doctors say; but you do not talk about how much this frightened 14-year-old you, and how during the hotel stay you wanted to spend your nights in the motor home in the parking lot rather than having to hear her moaning and crying. You don't talk about how you selfishly wanted to get away from her unless you speak in generalities. You don't talk about how you begged and pleaded and screamed and cried to spend the night *anywhere* but with your parents, or about the fact that you refused to visit your mother during her last hospital stay.
Well, a girl pretty much gets over it eventually, even if she's not supposed to talk about it. She can grow up into a woman who still feels like she knows more about death than she knows about love, but she can still love with all her heart even though she knows how it can hurt. The woman can be strong in the face of things that drive other people insane and strong in the face of her own physical weakness. But there's still a little girl in there who wondered why Mommy and Daddy had to die or be in pain or be so helpless when they used to be so powerful, and sometimes that little girl needs to talk to me about things she's not supposed to say.
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Hope things get better for all of you guys, and soon.
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Maybe someday i'll try something similar with my feelings about Dom... but i think my lack of discretion explains a lot of what happened after he was gone. Maybe what this world needs is more people with no sense of discretion, so it'd be easier to say these things without worrying what they think.
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I was lucky to have one of those around after my mother died. Another 14-year-old girl, one who *hated* her parents and honestly wanted to know (A) what it was like to lose a parent and (B) what it was like to love a parent. Talking to her was probably the best therapy I could have gotten.
I'm really not very good at figuring out what's socially acceptable, though I've gotten better over the years. In the case of things I said in the post, I'd often figure out that people didn't want to hear it when I saw the expressions on their face, when they outright *told* me they didn't want to hear it, or--somewhat amusing in retrospect--when they walked or otherwise moved just far enough away to make communication difficult.
It was rarely the generalities that upset people. It's specific details, things too easily imagined, that they didn't want to know about. Not that I blame them, really, just that it'd have been nice if I'd been able to talk about the images that kept coming back to mind.
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I know it's not much, but...
Re: I know it's not much, but...
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I hardly know you but you sound strong.
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