Well tomorrow I get to pass the whole jumbled mess over to a professional. If only it was that easy! Ha! Well at least maybe she can help me sort and organize a little bit of what has become what I affectionately call “The Artist Formerly Known As My Life.” To some degree I think it is being held together pretty well right now, but the truth is I’m just trying to maintain that façade for my own sanity.
The first thing that has been the toughest to deal with is my Grandma passing. I knew she was ill with cancer and that she was going to go. What I didn’t count on was the tremendous guilt and sense of loss. I keep thinking that there were so many things I could have done for her. She asked me at one point to move in and help her. I have to keep reminding myself that the reason that I didn’t move in was because I knew it would not be good for either of us and I also knew that he would get to the point where she would need help bathing and going to the bathroom. These are things that I very well could have helped her with, but I suspect neither of us would have wanted it to come to that point.
Today I got an email from my Aunt. She wanted to tell me her professional opinion concerning my Dad. She is a nurse with a master’s degree and her husband is a doctor and they both agree my Dad’s time is pretty limited. He has decided to go off the treatment that is keeping his cancer under control. “Decided” meaning he already stopped the shots a while back. The side effects have made him miserable. My aunt thinks the cancer will likely take off at this point. How fast or how fatal is anyone’s guess, but it is there and ready to ravage.
Meanwhile my Mom is currently as far away as one could get and still be on earth. She has been really pushing for me to come visit her in Australia. Unfortunately I have neither the vacation time nor the funds to get there. She has hinted at some health problems. She was not able to come for her own mother’s funeral. I can not even begin to imagine what that must have been like to deal with thousands of miles away from your family. So I suspect her problems are more than I know, since it would take a lot to keep her from coming to Grandma’s funeral.
Last but not least I saw my ex and her daughter a few weeks back. It was probably the hardest afternoon of my life. We played hide and seek and monster games and I even let her cover my face in jewelry. For a couple of hours we were both right back in 2002. The whole time I was hanging out with this little girl I kept thinking about the part in that movie “A.I” where the little boy’s dream is to have his Mommy back. He gets to see her again, but only for one day. How heartbreaking is that? I think we had the exact same day a few weeks back.
It absolutely breaks my heart seeing this little girl who still thinks of me as her Daddy. I want nothing more than to be a father to her. Yet it is unfair to her to try and remain part of her life. Not only does it keep her Mom and I from ever moving on, but the worst part is it continues the promise of a family that will never be. I am not her father no matter how much I may want to be and things with her mother and I didn’t work out.
I can not imply or promise the very same false hope of happiness, contentment or love that have been dangled in front of my face for years to some poor child knowing I can not deliver the goods. In some ways the best thing any caring person could ever do is find a dark hole somewhere and attempt to stay there until this thing we call life blows over. Yet if you choose that route you only seem to end up more miserable than when you started. It’s a whole new spin on damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Some days I just wish I could solve my problems with beer and football.
The first thing that has been the toughest to deal with is my Grandma passing. I knew she was ill with cancer and that she was going to go. What I didn’t count on was the tremendous guilt and sense of loss. I keep thinking that there were so many things I could have done for her. She asked me at one point to move in and help her. I have to keep reminding myself that the reason that I didn’t move in was because I knew it would not be good for either of us and I also knew that he would get to the point where she would need help bathing and going to the bathroom. These are things that I very well could have helped her with, but I suspect neither of us would have wanted it to come to that point.
Today I got an email from my Aunt. She wanted to tell me her professional opinion concerning my Dad. She is a nurse with a master’s degree and her husband is a doctor and they both agree my Dad’s time is pretty limited. He has decided to go off the treatment that is keeping his cancer under control. “Decided” meaning he already stopped the shots a while back. The side effects have made him miserable. My aunt thinks the cancer will likely take off at this point. How fast or how fatal is anyone’s guess, but it is there and ready to ravage.
Meanwhile my Mom is currently as far away as one could get and still be on earth. She has been really pushing for me to come visit her in Australia. Unfortunately I have neither the vacation time nor the funds to get there. She has hinted at some health problems. She was not able to come for her own mother’s funeral. I can not even begin to imagine what that must have been like to deal with thousands of miles away from your family. So I suspect her problems are more than I know, since it would take a lot to keep her from coming to Grandma’s funeral.
Last but not least I saw my ex and her daughter a few weeks back. It was probably the hardest afternoon of my life. We played hide and seek and monster games and I even let her cover my face in jewelry. For a couple of hours we were both right back in 2002. The whole time I was hanging out with this little girl I kept thinking about the part in that movie “A.I” where the little boy’s dream is to have his Mommy back. He gets to see her again, but only for one day. How heartbreaking is that? I think we had the exact same day a few weeks back.
It absolutely breaks my heart seeing this little girl who still thinks of me as her Daddy. I want nothing more than to be a father to her. Yet it is unfair to her to try and remain part of her life. Not only does it keep her Mom and I from ever moving on, but the worst part is it continues the promise of a family that will never be. I am not her father no matter how much I may want to be and things with her mother and I didn’t work out.
I can not imply or promise the very same false hope of happiness, contentment or love that have been dangled in front of my face for years to some poor child knowing I can not deliver the goods. In some ways the best thing any caring person could ever do is find a dark hole somewhere and attempt to stay there until this thing we call life blows over. Yet if you choose that route you only seem to end up more miserable than when you started. It’s a whole new spin on damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Some days I just wish I could solve my problems with beer and football.
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