Friday, Spetember 5, 2008

Life and Death


It's coming up on the 2nd anniversary of my mom's death.

It seems like forever that she's been gone, at the same time, it seems like yesterday.

I was not with my mom when she died - I was not allowed, and I feel cheated, exactly the way I was meant to feel - kind of the last infliction of abuse from my father.

Several months prior, when doctors caring for her called to our attention the perverse "investment" my father had with her dying, my sisters and I banded together to try to give her a chance to live.

She had been through several surgeries, at least one mistake that ought to have been interpreted as malpractice; our father wanted her to go to hospice, where she would eventually die.

Come to find out, Hospice would not take her, she WASN'T SICK ENOUGH!!!!

In the beginning, we felt compassion for Jack (our father).

As the days progressed, we felt more outrage at his overt lack of caring for Jane (our mother).

Remarks like, "I don't know why you bother to bring food, she's going to die anyway." In front of Jane, while she looked at him, half in fear, half in amazement that the man she spent 62 years with would cast her off like bad lettuce on a sandwich.

Or, when we questioned hospice, since the doctors told us all she would be able to recover: "You don't get it. It's been six months. I can't golf, I can't travel; I just have to stay at home and take care of her."

Selfish, narcissistic prick.

All about him, nothing for the woman who gave him 4 children and 62 years of her life.

The straw that broke the camels back came as my mother was changing her health care directive from palative (just handling her until she died) to moving towards transitioning back into life - meaning therapy, aggressive treatment and eventually going home and LIVING.

That same day, as Jack stood at the nurse's station and they explained to him hospice was not an alternative as she was not sick enough; and besides, she had changed her health care directive to wanting to LIVE, he stormed into her room, with the social worker, her doctor and my sister and I present and yelled at my mother "so, you think you can live?" Several expletives later, he stormed out of the room.

The hospital responded by posting a guard at Jane's room. They closed the hospital for the weekend, due the behavior of Jack.

My sisters and I endured verbal assaults, Jack following us through the hospital yelling at us. He treatened to kill all the 'vipers' (my sisters and I) We were called cunts, sluts, bitches - all for advocating healthcare for our mother.

I wrote a letter, the mother of all letters, outlining what my sisters and I felt was a lack of ability by our father to care for our mother. I sent it to everyone I knew - Jack's lawyer, his golf club buddies, the local papers...

My sisters eventually were allowed to see Jane. They told me Jack would give away Jane's things to people who came to see her, stating "she'll never use any of this stuff again", while my mom watched silently and cried.

See, he did this to his own mother as well. He put her in a "rest home" and did not visit once in the 10 years she was there. He sold all of her things, and did not allow any of us to have anything from her. Save one thing - her rocking chair, which I have. She had told me to take it before Jack (her son) sold everything and she would have nothing left to give her grandchildren.

The last time I saw my mother, my daughter and my sister came with me. My sisters and I had decided long ago "never go alone" to visit Jane. It was a decision I feel probably saved my life.

As we walked into the house, bringing food for both of them; exactly what my mother had asked of me, food for both herself and Jack; he again spewed verbal assaults.

Frankly, I was done. I was 50 years old, way too old for anyone to be treating me like this. I said as much, asking Jack why he had to be such a jerk; we had all thought he would be happy his wife of 62 years had decided to try and overcome this illness.

My daughter got a good idea of what my siblings and I grew up with.

The next thing I knew, I saw Jack raging towards me, arms outstretched and before i knew it, his hands were around my neck and I blacked out.

I "woke" up to see my daughter flying across me, grabbing Jacks hands and whipping them behind his back. She was being kind, almost gentle until he wrangled his way away from her and began beating her.

Again, her martial arts training kicked in, and this time, he was done. I heard "oh, no, you're not going to do that to me" and he was in a pretzle, being pushed out to the garage, door locked behind him.

My mother stood there, holding onto her walker, deer in the headlights expression on her face.

The only other time I saw that expression was when I was 16, I had decided to stop swimming for a year to help my rotator cuff injury heal. I had decided against surgery. Jack yelled at me, and hit me full on with his fist in my shoulder, dislocating it. Apparently, he did not think I was injured. I swung back, connecting with his jaw and told him never to touch me again.

This day, the police came and my father was arrested. He admitted to them he had been violent with me, my daughter and my sister. He used profanity with the police in describing us. I pressed charges, he got 4 months of anger management.

I told the district attorney I wanted to press charges, because this was the first time I had a witness to Jack's abuse and he needed to have consequences for his behavior.

We were disowned, disinherited. I could not talk to Jane on the phone, Jack would hang up when I called.

I did find out that she died on October 4th, 2006. No service, no memorial. Creamation and done. There might have been a service, however when Jack found out he couldn't watch Jane burn, he was no longer interested. I guess they take you out and flip you over like a burger, and figure most people don't have the stomach for it.

I'm having my carbon compressed into diamonds, and all my kids and Isaiah, my grandson, will get one. I'll be shining sparkling loving energy around them always.