My getting older means my parents get older. That’s obvious. My father suffered a small stroke last night and I was wakeful most of the night thinking about it. His health is very poor to begin with and he has been in and out of the hospital since his bypass surgery 10 years ago. Every time he goes in he somehow pulls through, so you would think that I would be somewhat immune to the worry that is accompanies him going into the hospital. However, each time it happens I fear his death. It’s weird as I am not really that close to him.
My father was not an important figure in my life. My parents got a divorce when I was a teenager. It wasn’t a very nasty one and my brother and I did spend a lot of time with our father when we were younger. When I was in college, he got remarried to a woman who is considerably younger than he and only about 15 years older than I. I never got very close to her either. I believe it was primarily because our respective views on life are diametrically opposed, and I never found conversation with them easy. But it was probably more because of the way they treated me after my divorce. I never really forgave them for basically ignoring me when I reached out for support while trying to get out of an abusive marriage.
However, he is my father and his death represents more than the loss of a person. It is means much more to me because he is first of my biological parents to die. My mother’s husband died last year and that was very sad and I miss him a lot, but somehow it’s not the same. I suppose it represents the fact that I am mortal and that I too will die someday too. I don’t think I am really scared of death; I accept it and acknowledge my mortality and am not really freaked out by it. I only hope I don’t suffer.
So we all wait to see what is going to happen this time. Will he pull through again, or will he be incapacitated, or will this be the end?
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