Memories

My and DH’s best friend, SS, who recently moved back down to Kentucky about a month ago, has been going through a lot in the past couple of days. Just before moving down, and actually during the move, he found out his dad was going to have to have emergency heart-bypass surgery. During all the tests and prior to surgery, some interesting scarring was found on the man’s lungs. After a quintuple by-pass it was discovered SS’s father had cancer.  Today they found out he had only about a month to live.

Yesterday SS’s dad went to the doctor for a check-up, and because he wasn’t doing very well: loss of appetite, some vomiting, difficulty breathing, etc. The doctor put him into the hospital again. There was talk of a possible blood clot in the lung(s) or the cancer had become super aggressive.

SS is one of those people who prefer not to know what is going on. He prefers to put on rose colored glasses and move through life following all of the rules and keeping his head down so he doesn’t get into too much trouble. If he had his way I believe SS would be completely invisible to every stranger he ever came into contact with; likewise, I believe sometimes he would prefer to almost be invisible with his friends and family, too.

Five years ago I lost my Mom to a long battle with COPD. She had renal complications and the thing that got her in the end was renal failure. It was a long and slow decline, but the actual death happened peacefully and simply. It hurt me beyond the core of who I am. It hurt beyond my Soul. It ripped me apart on the inside. Before she died, though, I was there and all of my sisters. I fought as hard for her as she had ever fought for me in those long hospital-filled years of me growing up.

My other sisters seemed to have accepted Mommy’s death almost easily, but they fought just as hard as I did. Still, when the end came they seemed to handle it so much better than I did. I was lost for two years and came seriously close to suicide a couple of times.

Now SS is going through something similiar and all of those memories are coming back. They are re-opening all of the old wounds and pushing at the scars on my heart from that time. I am pretty sure the scars are not going to reopen just yet. Thankfully I can step back from what is happening and rest, have the life I have and be safe in the moment without having to constantly revisit the past.

I am also discovering an anger at SS because of his desire to hide and pretend the difficult things in life do not exist and are not going to hurt him, if he doesn’t know they are happening. He doesn’t ask difficult questions of the doctors. He does not challenge the care his mother is giving his father, or the lack of the care. He does not have a conscious clue the man he calls “dad” is dying…until yesterday.

His father’s illness became real for him yesterday. He could not run from it, or hide. He could only cry and wonder what had happened, and be afraid of losing the man he has never truly known. SS did not even try to get to know his father until the past year or so.

The family SS grew up in was not close, and he has described it as living in a divorced household without the divorce. SS’s mother is a bitch of a woman and would prefer all of her children to die without being married and knowing true love. She does not want grandchildren, especially SS’s because he would have gone against her direct order. The woman has gone so far as to say that SS would not make a good father and that she would prefer him to become gay and bring home a black man as a lover than to marry a woman and have children around her. Yes, the woman has quite a few mental problems. Emotional ones, too. Still, her husband did not leave her and he has stayed around for his children, even if his one and only son was kept from him and actually taught, for many years, to consider him as an enemy. When SS began working on knowing his father he was stunned to discover his dad had loved him all of these years and was waiting quietly for SS to make the first move; he did not want to push himself upon his son.

I have watched this relationship blossom and seen SS get closer to the man and seen him happy. I have observed the mother trying very hard to put up roadblocks in the way and how angry she became when none of it worked.

Today SS and the rest of the family was told they had only about a month with the patriarch of the family. SS is dealing. He is wanting to hide and run away, and, at the same time, he is looking for ways to make as many memories with his dad as possible. There are a lot of years wasted between them.

And, all of this is causing me to remember when I was told my Mom only had about a year. Then six months. I stayed with her. I loved her. I tried to help. I made mistakes that I remember even now and feel so repentant for! I feel ashamed for feeling all of the old feelings and grieving anew for my Mom and Dad because of this. It makes me feel as if I am nothing more than a selfish bitch who should truly know better. And I do.

None of my own feelings have made he less supportive of SS. There are moments when I feel that because of my own experience and these feelings I have experienced (and still experience at odd moments) I am a little better able to help support SS and others who are going through what I already have.