I've just had a revelation as to why the whole situation with my aunt bothered me.
It was a Tuesday. She'd gone into the hospital yet again, pain so unbearable, she couldn't stand. That will sometimes happen with a stroke and given her health, it was only a matter of time before the stroke happened. Luckily - or maybe unluckily - she survived the stroke and did well with rehab.
Until the pain got worse.
Maybe, just maybe, I would be wrong about my feeling, that complete dread, that this is the end and to say goodbye now before it happenes. Grandma was there in the dream, that swirling dream about the place where my aunt had lived for many years, my mom answered the door, Grandma was there, my mom, my great aunt and uncle, dressed for a nice occasion, and my Grandma said to me, "We're waiting for Joan to come back." She was not there yet...but soon would be.
I will mention now, I've never met my Grandma, my dad and aunt's mother. She died before I was born. But she still smiled at me and kissed my forhead in my dream.
It was Tuesday. "Please call me back," I heard my dad's voice say in the voicemail, "I need to talk to you about your aunt's condition."
We'd go to lunch every so often, and in those days, many times, places I could not afford on my own. We - and the whole family, actually - loved good food. The Coast, Sabor, North Shore Bistro. Red Lobster was always hilarious, as she'd bring her own kitchen shears to crack the king crab legs. The plate would come, and she'd pull a plastic bag with the shears out of her purse. The last year she went to State Fair, she had trouble walking even past the gate. "I'm not going to make it," she said. "Don't be silly," I told her, "they have scooters and wheelchairs for rent. Let's get one." As a child, I loved going with her on the bus to Northridge, I'd lean agaist her and say, "Auntie, you are really soft. You make a good pillow." She was my auntie pillow.
"So...I'm calling you back. What's going on?" I said to my dad. "She's decided to discontinue dialysis," he said, his voice cracking a little. "She will be going into hospisce. The doctors say it will take about a week."
I had called on a Saturday in September to see if I could do my laundry at their house because the people in my apartment building were assholes when it came to laundry. "Hello," my aunt answered, pain evident in her voice. "Are you okay?" I asked, forgetting about my laundry. So from then on, almost every Saturday morning, I would go over and do her laundry, to spare her the pain of going up and down the stairs to the basement. Of course, I brought my laundry over to do as well. We'd sit and chat, watch How It's Made, munch on ten year old cheddar and crackers.
It took forever for them to transfer her to hospice. They wheeled her in. "I'm so sorry," she said, "I never wanted to be a burden." "You were never a burden," my dad told her. "Because we love you," I said, "nothing was a big deal or a burden." "Stay with me," she said. "I will, Auntie, I will." So every day for 7 days, I showed up with my lunch, watched TV, and talked to her, even when she no longer could respond.
There are times in my life where people disappoint me. I'm okay with that, it happens, it's life. But to be honest, there are some disappointments so horrible, I can never reconcile it with my soul. It's like the chasm of disappointment creates a river of resentment so deep, that nothing the other peson says or does will ever repair it. I recognize those moments when they happen; I'm just not good at letting go at that point and freeing myself from my feelings. Oh, I loved Zombie, I really did. He disappointed me often but I learned to live with it, even when he talked about himself for 20 minutes straight before I could blurt out, "Joan's going into hospice".
I flipped through the channels. Nothing was on that I wanted to watch. I touched her arm. "I'm not good at this, Auntie," I said. I spotted the CD case - the one she had always taken with her to dialysis - and flipped through it. I don't remember what the title of the CD was, but it was all the church songs, some of them the ones that I had loved to sing when I was in choir. I turned off the TV, put on the CD, and for the first time in a very long time, I sang church songs, touching her arm. She was still soft. Still my auntie pillow.
"All I need for you to do is my dishes," I told him. "I've been so busy, I haven't had time to do everything." My expectation was that he would do my housework while I was at the hospice. I was so overwhelmed, so, so overwhelmed. "Shouldn't I go?" he asked. "No, I need you to help me here." I will say at this point, I would have preferred he kicked me in the leg. I learned a very valuable lesson that day - between physical violence/verbal abuse and emotional jackassery, I'd much rather be beat than have my heart ripped out of my chest and stomped on. Internal bleeding goes away; looking at the person you once loved with all your heart knowing that if something horrible happens, it will be all about them and fuck you, wondering when that horrible moment will come again is heartbreaking. And it will come again, only a matter of time. Instead of saying, "Of course I will do this for you because I love you and you are facing an extremely difficult time," he said, "WHAT? I didn't get to say goodbye! Why can't I go with you? She'll be gone forever. Why can't I go? I need to see her." And on. And on. Insisting and pleading and insisting some more. It wasn't until I had finished showering and crying in the shower, that I had decided that it was over between us and that all the feelings that I ever had for him had swirled down the drain, now lost to the sewage pipe. "Rest assured," I told him as I getting dressed, "that it will be over if you make me do this." Cue another round of tears. Eventually, he relented and just let me go alone to see my aunt.
We were her children, she didn't have any of her own. She spoiled us when our parents couldn't. Travels to Disney World and a trip anywhere in the world when we were 16. She was our Fairy Godmother. And here Zombie was, demanding that I take him to the hospice. Even Mr Kicked Me In The Leg had not been that much of an asshole when my mother died.
Looking back on it now, I should have just let the fruit flies take over, and kicked him out of my apartment, never to be seen again, except at my aunt's funeral. You never expect the people you love to hurt you so badly, but it happens. I kept the sweatshirts that I had painted for her and every so often, I pull them out and touch them, remembering the hugs and kisses and bus rides and lunches.
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