I have not yet been able to talk to my mom about what
grandparent name she wants to use. When we visited her a few weekends ago for
her birthday, I talked to the little ones on the ride to the farm. We agreed to
start calling my parents Grandma P and Grandpa J to try to phase out Miss P and
Mr. J as their names. It was very awkward. Chica Marie also caught on that my
sister and brother-in-law would be her aunt and uncle and she had great fun
calling them Auntie A and Uncle S. My parents didn’t seem too receptive to
their names but made no objections. At one point Chica Marie called my father
PopPop, which is what we called his father, and I think that stung a little. I
don’t think he wants to be PopPop. When I can catch my mom in a good and
reasonable mood, I would like to talk about it with her, but that is such a
moving target and there are so many other elephants marching around the room,
it seems nearly impossible to find a good time to bring it up.
I did see my mom this past weekend, briefly. My dad dropped
her off at the oncology unit early in the morning so she could get fluids and
she needed a ride home, so I took her. She spent some time berating me and my
siblings (who were not there to defend themselves) for not being there for her,
for not understanding out critical her situation has been. She informed me she
was diagnosed with stage 3 advanced ovarian cancer. I didn’t really say
anything when she accused us of not caring. It was the way she saw things and
anything I say would sound like a lame excuse to her. Why didn’t I come see her
after her surgery? She laid at home for 7 weeks waiting for us to visit (I
added the last part, she didn’t say that although it sounded implied). Well, I
didn’t visit because I thought she needed to rest. I did try checking in with
her regularly but I guess that wasn’t what she wanted. Going to visit would
mean taking the kids (because it is getting harder and harder to convince
Primero to watch the kids) and I worry that having the kids there stresses her
out. See, lame excuse. When I got her home I helped her with laundry for a bit
before leaving and she seemed to be in a little better mood. She was
hospitalized briefly on Monday and called me on Tuesday when she got home because she was
very angry about how the hospital handled her medical needs (I’ll post more
about this separately because it really has me irked). So, maybe we’re ok
again? I’ll just keep holding my breath….
No comments:
Post a Comment