I just heard from Andy and he says his dad is still alive but the machines are doing all the work for him and he won't die until they switch it off. Andy said that if he lived, the opening in his neck would have to be kept like that to help him breathe and he'd have to be cared for all the time by nurses and stuff. Basically his lungs are like old paper bags and they're so damaged that there's not much they can do about it.
I asked when they were going to switch it off. He said they're not at this time.
I reminded him that his father would hate to be that way and that it's not life, it's just keeping his body alive by machines. He said I know, it's just existing. He said the plan is to just 'go with the flow' for the time being and if he has a cardiac arrest they will not resusitate him. Apparently the doctors think it will be a miracle if he hasn't died within the next 24 to 48 hours or so. Andy said I could go down on the train and see him but not with Alicia, and I have no babysitter for tomorrow so that's out. He is refusing to let our other girls see him and he said to me he didn't recommend I did because it's 'very upsetting and he didn't look like himself'.
I'm not going to go, aside from no babysitter, I would be in the way.
I asked how Andy was - he sounds earily calm, unlike when his grandmother (his dad's mother) died. He said it was because he believes in life after death now, and he wasn't so sure with his grandmother (we both developed mediumistic ability since then). We talked a bit about how the family is coping and how his aunty is (dad's sister). She is apparently coping okay, it's the aunty by marriage who is reacting badly (his dad's brother's wife - his brother died years ago).
Then Andy started saying my mother is 'sad' because we don't see each other and that she's the same age as his dad and that he never thought his dad would die at 60, so how do I know she's not going to die too? He said how would I feel if she died and we hadn't made up beforehand? I told him that she had no feeling for me, that there was no love there and to do what she did to her own daughter - no mother in the world would do that to their flesh and blood, and that even if I did contact her and she wanted an R with me, how do I know she wouldn't start up her emotional abuse again? I said, Andy, all people I love hurt me.
He said they can only love you as far as you let them in.
I said whenever I have let her near me, she has punished me or caused a scene for me giving her too much information, and private stuff that I confided in you during our M got used in court, so I can't do intimacy with people; they just use me.
He said I would get back more if I give more. I said, Andy, I've been giving continously to this family for years and I get nothing back. When you give and give and give, eventually there is burn out. I am burnt out with her.
He said he understood, but still thought I should think about it, that I should want an R with her. I said she would carry on with her mind games if I tried to get near her. He said I should set down ground rules and boundaries with her.
I said even if I did, and she followed them, she would slip up eventually. She gave birth to me so she thinks she can control me and has that right, and even if she didn't - what could I possibily offer her as a daughter now?
There's my elder sister who is married to a middle class engineering worker, has 2 sons and a daughter, and is a primary school teacher, living in a nice house in a very posh village - she of course, is mummy's favourite because she does all the 'right' things.
Then there's my baby brother who is an aviation engineer and pilot for the RAF, earns a fortune, lives in married quarters with his nice wife who can speak Russian, trained in Law and is now also a teacher. That's all up to her standard, too.
Then of course, there is me. Disabled, teenage mother, separated at 24, now divorced, had my kids taken off me in court, write a number of controversial books, run a charity she doesn't agree with because doctors are always God and earn peanuts doing something that might be unusual but that I happen to love. I of course, am a failure in her eyes. The weird one of the family, the one she is ashamed of, the one she thinks is mental, sexually divient and a liar (her words on paper exactly).
Andy said yes, I understand that, I just don't want her to die and you to regret it.
I said I knew, and appreciated the thought.
Then he said he wanted me to go to his dad's funeral. That shocked me; in all honesty, I didn't think I would even be invited. I mean, it's not as if I am family now we are divorced, so I just hadn't psyhed myself up for the eventuality that I would be asked to go.
He said 'At least you can have closure with him (his dad) by going to the funeral; I know you didn't get to go to your dad's funeral and it has always bothered you.'
That was a sweet thought, but hell, I don't want to go as a divorced person. I am so ashamed of this whole divorce thing and the fact that we wouldn't be walking into that church together, and then all his relatives that haven't seen me since pre-D days. I can't imagine anything worse. Of course, he won't need me there as he's got his mother (and she won't let me near him anyway, she has such an overbearing personality).
I really don't want to go and I don't know how to tell him.
