.
You got these four adults whose mother severed all contact for 25 + years agreeing to let bygones be bygones so the old lady doesn't end up dying abandoned in an apartment or forgotten in some institutional home somewhere.
Of course, each of the offspring has their own issues. And of course, stress puts the spotlight on those issues. There's the one who's addicted to legally prescribed pain killers and in a co-dependent marriage; the convicted felon with his own abandonment issues; the one who struggles with setting appropriate boundaries and a too-large sense of obligations and . . .
. . . one's perfect. That would be FS.
Hah! FS is a heartless bee-yotch.
At least, she'd like to be. So it's easy for FS to tell the primary caretaker to let the ol' lady stew at night. Let her ring that damn bell for two straight weeks. Refuse to get her coffee at 3:30 in the morning. Refuse to leave the televison on all night a high volume. Drug her drink at night with painkiller so she sleeps. Refuse to cook whatever the ol' lady wants whenever she wants it. Keep healthy snacks around and let her munch on those between meals.
Refuse to respond when the ol' lady gets querolous. Refuse to defend people when the ol' lady starts trashing them. Refuse to change the tv station 30 times a day. Refuse to jump back and forth between radio, television and cd player every 10-15 minutes.
Lock the office door and refuse to respond to her demands while you're trying to do important work such as save your sanity or pay the electric bill. Move the air mattress into the bathroom and lock the bedroom door at night so that it's harder for the ol' lady to disturb your rest. Put a child lock on the front door, baby gates at the kitchen, lock the other doors and take her lighter away at night.
If after all that the ol' lady won't give you any peace, put her in a home and sleep the sleep of the innocent.
Yah, that's what FS says. Then she wonders what she'd do if she were the primary caretaker. Would she have the heart to put the ol' lady in a home somewhere? And if she did, would she bother visiting? How often? How long would the ol' lady last?
Would FS feel guilty for spiking the ol' lady's coffee? For requiring healthy boundaries and mutual respect? For dumping her in a home for someone else to deal with? Not FS the bee-yotch. FS the person might, though.
So, Madame Primary Caretaker, I hereby confer to you permission to be a Heartless Bee-Yotch and do whatever you have to do to come through this caretaker roll with a sense of sanity. The ol' lady made her choices; she's reaped what she's sown, and she's still sowing shit. Love her and leave her with a clear conscience. I guarantee that none of the rest of us could do what you've done for the ol' lady to date. I respect you for doing what you've done and you've done all that can be done.
Sincerely,
FS, Heartless Bitch. (You can be one, too!)
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7 comments:
Good spanking FS. Read my blog to see how the hard-ball approach is coming along. love ya anyway, Bee-yotch!!
Oh my! I don't know how it happened, but I ran across your caretaking sibs blog via another blog the other day, and it just dawned on me when I read both your entries today that you're sibs and the sick and dying parent is one and the same!! You're both great writers!
Jill aska Tasia at the Ooze!
hey Jill, thank you for visiting and leaving a comment.
yes, DD is a great writer and a great person. i jist gotta step outta line ever now n then. maybe it helps provide a reality check. it's hard to see from the outside when you're so caught up in a mess.
I'm a heartless bitch too. But you, FS, are not.
I'd NEVER in a million years rush to my mother's aid, after she shunned me when I found her after 15 years, after the state had to take 3 pitiful, neglected, abused kids from her questionable, rat infested household, after she bragged about trying to kill me on 3 separate occasions when I was under the age of 3 (some of which I remember, especially being locked in the toy chest overnight), once I found her, after I became pregnant with my own offspring, how she mercilessly harassed and taunted me via telephone, telling me she hoped the baby would be born deformed, retarded or at least as messed up and pathetic as I was, causing my blood pressure to spike, and causing me to get an unlisted phone number.
My sister, on the other hand, has too much heart. She takes care of the old bitch, from the middle of the state of Florida, a full 2 hours away from the ungrateful bio-thing, and actually has a relationship with her. The bio-thing is a parasite, a user, and nothing, nothing, nothing would ever convince me to ever have a single thing to do with her ever again.
So, my hat is off to you and the sibs, because you all have way more heart than I ever could.
Yes, that makes me just a tad ashamed. But not enough to have anything to do with MY bio-thing ever again.
Healthy boundaries are healthy boundaries -- you keep 'em!
That is, it's ok to have them, and that's more about strong character than it is poor character. Note that FS does not get so involved with the ol' lady that she can cause much harm.
And, the ol' lady was never anything like yours, thank goodness. Our mother tried very hard to do all the right things, and she did many, many, many right things. Makes it much easier for us to be kind.
FS thinks you don't have anything to be ashamed about.
FS rocks my socks.
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