The Visit.....

He sits. He pauses. His eyes caught by something.

He sits, he pauses. He says ‘Hello!’ And his face lights up with recognition.

‘Hello You’ I say. ‘Hello Dad.

And I’m staring into a face that is oh so familiar, yet there is a stranger lurking behind those eyes. My dad is currently in hospital, awaiting a hospice bed. He is dying. And the brain Cancer has finally done a number on him. It’s like watching a toddler. His movements, unsure as the message to grab something is garbled on its way down to his thin fingers. His head is jerky in its movements, as he starts to eat something, and a bird flies past the window, and he turns to look at it, dropping ice cream down himself. He then turns back, and can’t remember what he was doing. ‘Oh yeah’ you can almost hear his brain click. ‘Ice cream!’ In between this he has bouts of pain, so chronic, that he becomes distressed like a toddler, because her can’t understand why he is in pain. And you're holding his had, and soothing his hair, and talking softly to him as he cries. And then like a toddler it stops, and he switches back to what he was doing before it hit him.  Add on top of this, moments when he is my Dad and your brain doesn't know what to do. I know its him, because he tells me to piss off. Or swears at Mum

I am so numb. So beyond this, that I don’t know what to do. I am sure my mother is expecting me to do something. Be a specific way. She asked me last night in what felt like a very loaded questions. ‘So what do you think of Keith then. (Notice Keith, not Dad)’ I just said. That’s not my Dad. That’s not my Dad sat in that hospital bed. And she just looked at me. I thought she was going to start crying again.  This is going to sound awful. But there is nothing in me that wants to help shore her up. For the last 3 months, I’ve been her personal verbal punching bag. OH you don’t need to explain to me why. I get it. She is at the coal face. Whereas I have been in Scotland. Honouring the Promise, (I might add) that Dad made me make. Which was to live my life. Because as he is clearly demonstrating. We only get one shot.  I love my Mother. I do. But I find that she is my mother less and less. And it feels more like I am related to someone who just holds a quiet air of disappointment in me. Not only is my Father dying. But I think I lost my Mum along the way too.

Now. This is not a pity party. This is more a meandering through thoughts to try and untangle this mess that its gotten itself into. I cannot fathom, where or when I got it wrong. To the point where I am no longer asked ‘how are you coping’ but more, ‘Katie its terrible to watch my husband dying’. We’ve forgotten, that it’s my Dad lying there being munched slowly from the inside out. She dislikes that I chose my life over hers. She dislikes, that I’m Gay. (I pointed out Loving someone and accepting them are two different things.......) I think, because she has always tried to live her life vicariously through me, that this time, I’ve chosen a life that is very very right for me, but not so much for her. She feels I am leaving her behind, that I am/have abandoned her, and left her to the wilderness.

I’ve not. If, like my brother a few years ago, I had upped Sticks and moved to Thailand, then yes, I could understand it. However I am in Scotland............

I’m there. On the end of the phone. (The same as when I was in Swindon) And my Brother, who lives in London, is for once, having to pick up the slack. Because I can’t. But it’s not seen as, Oh that’s nice, that Paul is helping out. It’s more a ‘Paul is driving down EVERY weekend to see Dad. Paul came down, Paul isn’t coping well but he still comes down.......’ I think even a blind man could read in between the lines. The thing is, I’ve sorted the practical stuff out. I re-wrote, both of their wills. I sat with Dad and made his funeral arrangements, because Mum couldn’t do it. I rang lifeline for them, and called the Council to arrange for a social care package. I called MacMillan and sorted out information and people to call Mum. I called friends of Dad and asked them to call him. I called my brother and told him to get his arse down South to see Dad. Heck I even roped in the Ex-Husband to go down and see Dad

But you can hear it in her voice, that this isn’t enough. That I should have dropped everything and moved back home to be there for her. Not my Dad. Don’t get this wrong. But to be there for her. I’ve failed her. And I cannot fathom what I could have done differently.  I know she is broken hearted that her husband is dying. But the martyrdom is too much and too far. It’s as if the last 35yrs of their marriage has been turned from one that nearly broke my Mum into a fairytale. That they have been skipping through the decades on the same page, completely besotted with each other. In reality, my parents fought all the time. Dad saying absolutely horrible things to her. And Mum fighting back. I’ve always always been the one in my mum’s camp. Because I’ve heard the things he has said to her. But I am starting to wonder if they have now been taken out of context. Because I appear to be getting to full brunt of something, that I didn’t know was there, and I’ve a feeling that my Dad tempered my Mum......... And now that shelter that I had, is sitting in a hospital bed, barely able to tell me what day of the week it is.

Being an Aspie. (Aspergers) I have a tendency to compartmentalise things. Which often gets interpreted as stand offish, or not caring. Whereas there is a lot going on underneath the surface. Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean that this its hurting any less.

I’m aware I’m rambling. I miss my Dad. And it’s even worse because he is not dead.  He is still here. And I miss him, so much, that there is this terrible ache. And I feel Oh so small. So alone, and so cast aside. I want nothing more than to clamber up onto his lap, and curl up there, safe and warm and protected from the world as I did as a child. To inhale the scent of Erimore Mixture and Mints. To hear him call me pickle, and laugh because I said the F-Word. To look at his face and see acceptance there. To hear him say, I love you.

And like a small frightened child, I am over whelmed with this basic, inherent reaction.....

I want my Dad. I want my Dad. I want my Dad...............