Families...YESH!

Boy, oh boy. DO I have one helluva headache. What is causing all this personal strife, you ask.... Family... Family drama. Not baby-mama drama, thank God. But sick,getting elderly parents drama, and stupid family politics drama.

I don't know when it happened that whenever it rains really hard, or it's really smoky outside, that I suddenly start woorying about my mom and dad and if they are having respiratory problems or are driving in the rain.. Every saturday I think about my poor dad out at my sister's house mowing her lawn using this ratty old extension cord that is held together with duck tape and spit. I always phone him around 4 pm and he always sounds dog-tired and like he's ready collapse. But he doesn't want to stop. And who am I to tell him what he has to do, really.

I don't know, It's really sad to think about your parents mortality. What parts of your life they'll get to see and experience....

I don't know when I started thinking like this.... I guess probably when my dad broke his hip. I know he has many, many more years ahead of him, but it was the hardest thing to see him there so helpless and worse than that, so resigned to his helplessness.

And I'll never forget when the nurse at the hospital asked me if I was having a good visit with my grandpa ( meaning my dad) and I burst into tears right in front of everyone.

Now my mom is getting sick with some mysterious illness. It's weird to hear her so resigned. She is always, in spite of anything: flu, irritations, arguments, tiredness, TENACIOUS, to say the least. But today when I talked to her she sounded so small and quiet. It was weird. I'm sure it's nothing too serious. She has been taking way too many prescriptions and it's sounds liek some of them are having weird reactions with each other.

But what gets me, is the way both my parents are so lackadaisical when it comes to their own health. "How are you feeling?" "Where does it hurt?" "When did you start feeling like that?" They can't even answer these simple questions. They don't know anything about their own bodies. And the doctors.. don't even get me started. I think their doctor totally plays down to them and doesn't take the time to listen to them and just sends them off with another needless prescription. And they don't complain. They were raised to just go along with whatever. Don't rock the boat...

Sometimes it's like I'm only in vancouver not even 2 hours away, but it is too far to help them sometimes....