Tonight I am preoccupied with the question of what makes a good person. I always thought I knew the answer, but the truth is, I don't.

 

Loyalty and compassion have disappeared in my life. I thought I would have been able to count on family to come through in a time of need and crisis. I was wrong. Can I be blunt? I often am here, so maybe I don't need to ask first. It will be one year next week that I have been the sole care-giver for my 90-year-old mother and I am fucking pissed off that not one member of the family has stepped up to offer any help or assistance. I don't even get a goddam phone call from anyone asking how I am holding up under the strain, or to ask me how our mother/grandmother/aunt is doing. Loyalty and compassion are gone, and with them trust.

 

Within the first week of recovering from her stroke, mom was asked by my sister to dictate her last will and testament over the telephone. My sister lives ten-minutes away. Doesn't that sound more than a bit fishy and opporutnistic? A week later, without permission, my sister transfered ownership of moms' house into her sons' name. All to be expected I suppose from a woman who couldn't find the time to visit more than three times a year. The final stroke of course was her crafting a will putting her in complete control of all assets and then announcing to me that the family had decided I be the one to take care of mom.

 

Throughout all of this there was never a family meeting. We never sat down together, or had a conference call to discuss anything. My sister told me many years ago that I am her "least favorite person in the world", but I lack the cold-heartedness to say the same about her. And apparently her demonization of me explains why her adult children are also removed and discompassionate. I don't entertain the fantasy that there will ever be a family meeting.

 

Emotional basket-case I am indeed. My social and work life have been destroyed for lack of support. Every day I witness the gradual decline of a half-blind, half-deaf, incontinent and depressed woman in a wheel-chair who is my mother. It is a crippling, nightmare of a situation which has choked my imagination leaving me incapable of anything more than sustinance. It is a desperate feeling not being able to feel anything.

 

It may all boil down to a waiting game. You see as long as I continue to perform all the duties of a nursing-home, the more money I'm saving my sister to blow on Harley's and bourbon. But, I am the only person who can make the call that it is time... and I refuse to do it. The best thing mom has going is to be able to remain in the familiar surroundings of her home. My sister is just waiting for me to completely crack... and I have, but I refuse to make the call. I will not do it.

 

Yes, this is a twisted drama. If I were a violent person, someone would have been hurt by now. I am not, so instead all of the resentment and torment churn away in my head.

 

I just want to say to my sister, "You fucking bitch, plodding through your forth marriage, on the edge of bancrupcy, changing jobs every year, with your painted on smile... fuck you." But I don't. I am civil. FUCK! I do not know what the fuck to do here.

 

If you happen to read this, I am sorry to inflict such a tale upon you. When we are young we project ourselves into the future... never, not in my most nightmare-ish imaginings could I have ever seen this scenario. And if you have read this far, then you deserve to know that we were raised in a violently abusive alcoholic household. My dad was truly and evil man. That's an important thing to know to grasp things psychologically.

 

Ok, I am exhausted from just this bit of writing and I don't want my hot bath to get cold waiting for me to finish.

 

So, am I being a good person by being loyal and compassionate in my actions towards my mom and not folding in on the waiting game of my sister?