January Journal

It has been a difficult month. My father was in the hospital from mid Dec to the end of the first week of January. I didn't visit him more than twice in that period becasuse of his rudeness to me during visits. He also felt that the hospital was responsible for entertaining him. He would not thank me for the visit or for bringing him anything. Why should I want to go to the trouble to visit him if there was no gratitude? He was not across the street. I was concerned but I knew that he is too tough to be called home to God just yet.

I couldn't find a shrink until the third week of January as the ones in my awful p.p.o. didn't want to see me, I didnt' have any interesting neurosis, OR they didn't take my insurance coverage, etc. so I went to the first one that agreed to see me. It is a bad period for me. I alternate between anxiety and depression with very brief periods of joy.

I was invited (in Dec) to write a full length article for Caregiving Magazine/newsletter and so I was able to do so before the deadline. The article was published in their Jan. issue. I was also given extra copies of the magazine that the publisher was kind enough to send by speed mail. It felt good to have a creation or rather to be creative. There was a typo in it so that the rabbi of my congregation did not get credit that he deserved. Sometimes he does good things and sometimes he is just stiff and very British.

I have a fantasy that might make a good mystery story. What if mom were not really demented? What if she just got depressed over my father's constant hospitalizations and his bitterness,etc. What if she decided to fake her disease knowing that her family would stop taking her for granted and take care of her for a change. What if she also thought that she was getting bored of being unable to be alone at all felt that the day care services were too juvenile for her and was also unhappy with the home attendant and her husband's insistance that she eat well balanced meals with NO in between meal snacks? What if she missed the normal warm relations that happily married people enjoy? So one day she decides to kill off her annoying spouse and run off with the secret bank account or take it all from her husband's account and frame her daughter? Or maybe husband dies of natural causes and she just feels it is time for her normal life but feels the only way to do that is to disappear or maybe she also does not like daughter and frames her for murder or stealing the money in all the bank accounts. One day I must develop this in full.

Jan. 31,1999. Yesterday mom was called up to the Torah with me for her blessing. I was given the honor of blessing the torah and using my tallit, i kissed the parsha that was read. This was Shabbat Shirah. Mom got to be up front and personal with a two thousand or so year old ritual. However because of her disease, the only thing that mattered to her was the rabbi's 3yr old son shaking her hand.

Today my brother graced us with his prescence and he took dad to the mall to look at exercise equipment for our basement. Personaly I would really rather have the money. Mom refused to go shopping or for a walk. She preferred to nap in a reclining chair by a window. My father was cranky even though my brother was there and once again I felt that he prefers chasing people away so he can be unhappy. He really loves being unhappy.

Mom did go to the movies last night with dad so I had a little bit of respite.

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page