transmothra | Entries tagged with life:family

Today i went over to see my grandfather. He seems confused, as usual, and asking him a question requires waiting around for at least a minute before he figures out how to say the answer, if he remembers what the question was at that time. So that's nice and depressing.

But a really weird thing happened. We were sitting there, watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, when suddenly a little toy Douglas C-47 (a metal/plastic replica of the troop carrier my grandfather was in through all four Market Garden missions during WWII; about 3 inches long, something like this one) that was sitting on top of the television set came flying off and crashed onto the carpet about 5 feet away, right at my feet.

...As in, "WTF"!

Itested it to see how far it would bounce if it had just fallen off on its own due to the vibrations of the television. It landed directly in front of the television, bouncing a few inches at the most. That's not five feet, i thought to myself.

My dad and Charlie (sp?), the caretaker for the night, said that this had happened before. She said that she herself hadn't seen it happen, but was extraordinarily nonplussed. She told me that Jennifer, another caretaker, was sitting on the floor in front of the sofa (just about where i was when it happened tonight), when the exact same thing happened.

...As in, "WTF"!?

And then i remembered that my friend Tony once stayed over, not terribly long after my grandmother had died, and had stayed in her room. He reported the next day that he had seen someone in the room with him. I told him at the time that, in the darkness, and in his drunken state, it had probably only been his own reflection in a mirror. He vehemently denied any possibility of that. My friend Tony, who's pretty skeptical about anything even remotely implausible...

So... now what? I'm a skeptic, goddammit! I do not believe in ghosts! How am i supposed to reconcile this event with reason? I mean, there simply MUST be a logical explanation for this, other than that my grandmother is haunting their house.

Current Mood: surprised
Current Music: Within Temptation- "Pearls of Light"

my dad left me a flipped out voicemail today. he was freaking out, probably cracking under pressure. asking me if i was ever going to go see my grandpa again. i admit, i only go over about once every other week these days.

my grandfather is dying, and my family won't hire someone to help out. they want me to drop my life (again; last time was with my grandmother, who i helped voluntarily) and move in and get paid to wipe ass, and do a good bit of wussy crying and probably get back on the bottle and so on.

it was hard taking care of my grandmother. i drank. and when she finally died, i lost my whole life for a little while. i mean my mental and emotional health was fucked up seventeen ways to sunday.

my family doesn't think he's dying, or they think he's not dying all that much. or something. i don't know. i can barely admit it myself. i don't want to believe it, because it all happened so suddenly, back in November of 2004.

so he's wigging out, and taking it out on me via my voicemail, and i just don't know what the fuck to do. i mean, i don't want to just drop my life all over again. i don't want to go through that. i lost a lot of time, and found it a lot harder to find decent work after being unemployed for so long.

but he needs a break. we can NOT shuffle him off to some goddamn lousy nursing home. but they NEED to learn to trust home health care workers again.

Current Mood: distressed
Current Music: King Crimson- "Neurotica"

i was out with a sore throat this week and Holly's got pleurisy and severe chest/back pain and maybe a fever too. had to call out sick for her and for myself on behalf of her on Thor's Day.

i know i'll get in trouble for doing that. but i just don't care. i spent all of my loyalty points for that company. i've applied at a few other places; i'm sure to get one or more offers. i just can't keep living at that stupid place and talking to those fluff-headed customers any longer. i swear to fuck, every day i visualize my empty body hanging from the balcony. it's taking too much from me to keep this crap up. i need change. i need a new job, more time to create, and more space to create in. i won't even go into the old "standing by while my sweet old Grandpa dies" bit. i can't even get myself over there to witness it most of the time.

my life is stifling me.

all i want is Holly, and Speck, and a fuckload of cash (that'll take care of the rest of my problems). that's all i want.

Current Mood: crappy
Current Music: Pink Floyd- "Atom Heart Mother"

went to see family. while Kent was here we had a candid discussion of my grandfather's mental condition. also, my dad found out that his Reglan may be responsible for his statue-like demeanor and general confusion. also, he shouldn't have been on it for more than 12 weeks. he's been on the shit for something more like a year.

fuck the health care industry.

also, his physical therapy is stopping, because the agency has deemed it useless. they've checked his ass out, and Medicare is, in all likelihood, patting them on the back for doing such a fine job.

fuck the health care industry.

today, now that Grandpa is off of that evil Reglan shit, he's been going through some sort of delusional, paranoid withdrawal. he's trying to escape (chair, bed); my dad found him on the floor after he went outside for a few minutes. he had a phone in his hands and was trying to call the police because he was being held captive. he claimed while i was there that my dad and his "co-instigator" (wife Gerry) had taken him out to a shack last night and locked him in (though he admitted that the door was open) for four, no twelve, hours. he called my dad a bastard numerous times, and said such awful things about the poor sacrificing brokenback man that it was just heartbreaking (esp. after all my dad's done to help him and to get himself all cleaned up and sober and responsible). half the time the only thing that kept me from either cracking up or crying was the ambiguous, contradictory nature of this dual response. i did a little bit of both.

fuck the whole god DAMN health care industry.

speaking of crying, if you've had a rough time of it lately, here's what NOT to do: don't listen to the late, great Jeff Buckley's angelic cover of Leonard Cohen's masterful "Hallelujah" - it always brings me completely down in tears, especially this part:

I've seen your flag on the marble arch
but love is not a victory march
it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah....

Current Mood: down
Current Music: Jeff Buckley

Holly's family is just fine; my family is about as disfunctional as they get. Gerry playing WiFi puzzle games on laptop, Dad showing off his latest hi-tech toy (a $99 "pen computer", ages 8-13, write or draw on special paper and it tells you about the word you just wrote, really cool but completely devoid of practical utility), Uncle Kent being Uncle Kent. and Grandpa sitting there in his chair; you're not sure whether he knows you're there or not; his eyes only half closed, half open, he says and does nothing, in his own little world inside his head, if such a place still truly exists. (and the lot of them, Masters of Denial, bragging to each other about how good he's doing.)

nobody mentioned Thanksgiving. nobody offered us any food until we got up to leave for work, last-ditch-bluffing that we were going to stop someplace for a quick bite. not a word i said, i think, was actually heard or processed by anybody, not even my plaintive "so do you guys have any food going on around here or anything or what?" early on.

and yes, i'm thankful for my family, and for Holly and Holly's. but especially i am thankful for my poor dear old sweet Grandpa, and his sweet dog Matty.

Current Mood: gloomy
Current Music: Bright Eyes

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transmothra - signs of the collapse

in one eye and out the æther

Entries tagged with life:family

Poltergeist!

fucked up voicemail from my dad

i got dem ole bout ta got no isshunce blews.

the paranoid DTs

turkeys only doing it for the money today

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May 2025

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