Things have changed. Quite a lot of things. Everyone loses parents, I know, but since my mother died, and since my dad has been grieving and quite lonely. . . and quite old (86, soon to be 87 in early January), I’ve been thinking of my own age, and under some stress. 49 the day after Christmas. Not 50 yet, but 49 seems to be getting to me. And my empty nest. The reality that I could well “choose” to remain alone for the rest of my life has me on edge a little. I don’t know if I want to go looking. I just don’t know. And when my father dies, will I be okay as an orphaned 50 something? Time to grow up already?
I’ve given up cigarettes, I have this idea I’ll die of cancer any day now, and have a couple of new porcelain crowns, my two front teeth, and will get two more (the ones on either side), after the new year (insurance purposes), as well as some bonding on the three teeth along each side of the upper row “to fill in my smile.” I will look like a movie star. Oddly today, they all feel sort of oddly precarious, like they could all fall off any minute. I keep pushing at them. Particularly the temporary ones, which he said not to floss, since they were temporarily glued in place. For some damn reason, all the pushing and tugging causes a lot of pain, and he had to shoot me up three times. It still hurt on one side. This has happened to me before. I need three or four shots of Novocain. It’s a pain in the ass, and there’s nothing I hate worse than pain.
Next Thurs, I have endoscopic carpal tunnel release surgery. I’m scared shitless. The pain in my forearm and now even more so in my wrist is too much. It is severe on the right. Doc said it would feel 100 percent better as soon as I get up off the table.
The cottage sold a month or so ago. Very weird and kind of sad, but a relief. It was becoming near unbearable to see it fall apart. It will be torn down, something new and likely far grander put in place. Hard to imagine the cottage gone.
My aunt Jane has suffered a massive stroke. She is my dad’s older sister, 90 some odd. Or is she just now 91? I have to check her birthday. They did not expect her to last more than a day or two, but as of day 2, she was still alive, but comatose. I hope she passes easy and soon. I’m glad Emily and I went to see her last summer.
So, my dad and my uncle Steve are still kicking. My mother’s sister, Aunt Dorothy, is still alive and well as far as I know. My mother stopped speaking to her years ago. I always liked Aunt Dorothy. It would be nice to see her. But as I understand it, she did not treat my mother very kindly. I feel some loyalty to my mother.
I have a half brother, conceived following my father’s homecoming from WWII when he was barely 20 years old, just a year, maybe less from his time in Normandy where he was wounded, shot in the shoulder. He had remained enlisted, however, guarding German POW’s in Jackson, MI where the young lady whom he dated briefly lived. They ran off to get married, out of fear I believe, and a sense of duty, though my father never told his parents. My dad never lived with the the young woman, as I understand it. There may have been some insistence on her part, that they live as man and wife, but my father could not concede to this and refused. They were divorced and child support payments set up, covered by his disability check for years. I would imagine many soldiers came home and many young girls became pregnant. Is my father’s refusal to help raise this child, and to have essentially given him up wrong? Bad? Plenty of mothers give up their babies. He gave up his. He may be viewed as the deadbeat dad by my half brother and his family, perhaps by others, I don’t know. He paid support, took responsibility in that way. For a 20 year old man, that seems more right to me than wrong. To marry a woman he did not love only to be a “dad” would have been wrong. But he also chose not to have contact. Perhaps that was more expected in 1946. Perhaps it was just easier. It was a frightening predicament for him at that age, so my father explained to me not long ago.
So, I think about this stuff, and my Aunt Jane, and my Aunt Dorothy, and my father, soon to be 87, and my own lonesome existence, and the likelihood that I’ll die of cancer for all my years of smoking. Anyway, I suppose anyone my age might go through the same thing.
Oh, and a bit of anxiety. Yeah.
