I’m frustrated. On the cusp of going on our 3 week road trip, the plans I had made to care for my mother in my absence have been cancelled. I tried to iron out the details but it seems that Alzheimers is just going around and my aunt, who was supposed to come down and stay for a week, won’t be able to because her husband can’t care for HIS mother with alzheimer’s. So, she has to stay. They’re in the midst of trying to get her into a memory care facility and having a tough time.

There was a statement she made to me in our text exchange that annoyed me. She said “I feel really bad but my husband needs my help.” And I wanted to reply, as does mine. Y’know, the one that is dying? Anyway… it would have been petty and the thing is I understand the stress that comes with caring for someone with “mush brain.”

I don’t say that to be insensitive. Don’t get me wrong, it is. I use it as a way of getting past my frustration. The whole situation (now and the broader picture) makes me angry. I’m at a loss. And this little hiccup… It makes me more angry. Because, this grown ass man can’t care for his mother (he’s in his late 60’s by the way) but I’m supposed to?

I’m in my head about certian expectations, which I perceive as being projected onto me from my family. No one has ever said a single word to allude to such, yet I still feel that way. I hate it. I want to be rid of my family. I genuinely find no joy with or in them, and in the end they have just hurt me. Primarily because of how they have treated or ignored my mother.

My mom has this strong belief in “family.” She would do anything, for any one of them, at the drop of hat. That is not an exaggeration. One time my cousin’s EX-wife called up to ask if my mom would be willing to pick up a friend of hers and drive him somewhere. A total stranger. My mother had her reservations but in the end SHE WAS GOING TO DO IT! I cannot comprehend that sense of familial loyalty. Mainly because I have never seen or received it in return.

Now as my mother is failing and losing all sense of who she is, my family is not there. She languishes in solitude. I tried to do what I could, but in the end her disease has brought out the “bigot” in her and she doesn’t want to live with a bunch of fags. (The plan was for her to move in with us at our new, bigger, place but she flat out refused. There are “too many men” and she “wants to be around christians.”)

It is near impossible for me to separate my “alzheimer’s mother” from who she once had been. At one time she genuinely felt that way. It was just seeing how my husband and I acted around each other that she changed her tune. She became more accepting and loving, or that was what she made me believe. Maybe she always felt the same way and just lied to my face. Which is why I cannot separate these current feelings from the disease.

I will however do what I have to for my mother, on my terms. I am basically waiting out the clock until it is IMPERITIVE for her to be put into a home. My husband has repeatedly told me that this is an expensive endeavour and will eat all of her savings, but I DO NOT CARE. I want nothing from her in the end. Her money is her’s, she raised me to be self reliant (to think for myself) and I can do just that. (She did a good job.) It is truly expensive as fuck, and the fact that insurance doesn’t pay a goddamn dime is a JOKE.

What pains me most about all of this flakey family bullshit is how much stock my mother put into them. Much like that lie Fox News sold her on gold and silver, she did the same for this idea of “blood is thicker than water” and paid out her ass. (I have since learned the adage most quoted is a bastardization of the actual saying, which literally says the opposite.) She really believed that family was everything. That you do whatever you can for them. Well… Here we are.

I’ve already decided that once she is gone, I will truly never speak to any of them again. I have no patience or feelings toward them, other than contempt for how they treated the one person who believed in them the most. I couldn’t give a fuck if they loved or even liked me. What mattered most was how they treated a truly loving woman.