Mortality

[chicken]

Tomorrow my 75 year old father is having surgery again. He had prostate cancer, and now there are a few complications. He says they are minor, that the surgery will be minor, that it is not a big deal. But he also said he was in quite a lot of pain, and he sounded distracted and forgetful on the phone.

My mother said he's lost a lot of weight and doesn't look too good. Even though they're divorced, they are still kind of friends. And it is hard to believe some things my mother says about him, because she has an extremely subjective opinion. It's sometimes hard to believe anything one says about the other.

I was so much closer to my mother when I was a kid, but now I find myself liking my father more. They are about 2000 miles away from me, so it's hard to gauge anything, but I just get so annoyed with my mother these days. She's so terribly judgmental about everything and everyone, she is inexcusably rude to my girlfriend (and it's not even homophobia, just plain rudeness), and she jumped to a lot of conclusions about my sister's boyfriend, apparently.

Maybe it's just because his health is worse and he's older than she is, but I think about him a lot these days. When PBS was showing their multi-part series on Chinese Americans and the history of the Chinese in America, I practically broke down crying everytime they mentioned anything at all familiar in his history, our history, or the extended family's history.

They had children (my sister and me) when they were in their very late thirties/early forties. So I guess I've seen this coming for a while.

Almost everyone I know has already lost one or more major family members. Now I'm starting to get a small glimmer of what it is like.

I'm sure he'll be fine this time, but there are always going to be other times. Worrying doesn't help, I guess. When someone's health is poor it is kind of like waiting for the other shoe to drop, but at the same time it's still too easy to take a person for granted. Some connundrum.

Comments

[keever.livejournal.com]

I fear the death of one or both of my parents more than pretty much anything else. But you're right -- worrying isn't going to accomplish anything, and there's always more worrying to do.

I hope that things work out well for your dad. Hang in there.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much. I think it really helps to have my sister, even though she's half-way around the world right now. We email each other a lot.

I feel sorry for only children. But maybe lots of them have strong extended-family support networks (which my sister and I don't have much).