Sunday, February 14, 2010

I have a long night ahead

It is 11:56 pm and I know that I have a very long night ahead of me. Dad has been in bed since about 9:30 (which is when I told him he was out of cigarettes), and after listening to the radio for about a half hour he started saying he wanted to get up. Telling him there are no cigarettes until someone can go to the store in the morning convinced him that staying in bed was a better idea. For a while. Now he's got this "I want to get up" grown going every few minutes, and yet when I go back there and tell him it's not morning he opts to go back to sleep - until the next time the radio wakes him up and then he assumes he slept all night and wants to get up - even though only a few minutes passed.

I turned the radio off and he is now sleeping for a bit, then making the most heart stopping "Aarrrrhhhhggghhhhh!!!!" type of groaning sort of sounds. I leap up and dash to the back of the house to check on him. He's fine. I head back to work and just as I get to the chair he makes sound again. I spin and sprint to back of house again. Repeat. Repeat...

Midnight and he's not sleeping well, but he needs to sleep in his bed because he is not getting restful sleep in his recliner, but I know already I am not going to get any sleep at all tonight. I'm also not getting much work done, because I keep leaping up to dash to the back of the house and check on him. The repeated sprinting with lack of sleep is starting to make me feel sickly and headachy.

Damn siblings are so ticked at me and him for not giving them all mom and his stuff after she passed away that aside from one brother's family they stopped coming around any more than maybe once a month or once every few months. Although one of the nephews did show up on a snow machine today and once again did not come in to say hi to their grandfather.

I guess by staying away none of them have to listen to him stop breathing every few minutes all night because of sleep apnea, or have him get mad that no one visits him, or get upset that his car was sent back home without a working heater or brakes so he can't even go anywhere... they don't have to stay awake all night long listening to dad, just to make sure he is still breathing. Don't have to sit and go over and over what they would do if anything happened to dad. Will not be here one day when he does not wake from a nap, or when one of those nighttime outcries is a heart attack or stoke. They can just settle back in their own homes and think of what a little brat I am for thinking I might one day try to buy my parent's house back from the bank it was mortgaged to.

It's nights like this that I just sit and cry, like I am now, and wonder what the hell I did that the family I have time and again done anything in my power to help would be so damn uncaring and hateful toward me when I am the one in need. I get more help and sympathy from the woman I knew, pretty much in passing, ten years ago that still sends me a yearly Christmas card.

12:35 now. It has taken me half an hour to write this because of how many times I have dashed to the back of the house to check on dad. I'm starting to think bringing him up to sleep in his chair and smoke all night would be better. I'll be awake all night, once again, either way.

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