the grandfather thing

I need this weekend.  This week has been draining, I’m ready for brain-switch-off time.  A long weekend is just what I need.  I enjoy it even more if I was hitting JoeD’s Annual Memorial Day party.  But I’m not <lame> and I have no friends <uber-lame> so, lame.

Usually that means I’ll be extra annoying the Man, but I’m so mentally/emotionally used up, that I don’t think I can summon that kind of antagonistic behavior.

I’ve been going back and forth all week about the grandfather thing.  I call him Pap.  After writing that blog, I called my Ma who told me that if I can’t make it out in the next seven days, don’t come.  The cancer has spread to his brain and Pap will be unrecognizable soon.  I found out about Pap’s first diagnosis (esophageal cancer) from my Ma, via phone and at the same time was informed of my great grandmother’s strokes.  She had been having minor strokes and finally a large stroke that ended her in the hospital with unmitigated bleeding in her brain.  Two family members, one day.  And this was shortly after hearing about my stepmother (one of my little sister’s biological mother, who had raised me till 12) had either thyroid cancer or Graves disease.  WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS.  When my Ma called me to tell me that Pap is going to only two rounds of chemo to see if he’d respond, she also told me that my great grandmother, with the strokes, had an embolism in her lung and was back in the hospital and that my Pap’s mother, another great grandmother, was in the hospital with congestive heart failure.  WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS. 

I’m twenty five hundred mile away from these family members.  They are on one coast, I am on the other.  And they aren’t young anymore.  As macabre as it is, they are getting up in years and no one lives forever. 

Spontaneously purchasing a cross-county flight is expensive.  Spontaneously purchasing an IMMEDIATE flight is outrageous.  The possibility of purchasing 3 immediate cross-country flights for family member’s funerals is even worse so.  My bank account is not cushioned for that blow and emotionally, I’m not cushioned for it either. 

I decided to visit my Pap prior to him passing.  I know he’d want to see him, especially since it’s been almost a decade since he last saw me.  Even if he’s not mentally recognizable as the Pap of my youth, he’ll still be my Pap and at least I can feel a sense of moral relief.  And if I can’t afford a thousand dollar last-minute ticket for his funeral, I’ll sleep easy knowing I saw him before he went.

No, those comps you receive for last minute tickets for funerals are not enough to make forking over half of my monthly salary any easier.

I’ll also have the chance to see the great grandmothers while I’m visiting and perhaps the time alone with my Ma will be time spent attempting to fix our mother/daughter relationship.  (I think) only good can come.