Yeah, I know — the expression is when chaos reigns, but lately it seems as if chaos is raining down on me like an acidic shower that erodes everything it touches. Maybe things aren’t that bad. It’s possible I simply no longer have any perspective on the way things should be.
Take today for example. My car broke down last Wednesday, and every day since then the mechanic has promised to have the car ready for me. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem except that my 97-year-old father is going through a medical crisis, and I’ve had to beg for rides to pharmacies for his medications, to doctors appointments, to and from the hospital. A lovely woman squired us around today, taking us not only to the doctor but to the hospital afterward when the same doctor who didn’t want to admit my father last Thursday decided my father needed hospital care after all. My friend waited for me for a
while, then when I got tired of watching my father sleeping in the emergency room because they didn’t have a bed for him, we went out to dinner. Afterward, she took me back to the hospital so I could check on him once more, and it’s a good thing because they hadn’t fed him. And he was cold.
I got that straightened out, then my friend drove me home only to be met my demented brother who screamed obscenities at her. Cripes, she didn’t deserve that. Well, neither do I, of course, but her only “sin” was doing a good deed. She is used to dealing with the problems of the aged, so she understood what I was going through with my father, but now I feel bad for even asking her.
Luckily she, like everyone else in my life, knows the truth, so she didn’t believe brother dearest’s accusations that I’m killing the old man. (Where does he get this stuff?)
Perhaps I will get my car back tomorrow (with a hefty repair bill, I might add), but it’s no longer critical. I don’t need to worry about getting my father to the doctor’s office or to the hospital since he is already there. Well, sort of there. He’s parked in the emergency room with minimal care because even if they did have a bed for him, they don’t have the staff to man and woman it. Still, he’s right next to the nurse’s station, and she just got on duty and isn’t bored with the day yet, so he should be okay.
Me? I am so not cool. I lost my temper and screamed at my brother . I feel as if I should be above such base activities, but I am not always the person I want to be. Someday, perhaps . . .
***
Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.
tao seeds were brought to New Zealand in the early part of the twentieth century, the new cultivators renamed the fruit “Chinese Gooseberries” or “melonettes.” At the beginning, it was mostly a novelty plant for gardens and small markets. Through cultivation, the fruit became bigger and sweeter, and its appeal grew. In the nineteen fifties, the growers wanted to expand their sales to the United States, but neither of these names were acceptable for the American market. They couldn’t call the fruit “Chinese Gooseberry” because the United States was in the midst of a cold war, and anything smacking of Communism was immediate death. Nor could they call it “melonette” because the United States had high tariffs for melons. Someone (several people claim the honor so there’s no point in naming names) came up with the label “kiwifruit” after the small brown fuzzy New Zealand bird, which distanced the fruit even further from its Chinese past. As I’m sure you’ve figured out, the ploy worked, and now kiwis are a staple of most people’s diet, but not mine. I don’t particularly like the fruit, no matter what its name. It seems to me the fruits are again becoming small and not very sweet, but most people still buy it.
I know you’re dying to know what this is all about, so I’ll tell you — it’s just life.
I sometimes think of moving on and leaving my father and brother to fend for themselves, but I’m not sure I want to be the sort of person who can walk out on her aged, increasingly confused father and leave him to care for himself. (My brother sure couldn’t do anything to help. He doesn’t seem to be able to recognize that anyone but himself needs help.)
e spider dead. “Why,” Grissom asked, “did the spider die? Because one life impinged on another.”
Bertram's Blog 