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eyeswideopenliterature · 3 years

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what goes on

2/20/2021 -- A saturday, when she came back from the hospital. that day, we got a comfort box from hospice. my aunt and i hid the box, plainly, in the closet. the liquid morphine was at risk. we told papa where it was hidden, in which closet, and we both went home after a few hours. Nothing happened through the night.

2/21/2021 -- I went over after work, with a bad feeling, that the comfort box was not safe. to be honest, there aren’t many hiding spots left or that are realistic to keep my dad away from them. i moved the box, and noticed it was opened a little. it was not how I left it. i stupidly didn’t think to count the pills or vials that were in there. i just moved the box, put it into another box, with another delivery of morphine that just arrived, and hid it in a different closet. i sent pictures of it to my aunt so she could find it, i showed my grandpa where it was too. i went home. at aroun 1030pm, i get a frantic phone call from my grandpa, that he can’t find the box. i tried to explain where it was, but his eye sight is bad and he has real troube breathing with his end-stage COPD. i raced over there, and took a 30 minute drive and shortened it to 20. i found the box, right where i hid it, but my grandpa was so flustered he couldn’t think straight to listen to me to find it. i gave her the medicine, and decided, upon returning the box to its hiding space, remove all but one of the pain killers. i figured, if my dad takes one it’s better than him taking them all. i stay the nigh, and keep the other pain killers guarded on me. gram wakes up once in the night, and i gave her another one.my aunt saw my messages and drove back here from NJ at 2 in the morning.

2/22/2021 -- A monday, in the early morning, we both were helping gram be comfortable. she was calling the hospice hot line, like you’re supposed to, and she carefully read each of the labels on the medince from the white comfort box. non-chalantly, and calmly, i point to the instruction page that came with the box, and said that gram might need that one, pointing at the anti anxiety drug, since during the night, she woke up a few times in a panic. we looked at the pill bottle, and the label said there were 8 in there, but there are only five. the pain killers, quantity on the label, said 15. I gave my grandmother 2. My aunt just gave her one. Why are there only 6 left? we looked at each other, and i knew that first night, when the box was left so plainly, so easily accessibly in hopes for just my grandfather, was when it happened. i felt so sick, i didn’t say anything. my aunt told me to put the box back away in the closet.

i left for work. my aunt is here for a week, she took off from work. while i was at work, i called her to let her know we need to hide the box in one of our cars, locked up. she agreed, she moved the box to her car. she also told me, that last night, my dad called her, screaming and cursing, that he’s done with us, we can fuck ourselves, he hates all of us, for hiding the pills. not asking where they were to help grandma, not being rational or civil or like a human being. she hung up and blocked him. so he called, and lashed out, at her daughter, who is almost 1000 miles away. the hospice nurse came at 10:45am, to talk about dosage and what to expect and what to do. she also told my aunt that, legally, the comfort box needs to be out in the open, all the medicine together, at all times. the nurse then went over the pills individually and what my aunt and i wrote down on the time log of when she took what, and asked where are all the anti anxieties, and the rest of the morphine pre-loaded oral syringes? my father exploded into a rage, screaming, cursing, flailing like a cornered animal. the nurse saw everything, and my aunt even pulled her aside to speak frankly to her about the reality of the house. the nurse said, to call, if there is ever an issue and they will provide last minute medicines themselves on call. but they have to have the pills out, and my dad, since this is his residence, is allowed and legally prefered to be the one with unhindered access to the medicines. when she left, my dad erupted again, nose to nose screaming at my grandpa who is on oxygen, bending and spitting on my grandma as she’s in her deathbed calling her a cunt for letting those bitches hid the medicines. aunt donna said he threatened her, and no one would let her call the cops. so i called the cops. and hospice, and the social worker. i told them all. i told the cops that i was headed there after work. i told my job that i wasn’t able to return for a few days, possibly for good. i am now here 24/7.

when i arrived, the cops where here. two cops, two cars. my aunt was crying, being talked to, and i joined in. i wanted to tell the police we feared for our and grandma’s safety, that my father is explosive and unpredictable, and he was threatening my grandpa and my aunt. but, as police are supposed to, they were both unimpressed, unmoved, and unbiased. they said that because we hid the box, and didn’t tell him, that it was warranted that he would act that way since we weren’t here. we told them there’s a loaded rifle in the house, that belongs to my grandfather, and can we move it or unload it or-- the cop cut me off, barrading that she can’t take his gun, his second amendment, he’s allowed to have it...but i asked can she talk to him, to so she can maek sure it’s unloaded or stored properly, she said no. they were not helpful but we did submit a report. they said they can’t do anything, because there was no action, no punches thrown, no blood drawn, just words, and it sums up basically to an argument between brother and sister. they talked to my grandparents, and they both said they feel safe and fine and want nothing to happen, they’re fine and the cops can go. i noticed my aunt was drinking, and i saw how unswayed the police were, and knew that things weren’t fair before and werent going to be now. i have webcam from my camera running non-stop. i will record and document it all, so in case i have to call the police again, i have proof to show. after they left though, my grandpa told me, even if he was arrested, my grandpa would bail him out immediately, but he wants my dad to stay in his house, this is where everything will take place.

my aunt is wildly wine drunk, unleashing 57 years of repressed hate and bitterness and sorrow at my grandpa. spewing venom that was fermenting. she did what my father does - she got in his face and screamed, he needed to hear it, but my grandma didn’t. things are settled now. i will stay up the whole night on guard, to protect my grandma, even though both grandparents are the reason this is the way life is. they created and cultivated my father, allowing him to get this bad, enabling him so that when the police came, no one said anything, even though, as my aunt says, in the morning during the first fight when the nurse was here, my grandma clutched onto my aunt and said ‘’daddy is afraid of your brother’’. papa won’t admit it. everyone here is dysfunctional, including me. my aunt is sobbing on the couch, repeating, ‘’i will get you, i will get you...’’ i went over to her just know, to comfort her. all my life i’ve known her as put together and willignfully forcefully ‘buddhist’ and today it all crumpled away. she just said she was going to stab her father tonight, and i need to protect her from doing that. all her life’s trauma and hardship, all the deceit and the brokenness her parents put her through, is all coming out. i can only listen. she’s been laying on the couch, spouting hate into the air so my grandfather hears it. she’s saying he’s a womanizer, a phony, a liar and a degenerate.

i hope that this death happens quickly, and soon. for all our sake.

it’s been a few hours, and i huddled into the bathroom and smoked some weed, and called a long lost friend. after an hour, i went out into the living room/dining room where my grandmother and aunt slept. my grandfather walked out a few minutes past. he sat down at the dinning room table, and this is what the told me:

*he said that if ‘this’ happened with any other child or grandchild (meaning my dad’s rampant addiction) he wouldn’t change a thing - he would still protect and take care of them. i said i know. he said he will always take care of his family. i wanted to remind him that he had foresaken his family, but i bit my tongue.

*who promised you a fair life - was a quote some woman he knew used to tell her husband when they fought

*that my dad was probably molested in lock up. he never said it, but grandpa said he had a feeling. and that when he was little, and part of a little league baseball team in brooklyn or coney island, there was a coach / priest who also may have molested him, who got tried and convicted years later. to which, one day at the kitchen table, when my dad was in his twenties, my grandmother asked him if he was molested as a kid, and said that he could tell her, she pressed him to open up, saying that, very bluntly, she was molested as a kid by her older brothers two friends. papa made it a point to explain that she was trying to connect with my dad. but papa never knew that about her.

*that back in the day, papa used to drink a lot for a lot of reasons, one of which was bedroom issues with his wife. because of the molestation, she was not capable of being with someone in an intimate way, and this caused a lot of issues. one day, when she was sick, the doctor came to their apartment house on West 8th street to do an appendectomy, and the doctor told my grandpa that he knew my grandma was a virgin. he asked my grandpa if he wanted to have her cut. my grandpa agreed, and when my grandma awoke from her at home procedures, she didn’t do so well, she didn’t take the cut very well. after that, some days or time later, papa noticed the air conditioner was lose in the window. he inspected it from outside and knew someone tried to break in. he asked my grandma if she tried to move the unit, to which she said no, and he replied, not thinking at all, that someone tried to break in. papa told me that must have triggered her. she got scared, thinking someone tried to break in while she was with her two young children. that day, my grandmother was seen talking to herself in a mirror, but she was talking to her dead father. that night she had a nervous breakdown, and the doctor ordered 12 rounds of electroshock.

papa told me that his friend Big Sal would tell him that ‘’if that were my son, i’d hit him over the head with a baseball bat.” and papa believed him, because he was a big mean man. but when it’s your own son, it’s different. big sal never laid a hand on any of his kids.

the Arriba, was the help back then we see today. the halfway houses, the programs, the meetings, the outreach. my grandpa told me about how many young kids he saw from there die due to their addiction, their parents having left them. a few times he left my dad, and when he picked him up (saved him) he remarked at how bad he looked. papa asked, smugly, that dad hasn’t died yet for a reason. i explained, papa you and gram are that reason. each time you kicked him out or cut him off or locked him up, no matter how long, you always came back, and you always fixed him up. one kid from the arriba was killed, ordered by his father, because the father “couldn’t let your mother see him like this.”

papa explained how much he loved having a daughter, and how donna was fun to bring around the city and put on trains and she would talk and be content. and how my dad, whenever papa took him out, after 2 minutes would complain to go back. papa told me this a lot. it really sticks out to him. he also said, when i came along, a lot of his family praised him and my grandma for taking me in and raising me, because they saw how my dad was. papa said it reminded him, driving me up in the town car and watching my jump on the couch, of his daughter. there were once many good memories in this house. many dinners and parties, so many people. now there’s no one, and there hasn’t been for so long. and even if we wanted to call anyone, they’re all old too, some don’t know who they are, some are too old and poor to travel.

grandpa said, there is a missing piece. there’s something that doesn’t add up or explain why things got to how they got. when it got so bad. how it got to this point.

papa said, after so many meetings at arriba, he wondered if it was because he reaed the newspaper while at a baseball game, or wasn’t engaging and cheering at the hockey games that turned my dad into this. i had to remind him i didn’t turn into my dad, and i had my dad as a dad, so that blame is totally unneeded and unrealistic. it’s misplaced blame. it’s no guilt. it’s failure maybe. maybe the effort put in didn’t give the result, and that’s what hurts.

papa said he’s worried for my aunt. he said what she said hurt too, but it was going to come out evertually. he said, he used to get that rage when he drank, and say things like she did, and then he would regret it. he wonders how she’ll be in the morning, if he should talk to her.

papa said that women face too much violence, and they need to protect themselves even before anyone else. all he sees on the tv are shows about women being murdered, raped, kidnapped, assaulted, etc, and he can’t bare it.

papa said that he’s glad females are here, because we can clean grandma and help her to the bathroom. he wouldn’t feel comfortable to wash her. he isn’t even able to stand and walk by himself let alone carry her to the tub, but i didn’t remind him. he’s just realizing gram isn’t going to get better, that she is dying. he said he realized yesterday. he didn’t realize that nothing could be done, he thought they would figure out something, the powers that be. but the cancer is on her windpipe and it’s going to get worse. his lip shook when he said ‘’suffocating to death in pain’’, reiterating my plea that we need to move her where we can insure her safety and comfort, like a facility or aunt donna’s house in NJ. he wants to keep her up here though. my cousin tommy and i decided we will pay for it, but we need to get together and talk and research. our society doesn’t have this part of the life cycle user friendly like for expectants mothers.

grandpa said he hasn’t talked openly about his life like this to anyone in a long time. he said that he watched all his relatives die. and that when his father died, that moment, he regretted not asking him all the things he was ever curious about.

papa said that after gram dies, he’s selling the house and half goes to each of his kids. he won’t rent my dad an apartment, because he doesn’t want to control him. that his money, however little it is, is my dad’s last chance. emphasis on last. and that papa doesn’t know what he’ll do. he might go his own way or go with my dad. i don’t want to think about that now. when my aunt was screaming at him, she brought up over and over that my grandpa told my dad ‘’it’ll be just us two in the end’’.

papa said, not to be morbid or make a joke out of it, but when gram’s sister flo was here, dying of cancer too, in the livingroom on a bed, gram and another sister, rosemary, were taking care of her. gram was giving the morphine. rosemary yelled ‘’marge! stop you’ll make her an addict!” to which my grandma asked, ‘’rosemary are you fucking stupid?”

gram’s mother was horrible to the girls. she hated them, and was a prosititue. but she was so because he husband was an alcoholic, and back in those days things were different. gram remembers sitting outside a motel door in the hallway with a sister or two, while the mom was in the room with a man. some sisters were in denial, thinking the world of the mother, like flo.

papa said he was sad. he thought he’d die in this house too. he said it’s hard to see gram like this, because she always was so strong and full of life. she took care of everyone. he said the holidays won’t be the same without her. their 59th or 60th wedding anniversary is in september. he mentioned he was losing weight too. he was 162 and now he’s 158. that he’s getting thinner and weaker and he’s going too. he looks older in the light of the running machines and the far hallway light against the sunken dark rooms around us. he looks sadder too. i can barely look him in the face. i don’t want to see him cry. i understand all the hate and sadness my aunt feels, because i feel it exactly that way too. but i still feel i need to see both my grandparents out.

papa told aunt donna he was sorry for spending so much money on my dad, for his bullshit and treatments, enabling too. aunt donna said he never minded, but she brought up today that her entire inheritance went up her brother’s veins.

papa is out of one of his nose sprays, but he has his rescue inhaler. he’s still shaken b everything that happened. i reminded him it’s only been three days since she’s been back and all this happened in that short amount of time. i said i was shaking still too since yesterday.

aunt donna was saying, on the couch, in her drunken fury, like she said in the kitchen to papas face, that she wasn’t going to take care of him. that she hopes he dies, that him and her brother die together. i told papa i would take care of him. i would be here. and i wasn’t sure if i would be for my dad. i said that hardship will fall on me in time, and i hope i’m better than he was when he was faced with this decision.

he said the day of his 39th birthday (i think) was the day his life ended. he got back from the business, which was starting to take off, and he just got back from building a printing press somewhere. that’s the day my father got in trouble for stealing a car, and the whole drug addiction took off. as bad as he is now, he was REALLY bad back then. i couldn’t imagine all the times he got arrested, all the money lost, all the things stolen, all the promises broken. one time papa found my dad in the bathroom barely clothed, just shaking, sickly, from something he took.

papa said that, my dad told him, years ago, that ‘’i won’t get better or have a life until you’re gone’’. papa said it was the moment my dad realized how dependant he was on him. i wasn’t too sure. papa said ‘’your father never frightens us. he’s very good to us. i’m not scared of him, neither is your grandma.”

papa said it’s true what they say about marriage. it feels like when they die, a piece of you is being taken. he said it’s strange. it’s very uncomfortable.

papa said that, all that time ago, the last time i lived here, he was sorry about when he left me in the room crying, telling me it’s because my dad is a ‘’brooklyn guy and you don’t come at a brooklyn guy that way’’ when i confronted him about stealing my things. papa apologized, and said that was wrong. he shouldn’t have.

it’s 1:33am now. everyone is asleep and i drank half a bottle of water. i haven’t drank anything other than a large coffee this morning. i haven’t eaten today. i don’t want to eat.

2/23/21 -- i got up at nine. my grandmother needed some medication for pain. a home health aide came. a wheelchair was delivered. gram was sleeping in a chair, laughing at her dream. at 1045, my grandpa drove my dad to a fake medicaid appointment and to the DMV. like he did yesterday, and the day before that. i took this opportunity to scower my dad’s room, looking for the rifle that was brought up yesterday. i found a spare pair of keys to papas car, and some things of mine that went missing long ago. i found the gun, in papa’s closet, unloaded. relief. brief. while grandma was being bathed by a woman clad in a hazmat suit (because of the pandemic), i went to run errands. i got a lot of things from the baby aisle, ironically. just as cyclic, a bell is what my grandma uses now to get someone’s attention that she needs something - and when my cousins and i were toddlers, we would have a little bell to ring if we were sick in bed and wanted grandma. my aunt texted me, she said, gram grabbed her hand and whispered that there is a hand gun in the grandfather clock. i told them when everyone was asleep tonight i would make sure it was unloaded, and make sure no one else knew that we now knew. grandpa asked me to cash two checks of his, to pay for his own medications and what items gram needed. I got $300, and the trip to CVS was around $90. I paid for it myself. papa asked me to get cigarettes for someone without a name. i used his money for that. I gave the rest to him, worried that it would just go to my dad. it’s around 4pm now, and again my grandpa told me that he, again, and my dad ‘have’ to go to medicaid, for rent relief...or something...that will help. then papa got a text from my dad, saying they didn’t have to go today, instead the ‘place’ called and said come tomorrow. ten minutes later, my dad chimed in again, saying now they have to go to medicaid at 5. they ended up not going. papa’s breathing machine is off key with gram’s machine, the clock in the kitchen ticks loudly, the news is playing in the background somewhere.

aunt donna has been gone for two hours, about. i got off the phone with the doctor who did the liver biopsy, and the lung cancer is there too - squamous cell carcinoma. aunt donna texted me saying that gram keeps telling her ‘’daddy is afraid of papa’’.

today i’ve been drinking the leftover pedialyte and ensure. maybe this will help me be stronger, too. i smoked out the bathroom window, towels clocking up the doors, leaning halfway out the window in the winter. it felt like when i was a younger asshole.

i want to look for the handgun in the grandfather clock. is it my grandpa’s? does he have a permit? why did he lie to the police when they’ve asked him if there were any other guns in the house? why am i scared to open the clock? i hasn’t worked since i was a tiny kid, why would it go off tonight? gram shook awake, and i lulled her bac to sleep, only for her to shake herself awake, and she asked me why , why is she shaking so much? Searching for online for references of how to roll a bedbound patient onto a bedpan, when my grandpa rushes to my dad’s room and momentarily comes out to say that they’re going to the appointment tomorrow at 11am (apparently the staff at the local social services building at hard at work at 10pm).

that night, i smoked weed outside on the patio. i figured no more hiding anything, no more lying about anything anymore, everyone is just here for one purpose, and nothing else matters. i tried hard to listen to the conversation my dad and grandpa were having in the kitchen. lights on, dad buzzing all over, fussing over the sink. it’s funny how, out here in the rural nothingness, there is too much noise to hear what was going on inside, their perfected whispers. the stream at the end of the property was too loud; the buzzing flying bugs in the air were too loud; the backroad over the valley and through the woods echoed even more tonight.

2/24 -- this morning i was making my grandfather breakfast. he told me that he was taking my dad to medicaid. i asked if that was the social services building, to which replied, yes. he said that now, instead of 1030am, they have to be there at 1pm. papa didn’t want me to persue the matter, but i told him to level with me and just be honest from this point on since, hey, the jig is (so) up. i was asking about if dad could bring back a pamphet from the lobby of the building, just for my own sake, just to prove the legitamacy of this to me. papa got agitated, and asked me many times to drop it, hushing me, eyes darting towards his son’s room. i said that this had nothing to do with him driving, or anything, not even about my father, but i just wanted maybe, in the future, a business card from the so-called doctor’s office. papa’s response to that was ‘’the doctors are arabs’’...to which i still have no idea...does that mean they don’t believe in business cards? or is that supposed to mean they practice in some inexcusable spot like an alleyway or a house? i don’t understand... papa was getting so annoyed with me, telling me for his sake to just drop it, and no matter what we won’t believe he’s actually at the place, and he’s 53 years old we can’t call the place to verify he was there, but you can grab a pamphlet, if you’re at that spot, no? my dad came out, and asked if papa remembered he needed to bring him to the dmv (during the pandemic) right now because he had an appointment. i’ve never gritted my teeth so hard before, standing in this antiquaticed ranch, in this antiquatied delusional lifestyle, making sure my eggs are perfectly fluffed. i calmly pressed the matter, politely, asking about a pamphelt, or pleaing that it’s him i’m really worried about, and that the jig is up, and that i’m here for gram now be here for me in this way please, and he was so stubborn, so concerned if my dad was going to hear, and then get angry. he kept telling me it will start something, it’ll set something off, and now things are calm, and just for him to leave things be, and i will always villify my father no matter what proof he brings so there’s no use. papa was about to leave without eating his eggs and lightly toasted bread. he basically ran out of the house with my dad, after scarfing his eggs and toting his toast with him. it was almost 9:30am.

i watched them through the blinds when they drove off, stannding next to the grandfather clock tucked in the corner. i found the gun, loaded, and took the clip. i left the gun in its holster in the hidden compartment at the bottom on the inside of the grandfather clock. the bells dangled and rang off a little. the sound was so slight.

i sat outside, smoking my weed, soaking up the winter sun, staring into its blindness until my eyes saw colors that werent there, asking my ancestors to give my grandpa strength to change - because he can still be helped, compared to my dad. grandpa called, asking if i was ‘’okay now’’. i asked where they were, and he said they were at ‘’one of the doctor’s offices for the paperwork that medicaid needs for the rent’’. i asked if they could grab a business card, and papa told me not to start in.

it is funny, the redundancy. am i stupid? do i learn? am i just as cursed, just as damaged as the rest of them? what happened to my aunt just happened to me. she was assaulted with the realization that papa will no matter protect his son, and fuck the rest of us. he doesn’t truly fully admit to it...maybe he’s incapable to realize, maybe he’s brainwashed. i looked on at my aunt’s break down, like, oh you didn’t really realized, or you thought there was hope? you thought things couldn’t get any worse? the cognitive dissonance is thick, it’s layered. i thought that my grandpa wouldn’t lie anymore to me, that he would level with me, he would at least give me a semblance of he’s on my side too, but he wouldn’t or couldn’t. papa has said so many times in the last few days how much driving helps him, it’s good for him. the fresh air, he’s sitting, whatever. driving it’s the issue, do you see or do you think i’m dumb?

i smoked outside when gram and i were assuredly alone in the house. i remembered i had an adderoll in my wallet. i broke the blue pill in half and saved the rest in my wallet in my car. i thought that all things considered, i am the same. i took a drug, willingly. it’s ironic. but then doesnt that prove the blame doesn’t go directly to drugs but instead to a flaw in the person? it’s how you use substances or things, not the things themself. is this duality? my father is an addict and i smoke weed, just took a half an adderoll i’ve had for half a year. but it was still morbidly funny, to me, alone in the car. contemplative, and stoned, and hopefully soon to be focused/energized. when i got back inside, i noticed the tv switched somehow from cable to hulu, and was playing a graphic scene from Forensic Files. Mortified, stupified and struck by guilt, i bumbled to change the setting back, fuck me right. poor granma had to listen to a rape documentary, pretty much, while i got stoned outside on the patio, with the door slightly open.

they came back at 10:52...from the dmv, the doctor and the medicaid building. i faced the same thing that has always been here, again, nothing has changed and i thoguht that now maybe it would? interesting...

the lpn tells us she has a tuxedo cat too, to which my grandpa asked me if i knew that thats what his cat’s kind is called. i said, yes, to which papa said, “you know everything, don’t you danny”

when rebecca left, my dad emerged. he asked where she was, “she’s gone” papa said. “she’s gone or she left?” “she left,” papa said. dad was cracked out, i don’t know how else to put it. he is all over the place, super upbeat, yelling to himself, making random sounds, running to throw something out, shoveled a bit of snow, said it was hot and opened the patio door. papa said to him, oh look at what he’s doing, you see, with his eyes. papa told him to be careful and not get hurt. i hate to be the one to tell him this is a high from a drug. he’s tweeking, he’s on meth. he’s now hiding in his room.

papa asked me to have his pharmacy (that has a drive thru) to deliver his medication, because ‘’driving there is a pain in the ass”. but i thought you liked to drive, papa, or was that your own delusion, the missing piece to all this that you couldn’t see all these decades. that night when we talked late in the night, you told asked me, as you’ve asked before, as a point in your defence of my father, if he was doing drugs, wouldn’t he die, or why hasn’t he died yet? i had to remind him of the story he just told me - at arriba, or any of the times when papa picked my dad up after turning away from him. because papa, i explained, you said him, i said. all those times you stepped in after stepping away for however long, you came back when he was going to die, and you save dhim. it’s you. it’s been you as much as him this whole time.

aunt donna came back around 6, and i fell asleep when she took over. i didn’t realize i slept as much as i did, until the sun shone through the window, and it was a new day.

2/25 -- it’s 9:30, and again, like clockwork, papa is taking my dad to the DMV, to medicaid. but not to cvs or the bank, we have to do that ourselves. aunt donna told me that she believes papa truly lost his mind, and not recently. i’m going to get away from the house for the day, my aunt’s cousin is coming over, so the house is secured. papa and dad have barely spent time with gram, sitting with her or taking care of her. gram wants to see the dog, but only my dad can touch the dog and he won’t help her pet him, he’s too tweaky to stand still and try and realize what she’s asking for. it’s so sad, and it makes me so angry.

2/25 -- my aunt shooed me out of the house, told me i needed a day. i drove up to massachusetts to get gram extra strength cbd oil. then i spoke to the nurse to ask about getting her a medical card.

2/26 -- it’s 5:21am. sitting on the couch, feeling silently victorious because i found chapter 1 on a online store’s product preview, and last night when asked, i told my professor i had access to the text my aunt came to me, getting ready to leave, and said papa was going to take the key (one of two, the one i handed to her) at first i said sure, then i felt insecure, and explained that i didn’t feel right about it, because i felt it would then be easily given to my dad. aunt donna said that papa was feeling insecure, that was he really going to give it to your dad anyway? i mean, it is grandma’s medicine. okay, i said, give it to him. aunt donna asked me if i wanted to come with her to the village’s funeral home tomorrow morning. i said i wanted to come but i also felt someone needed to be here at all times. so shes going to go alone. i wonder if she knows gram wants her ashes scattered at the Brooklyn bridge. i want someone to be here always = unlike yesterday, when donna and her cousin who came to visit left to go shopping while i was shooed away, even though even then she knew i wanted someone always here. i guess because only us two had keys she thought it was okay. papa came in, heavy breathing like he does. “even the cat is getting old”, he huffed. gram’s nurse is coming here later, aunt donna told me, even though i knew. she said that gram’s not telling us the truth about when she’s in pain, and the nurse said to donna that the cancer gram has is one of the most painful ones you can have. she said small cell lung cancer and squamous cell carcinoma are the most painful, donna said again. aunt donna is going to leave to feed the cat at her house, and then come back in about 12 hours.

papa asked if we can get all of grams personal belongings out of the bedroom because he doesn’t want to look at them anymore. aunt donna told me that kimann was deeply disturbed and depressened to see the house like it is now, like they are now. she said she would come back as soon as she could. the dog shit on the floor because no one took care of him this morning, unsurprisingly, even though the two men in this house just sit around and not spend time with gram and don’t help clean or look after anyone but themselves. i had to explain to my grandfather that, if someone is awake in the morning, they should get in the habit of letting out the dog and feeding him. who is the parent? who is the adult?

papa and my dad went out again, this time to a methadone program, randomly in the middle of one of papa’s naps. my dad said it was time to go, he had an appointment, but came to ask for a ride twice before realizing his father was asleep, and deciding to try again later.

they got back especially to see the priest. he was set up for a visit through hospice, and everyone's known about his visit for days. i was sitting outside, smoking, when i saw him pull into the drive way. i stood and waited for him. first the dog started to bark frantically, then i heard squabbling in the kitchen through the window the faced the patio, then my grandpa came outside through the front kitchen door, looking confused, at the new arrival. he went back in, and not a moment later my dad came out, looking wild in his eyes, staring at the man who just stepped out, who was dressed in normal clothes. ‘’what do you want?” my dad snorted, then without an immediate answer (poor guy looked intimidated) he offensively and aggressively made the ‘’huh’’ gesture, sticking his neck out like a chicken. ‘huh?. “He’s the fucking priest’’ i said, letting out my held breath. ‘’oh okay’’, said the crazy man, walking back inside like nothing happened. ‘’well i’m not a priest, i can’t do priestly things’’. ‘’are you catholic? that’s all that matters.” he got in his hazmat suit and walked in, saying how he was here as an instrument of peace. yea dude, bet. this night, gram’s breathing was labored, rattling, puttering. the nurse said everyone experiences apnea, but in these patients it’s much more obvious. it’s normal. so are her violent twitches. that’s just her mind detaching from her body. this night, was very bright and blue. hunters around here call it ‘’blue hour’’.

((things to add previously -- when buddy bit the aide and then my dad, after being told to keep the dog in the kitchen, let him out and he almost bit the nurse // how grandpa pees in a container under his desk / kitchen table and is too lazy or entitled to dump it himself, or have his son do it // mike’s altercation the first night at iron furnace // aunt donna mentioned in her blitz that she wouldnt forgive what papa did between donna and marylou // gram asked me not to leave the many times // all the times i told my dad to not smoke in the house with 2x people on oxy // in the chair, she said she felt like she was going up // said she felt ‘’stunada’ // how gram said this didn’t give her a chance, she was healthy all her life and then was shocked by the news, she said, she couldn’t believe it, and now there’s nothing to do and it happened so fast // kristen is on her way, to help me with papa, whatever we decide to do or however we decide to help // papa doesn’t have a funeral or a wake, no service, doesn’t want to do anything so ashes are getting split, i’m going to scatter her over coney island and the bk bridge, like i remember her saying jokingly throughout my life when she would talk about growing old // grandpa peeing in a bucket under the kitchen table/his work desk // aunt donna said you can go, and gram said, eventually // i said gram take the meds it wont make u an addict, and she said lol not that it matters //28th morning papa said u never know, miracles do happen...// robert covering for dad when he almost lit something on fire when accidentally turning the stove top on // read to her the book of ruth from the bible that one day // b4 in the night how the lone turkey gobbled in the distance during blue hour)

2/27 - it’s that time before the sun comes up, but the moon is still full and high, and the nighttime here looks illuminated in blue, lit up brightly, everything bathed in black and blue and white snow. i was outside on the patio, looking in through the picture window. my lay still, and papa came out of his room. he walked to her bed, looked in like he was looking in a crib at an unwanted child, and walked away. my electra complex makes sense now - this is why i always date people who never give me affection, who i always have to ask if they love me. today we had two more cousins of aunt donna and my dad over, my dad was happy to see robert and joined us in the livingroom, smiling. i learned from him, as he spoke to robert, that when kimann came over the other day that the ‘’golden bird on the piano’’, a small cheap statue, ‘’flew off the piano across the room, right when kimann walked in here. we say it was her mother, marylou, who did it, she was here with us.” aunt donna said she was at the funeral home, and asked papa to come, but he said he had ‘’too much paperwork’’... when they left i asked my aunt why robert didn’t say hello, i told her that when they where in the house at first i didn’t recognize them or know who they were. robert didn’t say bye to me either. he apparently didn’t, at first, say hi to my aunt until a half hour into their stay. before they, all of a sudden, when the light rain came, started the car and got ready to go. she told me that robert doesn’t like confrontation, and he enables doreen’s son, bady. i said it must have been like looking into his future, being here. she told me that he let’s doreen’s son, Mikey, stay at his house, doesn’t work, and installed a filtration device so the 17/18/19 yr old can smoke in the house. maybe there’s a faulty enabling gene that runs in the men in this family. grams breathing sounds very rusty, her machines are all off but TMC is playing on the big out of date tv. aunt donna told me, by the note pads and pill bottles that sat on the dinning room table, that earlier gram walk talking about seeing people; marylou, a preist and a man in a prison outfit. i asked who marylou was, and learned it was one of her many sisters, robert and kimann and doreen’s mom. kimann took care of their mother, back when she died.

i was shooed out of the house again around 3 or 4, and went out to a village a little while away to get something to eat, something to drink, some space to think. i got a text from aunt donna about an hour or two later, saying that grams’ breathing is worsening. all afternoon, he breathing sounded bad - it rattled worse than last night, it sounded rougher, her breathing seemed less reassured. she was having the nurse come over, and wanted to let me know. i told her i’d be back soon, after the check came. later, she told me that the nurse said this is the start of the dying process, that she’s actively transitioning, and it will happen ‘’soon’’. the weather has been foggy all day, blankets crawl across the valleys, drippin down the mountain side like a spilled syrup. the moon is full, but it seems like it’s been this way for nights and nights. the night is windless. back at the house, the thick tense air is thicker and tenser. the sense of immersion is more intense than it has been. we are in it. all night she slept, and every 3 hours we drip the morphine into her mouth, shriveled around her bones, gapped open wide and not so wide at the same time.

2/28 -- everyone is asleep. i sat with gram, and spoke to her saying i was here, it’s okay. she woke up, and hasn’t all day. she took my face in her hand and said ‘’my baby’’, and asked me not to leave, asked me where i went, asked me again to not leave. her hand in my hand is hot, i feel her blood pounding inside her with such force the bed seems to shake. her neck pulsates, supremely, maybe it’s because of the tumor that’s creeping up her, maybe it’s her body trying to remain, maybe it’s just getting ready. i wonder if any ghosts of ancestors are around. gram didn’t really wake up when anyone else spoke to her from the bedside. she opened her eyes for me, and told me to get some sleep. i told her to not worry about me, and that she needed to just rest and focus on breathing.i put the stuffed animals from my childhood, i found buried in a box in the cold attic, next to her again, a brown dog she named chocolate and a fat round cow named spots. the sound of someone dying, is confusing. she is snoring, deeply, like she’s having a great dream, soothed by her sleep, resting for another day. between each snore is a long breath - it sounds like a door creaking open for ever, it sounds like metal straining about to break, it sounds like a machine in trouble, it sounds like rust echoing down a chasm. each breathe is so long, each moment scored with a different note of trying, of laboring, of surviving. i never knew lungs could draw so deeply in, giving such low notes of far-away sounding rasp. then she stops, is still, for a few beats, and it repeats. a mix between deep sleep and lights going out. i wish papa or my dad spent these nights with here, this last bit of time with her. they’re both staying away, keeping distance, and already living without her. 60 years of marriage, of taking care of the two of them, for this? cruelty of this home knows no bounds. when you die, your brain unleashes untold amounts of DMT, the dream chemical. i wonder what she’s dreaming about. i try to understand her mumbles and murmurs but nothing is strung together into sentences or anything i can put meaning into. she woke up a little, and said she needed the potty. then fell asleep. we can barely lift her on. i wish i was stronger. or had a man around to help with this. i broke my bowl. i’m going back out to the patio, but it’s not blue hour here. everything is pitch black.

papa woke up around 5, and looked at gram, sorrowfully. he said, this wasn’t supposed to happen, this wasn’t supposed to happen. he asked what a pill was for, why we were waking her up, and told him it was to stop her from being afraid. he said that she’s been afraid so many times, and no more fear, please. gram asked if she needed to pack, and i told her she was all ready the way she was. she said okay. tv has been off, and crackling. it sounds like joints popping or popcorn cooking. sounds of sub-base thuds, like junky cars with subwoofers and shitty dubstep are far down the road, but the song you can’t make out. gram said that there was water, and it was blue. there was a man with big pants on, and a circus. florie was there, and uncle alley and marylou too. the man with the big pants also had big black shoes - a clown maybe. she said there was a cloud. it was the surge (before death, as google says)

she has never snored, and now she has the most statisfying sounding snores, deep and bellowing. between each rumble is a long fading echo, rusty and raspy, like an engine that wont start or a door that keeps creaking. it lasts so long, falling down into her body, resonating deeply and downwardly. sometimes she doesn’t breathe at all for a few moments. but the snores and the wailing whimpers fill the house. she seems heavier now too, i barely could have lifted her when she needed to go peepee. papa and aunt donna are asleep upright in their chairs. the speakers next to the tv haven’t crackled or cackled again. i am afraid to talk to them, either to sound crazy to my aunt or invite something wicked. is it normal to be afraid of your dad having your grandmother’s ashes? he’s stayed away, lurking in the kitchen, listening in, all night. even when she breathes so that it feels like an emergency, or when she wakes up to talk about her dead siblings, he barely sticks around to listen. the speakers crackle as aunt donna says gram is shaking a lot.

it’s almost 9am, and gram woke up a little, when papa started to cry when he sat next to her. she asked why there’s so many people wearing coats and blinkers, halloween is over, after all. there’s a guy knocking on the wall, and the other guy will get rich. papa asked, chin trembling, if she liked caring for him all these years, and she said ‘’i felt bad for you. we had everything.’’. papa asked about the beach, if she remembers cony island. she pointed to papa and said he made a mistake. she said she was going to have a party and invite all the homeless so they can eat. then she stuck her tongue out and licked her bend finger like a cat. - she said she was threading a needle. where ever she is, it’s $75 to get your nails done. she keeps scratching her head. aunt donna and i gave her a bath, and papa said him and his son popped in to say they were going out and wanted to stop to see if a priest would come over. gram said, no, only on sunday. we told her today is sunday. she said, not counting this one. please (Jr.) not now. ‘’they’re trying to kill me!” joking. told us to ‘’back to your work ladies’’ when we scrubbed her head. she said that annoying white bird was back. an actual priest came today. i took this as a chance to sleep. i don’t know what they did or said, but i do know that she confessed to him, in privacy. i wonder what she said. papa went out with dad, he said that his son knew somewhere he could get a haircut, but returned without one. all day she had moments of subconscious animation, then revived periods of lucidness. she spoke about monkeys here and annoying men driving cars, or about dead relatives. about the man who won’t get the metal because he didn’t earn it. she joked when aunt donna gave her a bath; asking if the curtain was drawn (it wasn’t) and exclaiming that people would see her, even though we are in the boondocks. today has been a day of hallucinations, borders of the spirit and mind, and wise ass jokes from grandma. aunt donna handed me hair and nail gummy vitamins, telling me i needed to keep up my strength.

aunt donna left, said she would be back in 12 or 24 hours. i am alone, with the haunting echoing breathing, waiting to see if there will be another one that erupts from her caverns. her exhales sound like someone is holding a note on an old electric guitar for too long. it sounds wiggling as the air leaves her, traveling off like whisps of dandlilion seeds in a windy valley.

it’s only right before 7pm, and it feels like the latest night ever. the darkness seems thicker. the dark seems painted in darkness, everything lost in a thick sea of nothingness/blank/void/abyss. there was no blue hour this night.

3/1 -- she’s sleeping a lot. this morning. it was time for more morphine at 7, and i heard papa and dad leave through the front door. she woke up at noon for maybe 20 minutes, and wanted to sit on the chair. her legs didn’t work anymore. her eyes are barely open. she says she’s stunada, and she’s dizzy, and that she doesn’t want any more medicine. i’ll have to force her to take it soon. the breathing machine is on, humming and puffing. all throughout the night she was comatose, murmuring softly. aunt donna wanted me to ask the nurses, who just left, how much time. i didn’t. what does it matter? she doesn’t want anyone to touch her. gram wants to walk around. she wants to move, she says she’s restless, and she wants to get up. she asks for papa. papa sat next to her and she lulled back to sleep, back in the chair. he went back into the kitchen, and again she tried to get up. i asked my dad to help me get her up to walk around. she shook so hard, her legs barely moved. she’s back in the bed, refusing all medicines. she’s even covering her mouth now with both hands. she asks for papa, but he said him and his son have to go ‘’for the rent thing’’ at ‘’the second medicaid building’’ but theyd be back. i don’t say anything to gram. dad tells me she stinks and needs deoderant, why didn’t the nurses give her a bath. i watch them drive away. maybe she’s had enough, maybe this is her way to control the last bit of what she can. aunt donna got here about at 5pm. something must have struck her in her time away. she seemed frantic. she told me that all her friends said how wonderful i must be, considering what i’m doing, and my age. then with her finger in my face she told me to leave. she told me to go, that i’m being relieved of my duty. gram was still on the comode, and i felt like i was being force away. i left the house, watching gram leaning on donna, over a comode, ass out, and donna scooting back looking for wet wipes. i handed them to her, unable to turn away. she told me thank you, now go. so i did.

3/3 -- i returned at 7am. grandpa and his son left soon after without a word. kimann is still here and so is aunt donna. even though i told donna to message me if anything, and even though she didn’t, she tells me in a sleep stupor that gram was throwing up a lot yesterday and a little last night. that she forgot to give some pills, and gram hasn’t eataing in 6 days now. the nurse will be back today, and then another will come one day to make an assessment. gram threw up in a little white trash bin, all the water she just had came back up. it came from her nose, and from her eyes. she looekd so pained. i felt bad for gagging. gram is sitting on her chair, smiling. she seems with it. she’s not aggreviated or confused like when i saw her. she had her crochet blanket over her knees and watched her black and white shows. papa and dad came back, and then left just as mysteriously. when they came back, my dad was asking for scissors, to cut papas hair. papa said, a few days ago, as one of his many excuses, that he and my dad were leaving for a hair cut, and came back without one. i offered to schedule one for him, since he’s afraid to go just anywhere with covid, i even explained that government orders state social distancing and occupancy limits, so no place will be crowded. he keeps refusing. he also said, in passing, he hasn’t showered in three days.

two nurses came after one nurse left. aunt donna sobbed. one nurse said, when she asked how much time her mother had left, because it hurt to watch her like this, he said he thought she wouldn’t last the night when he was here last time, that Saturday. One can’t predict death, diseases like this are al a carte, you get something, everyone gets something different. they were going to have fentanyl patches delivered, since she kept throwing up the morphine pills. all she wanted, she said, was a tylonal PM. papa and his son left two more times today, seemingless for less time each time, and coming back, papa more worn and his son more chaotic, yelling throughout the house and repeating odd words over and over, loudly swinging open doors and crashing things on tables. His mom was asleep, and he barges in asking her if she’s awake, then walks out, annoyed, mumbling, and she wakes up, asking herself, why are they always aggreivating me? why must they always make me nervous? i sit quietly, because if i opened my mouth i fear that i won’t be able to shut up again. aunt donna hasn’t kept up with notes, or doses. she gives one medicine instead of what we talked about, but whatever. you can’t control eveything i suppose, and i can’t be here forever like a haunter.

papa and dad got back, and less than five minutes dad was yelling at papa, slamming the firdge door, changing the garbage begrudgedly, ignoring my presence as i walked into the kitchen. i ask papa if he’s okay, and my dad tells me he’s not talking to me. i don’t say anything, just standing there makes me feel powerful in a weird way. papa tells me to fuck off, and i do. i try to listen in and then stop, chosing to not care, because what am i going to change by knowing? i already know, already, so, let go, no? dad sits in his room all day and creepily darts around the house and yard at night. he doesn’t care for her, and i wonder if papa realizes he won’t take care of him when he is in this situation. maybe papa knows, maybe papa doesn’t plan on a slow process of dying, maybe he really wants to believe

3/4 -- no one was here this morning. i woe up to a phone call from aunt donna telling me to let the aide in, shes outside. papa comes back with dad, and its not even 8am. papa said he didn’t want to wake me, and i told him gram shouldn’t have been left unattended. dad smoked cigarettes and the aides all noticed. papa covers for him though, and when i tell him to not smoke in here papa comes to his defense, saying that my dad doesn’t smoke and not in here. even gram tells me he was smoking in the livingroom, but to not pay them any mind. papa went to go to the doctor, he said that tonight they have to go pay the tickets. whatever that means, where ever that is. he seems like hes having a harder time catching his breath than usual. gram said she wishes she could drink a whole glass of ice water. she hates water. i wonder if the body just craves it at a certain point of illness. she hasn’t really taken her medicine today but she’s eating a bit of everything. she asked for cheesecake. i made her pop sicles out of chocolate milk inside of an empty egg carton. since when did we stop having ice cube trays? she has to take lots a breaks when moving around. she has a lot of will but her body is deteriorating. she looked at me when she sat on the edge of the bed, panting, saying that if she doesn’t remember something, or seems confused, it’s because she has dementia. i asked her who told her that, and she has she’s known for a while. she has there’s nothing she can do, she just forgets. i’ve noticed a decline too over the years, albeit very slight, gradual. she’s on the chair now, dad has been yelling, quietly, in secretcy, to papa, while they dance around in the kitchen. as soon as i walk in they stop, he hides in his room, papa uses his hands to tell me ‘enough’ or ‘’shut up’’. aunt donna told me that she called papa and screamed at him on the tops of her lungs regarding allowing my dad to smoke cigarettes in the house. papa and dad left in a huff. papa said he was, again, going for a hair cut where my dad goes, but came back without one, saying everywhere they go is closed or an appointment is needed. i keep my mouth shut. i offer, again, for the 29th time, if he would like me to make him an appointment down the road in the village, and he still says no.

3/5 -- grandma is in pain, i can see it on her contorted face as she sleeps. at 1am she asked for lots of ice cubes and water. she keeps saying she wishes she could drink water, even though in her whole life she never liked it. she wanted to watch her shows, i thin the time for sleep has passed. there are no animals outside, it’s irregularly quiet tonight. i’ve been bitten to hell by spiders. 2 bites on my arm, one on my left big toe, another on my shin, one on my back. i’m not sure how, or where, or when they got to me. maybe through my coat or maybe while i napped on the couch. these bumps are massively swollen and itch so badly.

it’s 7am and papa came out of his room, and unexpectedly asked to be shown how to give gram her medicines. i told him she’s refusing all her medications, so there’s nothing to really worry about. he grabbed all the cups by her bed and walked to the kkitchen, in an attempt to help and clean, but he didn’t notice the cups were full, and he slipped a trail of coffee to the kitchen. i cleaned it quickly without telling him anything.

papa asked me if i knew about his mother. papa never spoke about his mother, and the only time he did was when he and i, years ago, went to eat at a restaurant that no longer is, and he drank some chianti and cried, reminising about how his mother, sick, tried to jump out the apartment window in brooklyn, saying ‘’i have to get to my baba’’...papa told me, through tears, the baby was him. papa said that one day, when he was coming back form work on Ave U, he gets a call from his brother or uncle that his mom hasn’t left bed in 2 days, that she’s been shitting uncontrollably for 5, and the doctor will be making a house call soon. the family doctor said she needed to go to a hospital, so papa carried her into his car and brought her to one, where tests were ran and she seemed okay. she was talking and awake, so papa left, the doctors said to him to come back around dinner time. when he did, his mother was in a coma, doctors saying all her organs are shutting down. she had been diagsnosed with a rare blood disease. and a nurse at the hospital, a high school friend of aunt donna, also had it, and the prognosis was not good - many people who have this, if not all, die young. his mother was in her 50s, so, still young, i suppose, like the 20 something year old nurse. papa is distraught, and goes back home. then, the next day, the doctor called him and asked him to come in, and papa hung up without asking why and sped over, thinking his mother was about to die, only to find her sitting up and talking, seemingly all better. she went on to live another 2 years, before dementia really destroyed her. the nurse died a few months after his mothe rleft the hospital. sometimes people get better, he said, sometimes you never know. i stepped outside to smoke when my cousin called. after we chatted, i remembred i had some adderoll in my wallet, and took one. i thought, i don’t need to sleep. i have so much homework to finish by today anyway.

gram wanted me to bring out her clothes, her jewelry box, her shoes and bras and odds and ends from her bedroom. she went through her tops, giving me all of them, talking about where she wore them. then the dresses. people don’t wear dresses anymore, she says. some of the gowns are beaded adn dazzling, adorned with deco designs or shoulder pads. some of them are very gorgeous and i meant it when i said i would wear these. she looked at her three draw beige jewelry box - going through each step meticulously with fingers that couldn’t grip. she wants me to have all her pins. pins are meant to be worn with dresses, she said. Then she started puking, wad of napkins to her mouth. lips trembling between heaves, only water coming out onto her seaform green silk nightgown. i grabbed things to clean her up, but she told me to do as she said, pointing with one hand to the bedroom and the other hand clasping. i was looking for a hidden bathing suit she wanted to give me, when i found, in a zip lock bag, in one of her draws, covered by night gowns. i showed her the bag of pins, all gold and shiny. she said that these was the good ones, and she forgot all about them. they are for me too. i look around the house and want to keep everything. not out of greed but out of what museums are made up of - the desire to collect, to keep, to hold on to pieces of history or experience or emotion. they don’t make dresses like this anymore, and these pins are half a century old, but what about the iron stoves in the basement, the solid carved wooden hutches, or the porcelain picnic cutlery? they don’t make any of this like they used to. even the people. i snuck a lorazepam in her daily regular pills, which aunt donna and i have stopped giving her since the nurse said, that saturday, that she was going to die sometime in the night. i messaged the nurse asking if it was okay to be giving or skipping these daily pills. i wish aunt donna kept up with the pills and the notes and the log. things aren’t over yet and we don’t need to put ourselves at a disadvantage. last night, when her and i were messaging, she said she wanted to be absent. the both of us, just leave papa and my dad to their own devices. to show them how they would fair, how they need us and how terrible they are as care takers. i agreed but said that gram would suffer and we should prevent that, even though, by principle, she is right, but it’s for no point. we already know, everyone knows the truth, even the rotating nurses. we don’t have to prove it to grandpa and dad themselves, at the expense of gram.

dad and papa left again, it’s not even 11am. going to drop my dad off at court about his tickets, papa getting a hair cut or going to get soda. i tune them out now. a volunteer called from hospice, asking if she could help. i want emotional support, but she couldn’t give that to me in the way that i needed it, and awkwardly we got off the phone. aunt donna will be here tomorrow, and i can leave, but i’ll want to stay.

grandpa called me, telling me they might need a tow, the car is losing compression. he also said the other car which has been in the garage for days was smoking and smelling weird. he said he’ll try to drive back here, if not he’ll get towed and then take the other garage car, and if that breaks down, well, whatever. i can hear my dad screaming in the background. i say, i can get you cabs, taxis, whatever, easily. he said he was going to do it thimeself. i don’t know if it’s the whole adderoll or my soul breaking down, but i’m shaking now too like gram was when she turned into the exorist.

**sitting at the kitchen table afterwards, with papa, how he was obstanant, not seeing his parts he played, not looking me in the eye when excusing my dad, telling me i will never understand until i have a sick kid, not seeing how hes forsaken everyone else, he admits my dad is a bad person and an addict but doesn’t admit that what hes doing (driving with papa everywhere) is part of it // during the fiasco, how dad stormed into the living room and yelled at me, saying how could i tell him what to do when his mother was dying from lung liver and brain cancer - gram doesn’t have brain cancer and she started sobbing, freaking out asking if it was in her brain, how dad punctuated each word, standing over gram, how she cried and sobbed on that death bed. how papa said nothing. how i was told i don’t do anything, how dad and papa had it all covered, since before i came, how i don’t do shit, how my dad doesn’t respect me, how this is why i’m alone and dont have a man that loves me, even though i had mike he was going to come after work to fix BOTH the cars, i called that off though, how i’m a liar and everyone loves him, how papa stayed quiet, how i can call the cops, how i sholdn’t be recording a video, how this is just our family and everyone always yeleld, dad asked gram if she remembered grandparents and aunts who were loud and always yelled, how papa shit himself on grams chair. how dad didn’t shut up, how he kept yelling. how dad stormed around and yelled, cursing, telling me how i put him in jail with 400 other black inmantes and he survived that so i can’t get to him, how i’ll never get him out of the house and how papa agreed, how aunt donna is a drunk and if he can’t smoke cigarettes in his own house then i cant smoke weed outside and depense gram medicine, i told him then he can do it himself BUT OH WAIT...all because i told him for the 20th time in 2 weeks to not smoke cigarettes in a hosue with 2 terminally ill people with degenerative lung diseases who are on oxygen. how papa said he talked to him, how dad agreed to go outside. how at night, papa told me he was worried me and donna would cause a scene and affect gram...meanwhile i told him well dad has been doing that and you’re not concerned about his impact, papa shook his head. aunt donna messaging him non stop and how papa read them to me, but didn’t have to because aunt donna sent them to me too, how she was doing the same thing dad does. how i wanted to stay and keep helping, i was prepared to stay. i didn’t trust them. i don’t like these two. i hate them. and their distrubed relationship. let them die together. papa asked if i would be here when he was going to die, because he doesn’t have much time left. i said dad is keeping me and everyone else from being ehre for you and gram. i said if he’s laid up in a bed like gram, i’ll try but dad, i mean, look. he knows, he’s okay with it. he just wants his son. the two of them do, gram and papa, they both just want their son. i remember how just before gram was crying saying she doesn’t want anyone to bully her son. how she feels bad for him. how she wishes we can get along and how dad made his snide remarks. how i wish i could kill him with my own hands right now.

3/6 -- saturday. morning. i’m going to leave. i packed up, donna and i set up an aide and a schedule. papa has the key. i wrote everything down on the dinning room table, papers taped down, pill bottles explained and colored, notepads ready, phone numbrs available. it’s up to them now. i can’t be here to fix this. i can’t be here to deal with him. there is nothing i can do. i’m being fought at every turn. no matter what i am the outsider her and always will be wrong. there is no rationality in irrationality. this is the life they made, and they want. so many times and years i’ve tried to break through with the truth, to help, to be the parent to everyone. but i can’t. this isn’t for me. as much as i want to be here to make sure gram dies peacefully, i cant. i would though, and that’s the fucked up thing. i am like papa - i would enable. i want to not consider the horrible consequences, i want to do the wrong thing for the sake of my sensitive heart, even if i hurt everyone else including myself. i am an enabler. i am dyfunction, the next generation. i had to peel myself away from the house. i drove around aimlessly. i realize i haven’t been eating or drinking water, barely sleeping. i got a big bowl of broth and noodles and chugged ice cold water. i have to let things be. i have to let go. but how. i don’t know how to not want to be there. i understand, papa, what you mean by you coudn’t let your son die and you had to help. i get it because i would do the same thing for you and gram, even though deep down i don’t think either of you deserve it. but the difference is that i walked away, and i will let you die the way you wanted to live. aunt donna got gram’s friend, who is also an aide, to come in mondays and wednesdays and fridays, each week, for a handful of hours. she said she works for god and doesn’t want payment, but wants to be here for her friend. awesome. take the fucking wheel, mary.

3/7 -- sunday is the day for total breakdown. cihponed from what really is wrong, and totally misdirected and exploded on something else, unable totally unable to control my emotions for the entire day, starting at 3am when i woke up, unshakably bothered, totally offronted, absolutely in shock. i sat on the couch until about 7 catatonically, wrapped in blankets, unmoving unblinking. just not okay. i managed to get some candles and plants. reward? i cried so much, my face mutated into danger and disgust in car rides, thinking, crying, dwelling. how do i let go? how do i have people to be a support system? i am just as dysfunctional. i am a product of my enviornment and culture - maybe not to the severity of my dad, but i am still forged from this shithole, i am still damanged, even though not completely useless. how do i let go? how do i make friends? how do i trust? what does it mean to emotionally bond easily? how does one have different level of involments, and expectations depending on the person interacted with??

3/8 -- it’s monday. today. more mental and emotional breakdowns.

3/9 -- i spoke to the hospice nurse and social worker, they called to check in and i explained everything that happened. the nurse told me that aunt donna told her that the aide we got just quit, the day after she started. aunt donna apparently said it was because mary felt very uncomfortable after her and i left. i called mary and got her voice mail but i didn’t leave one. the nurse also told me that, with the smoking, if it doesn’t stop, hospice will stop coming over. its the company rules and it’s some hospice law, that their workers not be in homes where oxygen tanks are being smoked around. we counted all the medicines, nothing seemed off. she recorded everything, like she does. the detailed and neat notes aunt donna and i created and curated are now messy and single lines of scribbles. again, i want to go and help, take over, take control and fix, and care, and do. but i can’t and i wont.

3/10 - papa called me today, asking if i can come over tomorrow while he is getting the covid vaccine. he said his son has to go with him, to help him to the place where theyre giving out the vaccine and to go to medicaid or the dmv or where ever too. he said that it’s an appointment. i said fine, i’ll go.

the nurse called me, kristen, to tell me that another nurse, an LPN, went there today and counted the medicine and it’s all off. she said that there are some pills that are gone, and then the morphine liquid, all of a sudden, since yesterday, there’s more. nurse kristen said she didn’t think to check the color of the liquid, and i said, who would have. so now, the nurse said, no one is allowed ot go there alone, the hospie staff, they have to go in pairs. and now they have to invlove the social worker’s supervisor and the police, since there is no record of the medicines and since she was there yesterday, the is so much wrong. i told her that i won’t go there unless hospice is there. i didn’t tell her it was because i know my dad and grandpa will blame me if the cops ask what happened to the pills. the nurse also said that they will go, either friday or monday, depending, and throw away the medicines, becaus rthat’s protocol. they’re going to be there, in pairs, perhaps, hopefully with the police and social worker’s supervisor on friday. i texted papa and told him i’m not coming tomorrow. i called aunt donna and told her to call kristen, filled her in a little bit, while trying to not be affected, but i was, i could barely speak, called her gram instead of aunt donna. she said this is a good thing, a best case, and to detach. i cried and cried and cried.

**how gram has so many craving, opposite of what shes ever liked.

#drugs #addict #addiction #dying #death #codependancy #trauma #ptsd

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