A Tale of a Broken Family…

It’s situations like this that make me even more determined to have a happy, healthy, lifelong marriage…

My mom called me at work this morning: "I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Papaw Howard is in the hospital. Apparently he died twice overnight, but they were able to revive him. He’s not supposed to make it through the day, though."

I burst into tears and began shaking. I went into my supervisor’s office and told her what was going on, so she let me leave for the day. I rushed over to MVH to see him.

I am estranged from my father and have been for half my life. My parents divorced when I was 11 years old. On my 12th birthday he gave me a large brown envelope and told me not to open it until I got home and could open it in front of my mother. It was full of family pictures which he had destroyed–cutting my mom’s head off, scratching her eyes out, marking out her face with a Sharpie, etc. Obviously it was incredibly devastating to me and I decided then that I didn’t need him in my life. When I was 20 years old I had my name legally changed so I wouldn’t be associated with him.

It occurred to me when I was driving to the hospital that my father might be there. I decided that I needed to see my grandfather more than I wanted to avoid my father. I checked in with the cardiac ICU and asked if he had any other visitors. The nurse at the front desk said he did, but wasn’t sure who it was. Luckily it was my Aunt Christina. When she looked up and saw me she came over and gave me a big hug and we cried together for a few minutes.

My grandfather has always been larger than life. He’s always been loud and boisterous, and always has an opinion on everything. It was so strange to see him under sedation with tubes and wires coming out of him. My aunt said he could hear us, so I said hello to him and at one point I think he squeezed my hand a bit and may have smiled at me.

Apparently he had double bypass surgery in January and contracted an infection. He hadn’t been feeling well for a few days and then he began to have severe pains in his arm and chest so his "companion" (that’s what everyone calls her) Leah called 911 yesterday. They’re not sure where the infection is coming from–whether it’s the wound or the heart valve. The doctor said they’re going to do surgery to try to clean out some of the infection, but it has already spread to his sternum and bloodstream. If it’s from the wound he could possibly lose his sternum; if it’s the valve itself that is infected the doctor just said "Well, that’s not good."

I stayed at the hospital for about an hour and a half, but I hadn’t eaten all day and wanted to get away from the situation for a little bit. My brother was supposed to go visit and I intended to go with him, but he’s passing a kidney stone and was in pain all day. I’m hesitant to go back by myself because I don’t want to deal with my father. My aunt said he caused a scene because he’s upset about not being in my grandpa’s will.

My grandpa has 3 surviving children out of 5. My uncle died before I was born and my aunt died when I was 8. He and my dad had a falling out when my uncle died because my dad felt entitled to some of the money our family was given due to my uncle’s death occurring while he was on active duty in the Army. The same thing happened when my aunt died, but there wasn’t anything left over from her estate. My dad is just a selfish person and feels falsely entitled. Apparently my grandpa made my uncle Keith the executor of his estate and left everything to my aunt Christina because she has fallen on some hard times. This infuriated my dad and he started a fight when my aunt showed up at the hospital (my uncle is in North Carolina, so he couldn’t make it up today). The nurses had to break it up and threaten to call security. I don’t want to deal with that.

So now I’m struggling with whether I should go back to the hospital alone if my brother can’t make it. I want to be there for my aunt, and I want to see my grandfather again just in case he doesn’t make it, but my father is such a terrible person I really don’t want to see him.

These are exactly the dilemmas I never want my children to have.