If I Wake You Up/There Will Be Hell To Pay

When the call I’ve been waiting for for four years _{<almost exactly, even>} came, I did not panic. My ears did not ring and I did not snap into reacting, racing to know. I shunted the info
.                                                               ;Your mother is in the hospital. Cirrhosis and a bleeding ulcer. Can you please call me back?;
.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          along to Sibling for the time being and continued about my chores.

‘Spittle bubbling on your lips
Fine white foam’

I have worried and worried and fretted that my resolve would fail when Bea died, or began dying. The relief that I feel nothing more than I did yesterday is profound. I have read for years other peoples’ experiences with what happens when their abuser dies or health begins to fail, and I was ready for the entire spectrum of reaction. I am thankful to remain a fixed point as the slide begins around me. My resolve is important to me on this. My peace of mind was hard won and I can’t imagine wanting to give it up.

The dogs are my tell, though. They know something’s up. They won’t leave me alone. But what they sense from me is subconscious; not current state. Dismissable.

‘And alone in my room
I am the last
Of a lost civilization’

Trying to make myself write about this is like holding my hand in the Bene Gesserit box.

I have talked to the person who is Bea’s PoA in the absence of her children wanting anything the fuck to do with her. He seemed very tentative about whether we were going to tell him to back off and jump in ourselves. We will not _{<the whole nuclear family agrees>}. I washed my hands of all of this four years ago and still feel as final about it as I did on the day after my wedding. She is lucky there is still anyone who will still render her care and I hope she is enough of a person to be thankful for that mercy. She has driven everyone else she has ever known off. If I get the chance as this _{<the sure to be slow process of her dying>} goes on, I will have to make sure to ask him if she has at least been thankful. I have little faith that even the end of her life could inspire her to be kind, but he deserves her gratitude.

‘But I do wake you up
And when I do’

There is a lot I could say here that I probably should, at least for posterity, but is not of value. It just rattles around with me constantly. Her memory’s pretty blown, I guess. That started happening back in my 20s. When you drink that hard, you stop being able to remember a huge array of things. Then it was mostly repeated and repeated and repeated stories, but I guess it’s a lot worse now. She’s still hoarding, still not paying her bills, still spending thousands on gin and scotch. Back when I went no contact, the man who is her PoA now and I had a serious conversation about her and I learnt she had begun falling down drunk and struggling to get up on her own. Passing out and pissing herself. Falling down and pissing herself. I don’t know why I was surprised to learn today that she still calls him when this happens and she can’t rectify it herself. This is how she got to the hospital last night. For years he has been going over there to pick her disgusting body up off her dirty floor. My aunt tells me when she was taken to the ER, she was foul. Clothes, self, filthy. She’s almost 70. But she’s only almost 70.

‘You blaze down the hall
And you scream
I’m in my room
With my headphones on
Deep in the
Dream chamber’

I don’t know what stage the cirrhosis is. It’s possible no one knows yet. They’re still testing _{<and monitoring her for alcohol withdrawal>} I think. It’s only been three years since I lost someone that way, too. But Luca I love. Luca I mourn extravagantly. Bea I am merely outlasting.

At least I had already planned to do a big cook today, so once I was done with texting and calling and information gathering, I could pivot directly into a big, repetitive, long piece of work for hours. Do something with my hands and a true crime podcast and let processing be a background process ticking gently underneath.

‘And then I’m awake
And I’m guarding my face
Hoping you don’t break my stereo’

This isn’t really coherent and it’s not fun to do, but when I put it down I can then carry something different for a while and I need to do that. There isn’t any sense in holding onto this and spinning and spinning over it any more than is absolutely unavoidable. She’s not dying _<yet> and when the moment came, I did not betray my own child-self by suddenly wanting to go back and jam my hand back into the blender. Nothing for me to do. Nothing needed of me. Steady on in a fair gale. I will take updates as they are offered, but ultimately, Bea remains no longer my problem.

‘Because it’s the one thing
That I couldn’t live without
And so I think about that
And then I sort of black out’

As things decline, this will become more complex. Sibling wants to see her before she dies, and I do not. So I will end up going wherever Sibling decides to visit and be there for her with no plan to see Bea. This will likely kick up the family. The family who hasn’t had a word to say to me in four years; but I’m not interested in even confrontation with them anymore. I’m not 22 or 25 anymore. Or 17. It doesn’t matter to me what they think I should do, or have done, what they think I’m doing wrong, or what kind of person they think I am. I have my own feelings about them and their failures, but I am not interested in revisiting a bit of it. I am still as angry as I generally am, but I am extremely surprised to discover that I am poised, also. I have never in my life had poise in any sense of the term and it’s really remarkable to discover.

‘Held under these smothering waves
By your strong and thickveined hand

But one of these days
I’m gonna wriggle up
On dry land’
– Mountain Goats

It’s always a toss up between Tetrapod and Lion’s Tooth. Let’s all raise a glass to the coming Pale Green Things, though.