Sunday, May 23, 2010

winging it

What a weekend. We spent Friday travelling to and from Regina to see our new granddaughter. She's great and we had a wonderful time. Saturday started off pretty ordinary, a trip to the city that seemed to go on and on. First a quick trip to the church to help clean it turned into a marathon of cleaning because no one else came. then shopping seemed to take us from one end of the stores to the other. By the time we got home it was threatening rain and John decided to put the caulking under the deck where the window seems to leak. so he's outside on a ladder while I stand around trying to appear competent and useful but mostly I just handed him new tubes of caulk and gathered up the other ones. Then it really started to blow and to rain and it sounded like the roof was going to blow off. About then John got a call telling him his Dad was dying and he should think about coming. Since I have never been especially fond of my father-in-law mostly because he was never very fond of my husband, I was against this idea. But, I got outvoted. So I packed and gathered and loaded and tried to see if I'd forgotten anything. Since he had told Owen he would bring him home from work he waited about twenty minutes. During those twenty minutes my sensible brother-in-law called and said don't travel in this awful weather wait for morning. Thank goodness he called. So John got a nights sleep and left this morning at 5:00 a.m. He still drove through strong winds and rain but at least it was light out. He had just called to say he was near Medicine Hat when his sister Cathy called to say that their Dad had just died. Once again John didn't get there in time. The first thing he said was "I can't do anything right". So there I am trying to think of encouraging things to say when all I wanted to say was at last he's gone and now you can get on with your life. John's Dad spent a good part of his life making John feel like he never did anything right. He always put down the church and the people who felt the church was important. Interestingly enough John's sisters cried over this arrogant, mean, demeaning, nasty old man. So now I don't know what to do. I think a memorial service would be such a hypocritcal piece of work. John decided to come back home today because the obituary was getting a little out of hand when they wanted to put in lovingly remembered by his children. He was not easy to love. A couple of the women he married were lovely women but he was arrogant and mean. He went out of his way to make sure John knew that his Dad hated everything about the church. He never mentioned any of his grandchildren or their accomplishments and there are plenty of accomplishments. He was only interested in himself and his work. The last few years he was stricken with Alzheimers a disease I wouldn't want anyone to get. He was hard of hearing and confined to a nursing home. When he was still cognizant he still was not interested in his children or grandchildren and he still managed to make John feel useless and unaccomplished. I have no idea how to help my husband mourn this man. That's why I'm winging it.

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