I’ve talked at some length to Dad’s hospital social worker about his condition and prognosis. I won’t go into detail here, both because it’s not required and because it’s expensive doing it on my phone while using roaming.
Suffice to say he’s doing ok medically but the congestive heart failure has not been stabilized, yet. We talked about his future and where his needs could best be met, at his home or elsewhere, ie an extended home facility somewhere, possibly here.
I feel a bit stressed by the whole thing and that was one reason I didn’t want to go there. Am I a bad person then? Am I abandoning him in his time of need?
We were never what I would call close, my father and I. In fact I’d have to say my relationship with both my parents was somewhat distant. That’s how I recall it anyway, and it may be fair to say my memory might be inaccurate, although the reality is that my whole life now and how I act, how I am, is based on that history and how I saw it going down. All of that perception of my past was used in part to determine how I raised my kids and what I wanted my relationship with them to be.