MoodElevator
Bronze Member
Well let me start this by providing some context. My father died a few weeks ago at age seventy-six, he fell ill and was in the hospital for just over a week. He was a main contributor of awful experiences during my childhood. If you want specifics see my intro thread for a few details. I stopped talking to him when I was 15 to protect myself from further damage and have the space I needed to 'grow up'. I started talking with him again when I was 21 and a year later moved into a building across from his.
I was able to form a friendly relationship with him and also make peace with him. He was a bitter hate filled man on the exterior, but on the inside he was a remorseful sad soul. It still amazes me that he was able to sincerely and extensively apologize to me without any desire for forgiveness, implicit or explicit. Although he didn't deserve any of it, I was the only friend to him over the last three-four years, as all others he had driven away with his relentless negative energy.
He dug his own ditch. I don't regret any of it and although he was horrible to me as a child, my relationship with him as an adult was undeniably mutually enhancing. It was also conditional on his behaviour - if he began to behave badly I would simply walk out the door, to my surprise, it didn't take long for him to learn the rules and respect my boundaries.
My half-sister, who is twenty-seven years older than I (I'm 25), owns and operates a dance school and production company in Tallahassee Florida. She has a now thirteen year old daughter, who is twelve years younger than I. I have maintained a sibling like relationship with my niece since she was too young to even lift her head (biggest ‘awwwe’ memory I have).
Almost every year since I was eleven I would travel south to the US to visit them. Despite offers of complete financial coverage my sister never brought herself or family up here. She did visit once when I was eight and my father was battling to get custody of me, but that wasn't really to visit, I only saw her once in that time. Yet every summer since her daughter was born she’d drive up to visit her husband’s relatives in Indiana. I never quite understood this, felt kind of shafted by it to be honest.
From a young age I always looked up to her and thought she was such a nice soul, I sort of idealized her, or rather my image of her. She had cut off nearly all contact with our father about three years ago i.e. aside from xmas and birthday phone calls. She on several occasions told me how pleased it made her that I was “there to take care of him” I made it quite clear on several occasions that I was not. I was delighted this winter when I had proposed that I pay for my niece to come to Toronto for her first ever visit my sister said that she would be accompanying.
I sent her a cheque which she promptly cashed to cover the cost of getting passports for her and her daughter. A couple weeks later I was told that ‘all the documents and photos have been sent in and the passports will be arriving in a few weeks’. It turns out that was a outright lie and she had to literally travel to Atlanta to obtain an emergency visa. She did however lie to her daughter about me ‘tricking’ him into making a recording saying he wouldn't want to be kept on indefinite life support. However, the law here is that if there's no living will, and one sibling objects then the machines are kept running, provided that sibling is able to make themselves physically available ASAP.
So our father fell ill during the last week of April and was hospitalized with severe pneumonia and suspected pulmonary fibrosis. He died within ten days. I once heard someone say that death can bring out the worst in people. And it appears that is exactly what happened with my sister. Regardless of the open war loving arms I had explicitly offered.
I had no family here to help with his affairs on an emotional or financial level. Well, aside from my mother who grew to hate my father (don’t really blame her) and wouldn't drop a dime in his direction. My big sister, who I was depending on to help out and be mutually supportive in one way or another, stayed here for a total of two days before he died. Well, more specifically tricked me into consenting to cutting off his life support early with a fake will (lied about having one over the phone and got me to tell the nurse it was ok). She then left back to Florida refusing to see me even once.
Throughout the whole thing all she could talk about was being in Florida so she could see her students perform. She was my idol as a child. She now won't talk to me, says I'm a sadistic evil psychopath, because I didn't seem upset enough over the phone. Or maybe because I didn't want to live by his deathbed and watch him being kept alive by a machine, having fluid sucked from his lungs every half an hour. She also had his remains sent out of the city knowing I depend on the subway/streetcar/bus/bike and don't drive.
She didn't even bother to identify his body, and didn't put in a single a cent towards memorial costs (or any other costs for that matter).The people at the funeral home were so brutally rude and mean to me when I told them I had ptsd and wouldn't identify his body. I got a brief leave from my jobs, great, that wasn't time to grieve or heal. No it was spent clearing out his apartment with the damn landlord. It was a MASSIVE dusty horde (I believe what actually killed him as never smoked and prolonged living in such environments is a known cause of pulmonary fibrosis).
I'm sentimental however and did want to sift out some valuables, sentimental and monetary. I've had to contact all friends and family members, as not surprisingly given the context my sister hasn't been talking to anyone at all about it aside from her daughter who contacted me offering to help contact our very spread out family. I didn't agree, she's just thirteen and terribly distraught. I also haven't had the time, money or energy to arrange for a memorial of any sort. He was buried in a sardine can graveyard for people who die without money, thanks to the city. Honestly, I'm a fish out of water, I don't think I'll even have an official one, not unless someone steps up to help out and I get a loan or something....or my sister suddenly acts like one.
All of this stress has been breaking my back figuratively. I haven't even told the entire story about the things my sister has said and done over this last month. My really close friend went to rehab for his drinking right around when this began, and my other two won’t be back in the country until July and next January. I feel very alone, overwhelmed and exhausted. I've found many symptoms I’d seemingly healed have returned. I start university in the fall, and right now I'm just focussed on healing to a point where I will be able to succeed in my program. I don't really doubt that I can, but part of me just wants to give up entirely.
Sorry about this rant I just wanted to get it off my chest. Kind of a worthy way to make a return to the forum I guess, and I also thought you folks may understand and sympathize.
I was able to form a friendly relationship with him and also make peace with him. He was a bitter hate filled man on the exterior, but on the inside he was a remorseful sad soul. It still amazes me that he was able to sincerely and extensively apologize to me without any desire for forgiveness, implicit or explicit. Although he didn't deserve any of it, I was the only friend to him over the last three-four years, as all others he had driven away with his relentless negative energy.
He dug his own ditch. I don't regret any of it and although he was horrible to me as a child, my relationship with him as an adult was undeniably mutually enhancing. It was also conditional on his behaviour - if he began to behave badly I would simply walk out the door, to my surprise, it didn't take long for him to learn the rules and respect my boundaries.
My half-sister, who is twenty-seven years older than I (I'm 25), owns and operates a dance school and production company in Tallahassee Florida. She has a now thirteen year old daughter, who is twelve years younger than I. I have maintained a sibling like relationship with my niece since she was too young to even lift her head (biggest ‘awwwe’ memory I have).
Almost every year since I was eleven I would travel south to the US to visit them. Despite offers of complete financial coverage my sister never brought herself or family up here. She did visit once when I was eight and my father was battling to get custody of me, but that wasn't really to visit, I only saw her once in that time. Yet every summer since her daughter was born she’d drive up to visit her husband’s relatives in Indiana. I never quite understood this, felt kind of shafted by it to be honest.
From a young age I always looked up to her and thought she was such a nice soul, I sort of idealized her, or rather my image of her. She had cut off nearly all contact with our father about three years ago i.e. aside from xmas and birthday phone calls. She on several occasions told me how pleased it made her that I was “there to take care of him” I made it quite clear on several occasions that I was not. I was delighted this winter when I had proposed that I pay for my niece to come to Toronto for her first ever visit my sister said that she would be accompanying.
I sent her a cheque which she promptly cashed to cover the cost of getting passports for her and her daughter. A couple weeks later I was told that ‘all the documents and photos have been sent in and the passports will be arriving in a few weeks’. It turns out that was a outright lie and she had to literally travel to Atlanta to obtain an emergency visa. She did however lie to her daughter about me ‘tricking’ him into making a recording saying he wouldn't want to be kept on indefinite life support. However, the law here is that if there's no living will, and one sibling objects then the machines are kept running, provided that sibling is able to make themselves physically available ASAP.
So our father fell ill during the last week of April and was hospitalized with severe pneumonia and suspected pulmonary fibrosis. He died within ten days. I once heard someone say that death can bring out the worst in people. And it appears that is exactly what happened with my sister. Regardless of the open war loving arms I had explicitly offered.
I had no family here to help with his affairs on an emotional or financial level. Well, aside from my mother who grew to hate my father (don’t really blame her) and wouldn't drop a dime in his direction. My big sister, who I was depending on to help out and be mutually supportive in one way or another, stayed here for a total of two days before he died. Well, more specifically tricked me into consenting to cutting off his life support early with a fake will (lied about having one over the phone and got me to tell the nurse it was ok). She then left back to Florida refusing to see me even once.
Throughout the whole thing all she could talk about was being in Florida so she could see her students perform. She was my idol as a child. She now won't talk to me, says I'm a sadistic evil psychopath, because I didn't seem upset enough over the phone. Or maybe because I didn't want to live by his deathbed and watch him being kept alive by a machine, having fluid sucked from his lungs every half an hour. She also had his remains sent out of the city knowing I depend on the subway/streetcar/bus/bike and don't drive.
She didn't even bother to identify his body, and didn't put in a single a cent towards memorial costs (or any other costs for that matter).The people at the funeral home were so brutally rude and mean to me when I told them I had ptsd and wouldn't identify his body. I got a brief leave from my jobs, great, that wasn't time to grieve or heal. No it was spent clearing out his apartment with the damn landlord. It was a MASSIVE dusty horde (I believe what actually killed him as never smoked and prolonged living in such environments is a known cause of pulmonary fibrosis).
I'm sentimental however and did want to sift out some valuables, sentimental and monetary. I've had to contact all friends and family members, as not surprisingly given the context my sister hasn't been talking to anyone at all about it aside from her daughter who contacted me offering to help contact our very spread out family. I didn't agree, she's just thirteen and terribly distraught. I also haven't had the time, money or energy to arrange for a memorial of any sort. He was buried in a sardine can graveyard for people who die without money, thanks to the city. Honestly, I'm a fish out of water, I don't think I'll even have an official one, not unless someone steps up to help out and I get a loan or something....or my sister suddenly acts like one.
All of this stress has been breaking my back figuratively. I haven't even told the entire story about the things my sister has said and done over this last month. My really close friend went to rehab for his drinking right around when this began, and my other two won’t be back in the country until July and next January. I feel very alone, overwhelmed and exhausted. I've found many symptoms I’d seemingly healed have returned. I start university in the fall, and right now I'm just focussed on healing to a point where I will be able to succeed in my program. I don't really doubt that I can, but part of me just wants to give up entirely.
Sorry about this rant I just wanted to get it off my chest. Kind of a worthy way to make a return to the forum I guess, and I also thought you folks may understand and sympathize.
