In yesterday’s post, I was talking about a Taiwanese pop song that I really liked, but could not find online. It came up when I was on Zoom with my parents after my father sang several songs, one after the other. I did not want to interrupt him because he has so little that gives him pleasure these days.
It’s really sad. When I look into his eyes, there is nothing there. It’s astonishing that he can still speak English (his third language), but he’s losing more of his vocabulary every time I talk to him. He will sometimes slip back into Chinese or Taiwanese when we talk, but it’s not really a problem as, well, to put it bluntly, it’s not as if his English is the best right now, either.
I can understand most of what he says in any language, though it doesn’t always make sense. What I mean is that I can understand each individual word, but the way he puts them together doesn’t always make sense.
I know it’s part of the dementia, but it’s so fucking cruel. Watching someone lose himself bit by bit (or in chunks) every time I talk to him is excruciating. In addition, he’s fixated on me going there. He says he hasn’t seen me in a long time, which is true. It’s been almost four years since they were here for my medical crisis.
Here’s the problem, though. I can’t fly and neither can they. For them, it’s age and my father’s dementia. For me, it’s my various immune system issues. I have not flown since my medical crisis. I was going to fly to Ian in April of 2020 and K in October of the same year, but, of course, the pandemic changed those plans.
I don’t know if I would feel comfortable flying domestically, let alone internationally. My parents are too old and frail to fly here, either. To be honest, I’m glad. I have a really hard time being in the same room as they are for several reasons, but at least I have a legit excuse for not flying out.
As I mentioned yesterday, I have known for at least a decade if not longer that my relationship with my parents was never going to be close. I knew that civil was the best I could ask for and not resenting/hating/feeling bad about my parents was a plus.
Back to the song. I’ve added another version below, one I quite like. I’ve found several versions of it, so it’s more popular than my mom and I had originally thought. I even found a duet by two people who did it one of those The Voice type of shows. That was interesting, though not my favorite version.
I think my mother was the most truthful when she said that she had gotten really into finding the song as a way to forget about her life for a bit. I didn’t blame her because haven’t we all focused on something inconsequential in order to put off our problems?
If it had been up to me, I would have cut it off after fifteen minutes or so. I mean, I love the song, yes, but it’s not as if I would have been bereft if we had not found it.
However, I realized it was something I could do for her that cost me very little. And I didn’t mind using my Google-fu to find a song. As I said in the last post, I realized at some point that maybe it wasn’t the same female singer, which meant that my googling based on her name was not the right tactic.
When my mother and I shared the lyrics that I knew and the music for the bit that she knew, we were able to put it together enough for her to find it. And, much as I suspected, it wasn’t the song of the female singer at all. Or rather, she wasn’t the only one who had a version of the song out. Since I can’t read Chinese, I don’t know which is the original. I could ask my mother, but frankly, I don’t need to go down that path.
I was thinking about how it seems like such a little thing in and of itself (and it is), but it’s meaningful in a weird way concerning the relationship between my mother and me. I know this sounds like I’m grabbing at crumbs (and I am), but I have to take what I can get, really.
About a decade ago, I realized that my mother was not going to change. She just was not. I’m not saying she couldn’t change, but that she wouldn’t. Why did I think that? Because she had been resistant to change all her life. Or rather, all mine. Even when she acknowledged her issues, she wouldn’t actually do anything to try to address them.
It was so frustrating because she was a psychologist. She, of all people, should have known that it takes work to change yourself. Unfortunately, one of the hazards with being a psychologist is that you can use psychology speak to justify anything and everything–which was what my mother did. Having an argument with her was so frustrating because she would turn everything back on me.
I was a psych major in college, so I know the speak, too. When I used it on her, our argument would quickly devolve into a psych-fight. She never once accepted that she might be doing something wrong, and I could always tell by the look on her face that she wanted to vehemently disagree with whatever I said.
She and my father had a very rocky relationship. One thing that happened was that she would start verbally attacking him as soon as he came home from ‘work’ (bonking his mistress) and not let up. He would turn to stone and just sit there, his face blank.
It’s known in the psychology world that giving someone the silent treatment is not a good thing. Which, I agree. There’s a difference, however, between the silent treatment and not being given the space to talk. When my mother and I had disagreements/argument, she would get mad if I sat there and said nothing. She would also get mad if I tried to defend myself.
I’m done for today, so I’ll write more tomorrow.