I heard a new song last night via the Rob Squad. It’s James Blunt’s Monsters. I don’t usually fuck with JB because I find him annoying, but they said it was the most emotional reaction they’ve had. The song had me sobbing like a baby in part because JB is so raw in it and then has his dad in it (it’s a goodbye song to his father, a Stage 4 kidney failure. His father got a last-minute kidney transplant and is doing well, but it’s still an emotional song).
I watched a bunch of reactors watching the video, and the moment when the camera pans to show the father, well, most people lost it. The story is that James refused to have any kind of autotune in the video–it’s just him singing to his father. The raw emotion on his face and in his voice (plus the tears in his eyes) are just brutal. But, so honest. It’s not pretty. It’s not sanitized. It’s just…this man is saying goodbye to his father.
He has a unique voice, and it works for this song. The last part with his father is devastating. They look alike, and they have the same mannerisms. There’s a part when JB sings about putting his hand on his father’s arm, and then he breaks down. His father puts his hand on JB’s arm, and it’s just…I cried every time I saw it. Then, near the end, the choir kicks in and I bawl like a baby.
In tandem, I read a Slate advice column about someone who’s grandmother had dementia. She kept saying she wanted to die and it would be better when she was dead. The letter writer didn’t know how to deal with it and felt especially bad for his uncle (her son) who was her primary caretaker. He didn’t know what to do. He tried to reassure her that he was loved and all that, but it didn’t matter.
I can relate to that. My father is telling my mother on the daily that he wishes he were dead. After one argument in which he pushed her down, he got a knife, placed it on the table and told her to use it on him. And it hurts me. Because even though my mother has not been a good mother, she’s still a human being who doesn’t deserve this. She’s eighty years old! She’s worked hard all her life. She deserves to have a few years of peace.
Dementia doesn’t care about that. The commenters rightly point out that the grandmother doesn’t know what she’s saying. Or rather, tthat she’s not in her right mind. The commenters mentioned how shocking it was when their _____ (usually father) said they wanted to die while in hospice care–that was the other thing suggested.
Dementia sucks. It really does. It’s nasty, brutal, and has no regards for humanity. And yet. My father was already a narcissist and a jerk before getting it. He was already thin-skinned, paranoid, and, quite frankly, an all-around asshole. He doesn’t know anything about me, nor does he care to. This was before the dementia, I mean.
I have no love for my father. He has no love for me, though now he’ll say he loved me because I basically forced him to say it. Well, not really. We were arguing about what it meant to be a father. He seemed to believe that since he provided monetarily for me, that was all that was needed for him to be a father. While he denigrated me as a woman (at the time), cheated on my mother, and was never home. When he was, he was often stony silent and sulking. If he did not like what you were saying, he simply made you disappear. You did not exist in his world. It was that simple. And I cannot tell you how devastating it was to not even be acknowledged by your father while you were in the same room.
He never went to any of my activities. Not my plays or my recitals nor my dance recitals. He was not theere when my friends came over (not that they did that often) or for my birthday parties. I have to give my mom credit for that. She tried her best while my brother and I were children. It was just when we grew to have our own minds that she could not handle it.
I mean, she did put me on my first diet when I was seven and fucked up my body images for four decades. That sucked. And she made me feel like I should have no wants of my own and only be her emotional support child. That wasn’t good, either.
But she had a terrible childhood with a mother who did not want to be a mother. A mother who clearly favored the boys (in traditional Taiwanese fashion) and was stern and unforgiving. A mother who made her feel so unwanted, she almost allowed her pastor’s wife to adopt her. She once told me that the only thing she wanted was to be a mother. She did not want to go into psychology. She wanted to be a doctor like her father, but girls weren’t allowed at the time. It was only psychology or teaching. She did not want to work outside the home, but she had to because they needed the money and because my father made her.
He made her do (or not do) a lot of things. She wanted four kids because it was half of her own family (there were eight kids), but he only wanted two. Now, I do think the one who wants less children should be defer to, but it’s yet another example of my mother giving into my father. She says that the time she had off while watching my brother and me was the best time of her life, which is ineffably sad. But it also shows how she likes her kids–malleable.
Here’s the thing with my father. I said goodbye to him many years ago. Decades, really. More to the point, I said goodbye to the idea of having a father who actually cared. Oh, back to that confrontation. He was throwing how much money he’s spent on me in my face. This was typical of him. The last time I went back to Taiwan, I really didn’t want to go. My mom wouldn’t let it go, though, and I reluctantly went. That’s how she gets her way. She nags you until you’ll say anything to shut her up.
I had a horrible time. I was suicidal and could barely stop myself from walking into the ocean. I wanted to die. I wanted to be anywhere but there. Depression is not caused by outside factors, but they can sure as hell exacerbate the depression. That was another letter in the same batch as the dementia one in Slate! How a depressed person can still be an asshole.
Anyway, once I got back from the trip, my parents both emailed me to scold me. My mother for being a fat piece of shit though she couched it in terms of being concerned about my health. That’s when I banned her from mentioning my weight–even under the guise of ‘health’. I know what she means. She knows what she means. I was not having it.
My father’s was even worse. He mentioned how much money he had spent to bring me to Taiwan and how ungrateful I was. Yes, he mentioned the actual amount of money. Which, I did not make him do it. I actually told my mother I did not want to go (no idea if my father knew that, but still). So, yeah, fuck you and how much money you spent. I did not ask for it; I did not want it. I was furious–and deeply hurt. That’s when I knew that I had to say no to the big things, even if my mother continued to guilt me about them. That was the fucking thanks I got for going? Oh, HELL NO.
That was my first hard lesson in ‘Nothing you do is going to make them happy so you might as well do what makes you least miserable’.
I keep fragmenting what actually happened during that conversation. He said, “Well, why should I love you then if you don’t appreciate what I’ve done for you?” My heart, which I thought had been inured to him, broke in a million pieces as I said, “Because it’s your job.”
This was on the way to the airport so he could fly back to Taiwan. He called me during his layover in San Francisco and he choked out, “I love you” at the end of the call. I told my then-therapist that I felt nothing when he said it. She said it was a moment that was huge for him and tiny for me–and that both of these things could be true. It was a big step for him, but it was too little, too late for me.
More later.