I am wondering now if blood really is thicker than water?
I’m beginning to think not.
It’s so bizarre really. All through my childhood and up to my twenties and early thirties, I honestly believed I had a very close and loving family.
Have I always been deluded and it’s never been the case as much as I thought? Or, has general life and the circumstances that come along with that just changed things?
Regular readers and friends will know that my Dad’s health has been in serious decline for years now, but mostly since just before I began this blog. He has had a number of strokes over the last few years as well as various other ongoing health issues.
Basically, he’s old and that’s that. He is suffering from all of the ails of a degenerating body. These are now both physical and mental.
It’s been intriguing to note over this period of decline in the last few years, just how disinterested my siblings appear to be about their father.
In the past when things have happened, we have of course informed them. This doesn’t usually ever transpire into any kind of visit, and is usually just a few days of txt messages and phone calls to get updates (of which Mum is generally the main information giver, and the phone calls can be quite draining on her after long days at the hospital).
Sometimes there have been visits, but not often. One sibling is marginally better at keeping in touch than others.
I’ve found it interesting to observe that one sibling is good at coming for day-trip visits if there is something tangible at the end of the visit (such as tools or furniture from when Mum and Dad moved house). These day visits (in which the total actual visit time is possibly no more than about two hours if that) appear to be do-able; but other visits are not generally convenient it seems.
I’m not saying that there have been NO visits over the last few years. There have been a few. But generally not much interest in visiting other than Christmas (in which there is a ‘holiday’ value) or when there are other occasions that conveniently coincide with a visit home.
But it’s not even the visits. There are absolutely no phone calls to say hello or find out how everyone is doing. I used to email and keep people updated, but I made a conscious decision last year (?) to not be the one to always make the effort. The outcome of that decision has been that contact has dried up into a virtual desert…
One group of family members are visible and easily contactable via FB. However, even this mode of communication isn’t that reliable when messages are only glanced at in passing based on the confused replies that indicated the message hasn’t been even read properly; or they are read and one comment is made in reply to the initial message and then nothing further. So what was the point of informing them in the first place?
In the past when Dad has been ill and had hospital stay’s, there are always a flurry of txt’s stating “let me know if there is anything I can do to help”. Which are redundant because nothing ever eventuates.
Now, I’m not saying that I don’t understand that everyone is busy with their own lives and own families. I do get that. I am too. I even feel lately that I’m not doing enough at times when now that we are living in town I don’t visit as much; or call during the week as much. I feel guilty about that. But in the whole scheme of things, that’s a ridiculous thought even, given that I am far more involved than the others.
And I also understand that “I am local” when they are not. But in this day and age of easy communication, how hard is it to even just keep in contact? To make some indication that you have an inkling of interest in your family? To acknowledge that your father is getting elderly and is fragile… and may not even be here for that much longer.
How hard is it to actually care?
Too difficult it apparently seems.
Dad is currently in hospital again at the moment. This time with pneumonia.
This time, none of us have bothered to let anyone else know about it. Usually it is my job to make initial contact to alert others. Then they will generally follow-up with a phone call to Mum.
I did message one of them this time who is on FB and easy to contact that way. But it was acknowledge, and then nothing further apart from one txt. So not really much of an impact.
But I have made no effort to contact the others. There seems no point. Mum also isn’t bothering this time either. She said that if things got more serious, then she would be obliged to contact them; but as things stand – they don’t seem to care, so she’s not bothering.
I think she’s also pissed that no-one made any effort to contact or find out about my knee replacement operation or my brother’s recent heart surgery.
One sibling did come one of the weekends I was in hospital and visited Mum and Dad briefly – but they were actually here for something else and just squeezed us in.
And another sibling also visited me in hospital and did Dad duty when Dad was in the rest-home for a few days while Mum and brother were in Auckland, but this was only under duress and arranged by his then-girlfriend who has become more of an interested and involved ‘daughter’ to Mum and Dad than my other siblings).
But apart from that – it’s been pretty quiet out there this year…
I find it incredibly disappointing that my family has come to this.
I don’t really know the answer to my initial question – has it always been this way, but I perhaps previously had more of a romantic notion of my family? Or have things just changed as their own families have grown and they have become more involved in their own nuclear families?
I realise that I am a) local and b) don’t have my own kids to have to factor into this situation. But I honestly believe without hesitation, that even if I lived elsewhere, I would still be in regular contact (if not more than even now due to the fact I was not living close by) and I would make an effort to visit both during crisis and non-crisis times. And that I would appreciate the fact that Dad won’t be here forever…
It’s all very perplexing really.
And I am now personally finding it difficult not to become judgemental about them in other areas now as a result of this situation.
This is not how I wish to be. But it seems to be an inadvertent consequence of their lack of interest.
Tags: family, family relationships, health
