Guilt

A few months ago, my husband's uncle passed away. This is his mother's brother. No one told us about the death until a whole week later....too late for flowers even.

Yesterday, we got an email from his brother's wife that his grandmother (his mom's 91 year old mom) had fallen in her apartment and broke her neck and is in ICU. It happened FOUR days ago!

His parents both have cell phones and 2 additonal phone lines in their house. Yet they cannot pick up the phone and call him and let him know what is going on. His mom lives a 3 hour drive from her mom. So now, my hubby wants to fly to the nearest time which is 2 hours north of his mom, rent a car, drive to his mom's, pick her up and drive 3 more hours to take his mom to see his grandma. And then make the 5 hour drive back to the airport and fly home.

He was ready to drive to the airport as soon as we got the email. It's that knee-jerk reaction that he has to take care of things right now.

But I know that he is in no physical condition to make a flight/drive like that and I can't possibly go as I'm still flat in bed wiht pneumonia. So I had him come sit down by me and we chatted for a little bit. And I think he came to his senses when I suggested the 10 hours on the road with his incontinence. I think he heard that. But I am really struggling with the instant decisions that he has been making lately. He agreed to call his mom tomorrow and see if she is even physically able to make the drive. She is 76 and has shingles which have gone to her head with trigeminal neuralgia and blindness in her eye. I just don't think she is in any shape to make the 6 hour drive.

I don't even really understand why he thinks he has to do any of this. I go back to the "we do what we have to do in this life" thing. When my grandmother died, it was the day my oldest son was going to have surgery to insert a steel pin into his hip. There was no way I was going to leave him at the age of 14 and go to her funeral. It made me quite sad, but I also knew I could not go. We just can't always be in all the places we want to be at the same time in this life.

My husband hasn't figured that out just yet. He still thinks/believes that he has to be the hero in his family. I think it is some type of guilt driving this need in him. I wish he would just give that up and focus on healing his own body. Incontinent, feet deformed from tophi gout and charcot's foot, back pain so severe he has barely moved all week long, a body that is swelling up right before my eyes due to kidney function declining....and he feels some compelling need to jump on a 3 hour flight to rent a car and make a 10 hour drive and a 3 hour flight back.

I feel like I could write the whole script for an entire season for the TV show "Just shoot me". I think I'd give new meaning to that term!

DW - trying to find an ounce of humor tonight.