I Peeked Over the Parapet Into Domestic Violence Territory
I almost slugged my mother in a hospital basement, and for an instant it seemed perfectly normal.
A few weeks ago, in the run up to getting my mother into the same assisted living facility where my father is, I took her to the doctor for paperwork, blood work, and all the other hoops you have to jump through to get someone into an assisted living facility. It feels not unlike getting someone into CIA headquarters.
I took the day off work, drove across town, and loaded my mother into the car, after fighting with her about whether she had to go at all, finally bribing her with the promise of McDonald’s. This type of bribery was normal by now, because my adult parents had become children, failing to make any decisions about what should happen to them in old age, instead just drifting into severe decline. Maybe someone would show up to help them, maybe not — neither of them seemed to care. So loading my apathetic mother into the car, with the promise of fries, was just one of many tiny tasks I’ve handled over the last two years. It sounds like a minor annoyance, but when these tiny tasks are added up, they make me want to bang my head on the sidewalk until I’m bloodied and unconscious. No, until I’m dead.
