St. Patrick's day always brings a conflicted tangle of emotions for me.
I am of Irish ancestry, as is evidenced by my pale skin and my remarkable ability to blush crimson right up to (and including) my scalp. There is no small amount of pride for me in St. Pat's day.
I was also adopted, and March 17, 1966 is the day I was brought home to live with my aunt and grandparents by my miscreant of a father. This brings feelings of gratitude that almost, but not entirely, make up for the underlying feeling of abandonment and lingering anger and resentment for the less fun bits of my growing-up years.
And today is the day when everyone likes to pretend that they are Irish.
And that is offensive to me.
A very wise friend once said to me that when I have the urge to say "this might piss some people off, but..." to shut the hell up (OK, she was way nicer than that, but still the message was there).
But you know what? This is one of those times I am going to forge ahead.
Why is it acceptable for people to dress up in green, get blind drunk on Guinness and stagger around trying to speak in a badly affected brogue?
For me, personally, that behavior is as offensive as someone wearing blackface would be to an African American.
It is insensitive. It is biased. It is mocking an ethnic heritage that is ancient and proud.
Please think of that tomorrow as you drink your green beer and eat your corned beef and cabbage. For some of us (OK, for me,) this is a high holy day to respect and honor an ancient, beautiful, proud heritage. Please don't ridicule it.
Showing posts with label respect. Show all posts
Showing posts with label respect. Show all posts
Monday, March 16, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Transformation
It has been an interesting 48 hours.
My father is ill (though not gravely so, at least not yet) and it has dropped in my lap some undone emotional work I had not anticipated. I have been busy processing all of this, all of what it means, and all of the possible outcomes.
Last night I posted my initial feelings about this development. As the hands on the clock have completed another circle, I have learned more.
First, my father's wife is utterly incapable of dealing with this reality. She sent her daughters - my half-sisters, aged 26 and 20 - to Boston to deal with this. She stayed home. It seems she cannot deal with what is going down.
It is a heavy burden indeed that F, the oldest of the two, has been saddled with. It is unfair, it is a rotten thing, and it is not her job. But the situation calls for a mature adult, and she has stepped up to fill that role when it seems that others cannot or will not. Bless her for that. She is very strong and will need every bit of that strength in the coming months and years.
My father has dementia to the point where his doctors will not accept his consent for any procedures or treatments. Consent must be given by a family member, in this case, the oldest of my half-sisters.
That segment of my father's family is traumatized by all of this, and understandably so. This is a lot to digest - as exemplified in my post of last night. This powerful man is so reduced that he is not to be trusted to make decisions regarding his own care. That's pretty harsh. Especially so when he has loomed so large for so many years.
I spent last night and this morning doing some hard and heavy thinking. What is it my father - the original guy, not the reduced version presently with us - what is it he would want? I remember him saying that he did not want to linger, but preferred to go quickly. I suppose we all want that to some degree. He was a proud man, despite his insecurities. To spend his end years gradually fading away and losing his dignity is not what he wants. That much I know.
But who am I to say that?
I am his first-born, true. But I have been estranged from him for over a quarter century. We have each spent a fair amount of that time wishing for bad things to happen to each other and taking quiet (or not-so-quiet) glee in them when they did. We have not been involved in each other's lives for a very long time. What authority, then, have I to step in and say "He'd have wanted xyz..."? I don't know.
What I do know is that his wife is paralyzed and in denial. His other kids are still of an age where they do not want to lose their dad. All of them want to hang onto this man for as long as they can. I understand that. No, really, I do. There are people in my life about whom I feel that way. I will hang onto them, kicking and screaming, for as long as is humanly possible.
And no, my father is not one of them.
This does not mean I want to go in and kick the plug out of the wall today. Let's just say I've already done a fair amount of mourning and letting go of my father over the years. I have mourned the loss of a father who might have been capable of expressing love. I have mourned the fact that I never had a father who said "I am proud of you." I have mourned the fact that I was not wanted. I have done a lot of mourning already - for things that were and are now gone and for things that never were. I have mourned lost opportunities and lost relationships and holidays and birthdays spent never acknowledging each other. I have reached out, I have turned the other cheek, I have stood up and been honorable and I have been rebuffed. I mourned it all. And I moved forward.
Which puts me in a very different place than his current family, who must now come to terms with his frailty and mortality. They must also come to terms with their own feelings of loss and denial and all of those five stages that Kubler-Ross lady wrote about in her book.
It will likely be as difficult for them as it was for me, and more so as they watch my father fade away before them. He is there and he is not. He is in turns coherent and delusional, friendly and hostile, swagger and scared. And it is only going to get worse.
I find it odd that I am the one who seems most willing and able to advocate for those wishes my father made very clear throughout his life. I am the one most removed, yet I am the one inclined to go to bat for him when he is unable to represent himself. And I am the one who is going to step into this situation and say the unpopular thing. That he would have already been horrified that he was deemed unfit to make his own decisions. That his three daughters and his wife were going to have to make his decisions would be profoundly offensive to his old-school sexist world.
But I was thinking today about what he'd want. He would want some sonofabitch to go in, grab the doctor by the shirtfront, and explain that this guy was not going to be nursed to death over the course of thirty years. Don't drown him with treatments, don't hook him up to tubes and respirators and things to feed him and take away his shit and all the rest. Let him go on his own terms. If he has a stroke, keep him comfortable, but otherwise leave him be. If his heart stops, don't break his ribs or zap him with paddles to get it started again. Let him go. He is a man, not an infant to be coddled or indulged. Treat him like a man, with dignity and respect. Honor what he wants.
He'd want someone to go in and have a fit if that's what it takes, to make sure his wishes are honored and followed. I think we may need to have some kind of a family meeting with my father's physicians after he gets home from Boston. I may need to be my father's sonofabitch.
It is not a role I ever imagined I would play. But I think it goes a long way toward my efforts to forgive him for the anger, the abuse, the bullying. If I can advocate for him, this last time, I think I'd feel good about that. And I dearly hope someone would advocate like that on my behalf.
It is the right thing for me to do.
My father is ill (though not gravely so, at least not yet) and it has dropped in my lap some undone emotional work I had not anticipated. I have been busy processing all of this, all of what it means, and all of the possible outcomes.
Last night I posted my initial feelings about this development. As the hands on the clock have completed another circle, I have learned more.
First, my father's wife is utterly incapable of dealing with this reality. She sent her daughters - my half-sisters, aged 26 and 20 - to Boston to deal with this. She stayed home. It seems she cannot deal with what is going down.
It is a heavy burden indeed that F, the oldest of the two, has been saddled with. It is unfair, it is a rotten thing, and it is not her job. But the situation calls for a mature adult, and she has stepped up to fill that role when it seems that others cannot or will not. Bless her for that. She is very strong and will need every bit of that strength in the coming months and years.
My father has dementia to the point where his doctors will not accept his consent for any procedures or treatments. Consent must be given by a family member, in this case, the oldest of my half-sisters.
That segment of my father's family is traumatized by all of this, and understandably so. This is a lot to digest - as exemplified in my post of last night. This powerful man is so reduced that he is not to be trusted to make decisions regarding his own care. That's pretty harsh. Especially so when he has loomed so large for so many years.
I spent last night and this morning doing some hard and heavy thinking. What is it my father - the original guy, not the reduced version presently with us - what is it he would want? I remember him saying that he did not want to linger, but preferred to go quickly. I suppose we all want that to some degree. He was a proud man, despite his insecurities. To spend his end years gradually fading away and losing his dignity is not what he wants. That much I know.
But who am I to say that?
I am his first-born, true. But I have been estranged from him for over a quarter century. We have each spent a fair amount of that time wishing for bad things to happen to each other and taking quiet (or not-so-quiet) glee in them when they did. We have not been involved in each other's lives for a very long time. What authority, then, have I to step in and say "He'd have wanted xyz..."? I don't know.
What I do know is that his wife is paralyzed and in denial. His other kids are still of an age where they do not want to lose their dad. All of them want to hang onto this man for as long as they can. I understand that. No, really, I do. There are people in my life about whom I feel that way. I will hang onto them, kicking and screaming, for as long as is humanly possible.
And no, my father is not one of them.
This does not mean I want to go in and kick the plug out of the wall today. Let's just say I've already done a fair amount of mourning and letting go of my father over the years. I have mourned the loss of a father who might have been capable of expressing love. I have mourned the fact that I never had a father who said "I am proud of you." I have mourned the fact that I was not wanted. I have done a lot of mourning already - for things that were and are now gone and for things that never were. I have mourned lost opportunities and lost relationships and holidays and birthdays spent never acknowledging each other. I have reached out, I have turned the other cheek, I have stood up and been honorable and I have been rebuffed. I mourned it all. And I moved forward.
Which puts me in a very different place than his current family, who must now come to terms with his frailty and mortality. They must also come to terms with their own feelings of loss and denial and all of those five stages that Kubler-Ross lady wrote about in her book.
It will likely be as difficult for them as it was for me, and more so as they watch my father fade away before them. He is there and he is not. He is in turns coherent and delusional, friendly and hostile, swagger and scared. And it is only going to get worse.
I find it odd that I am the one who seems most willing and able to advocate for those wishes my father made very clear throughout his life. I am the one most removed, yet I am the one inclined to go to bat for him when he is unable to represent himself. And I am the one who is going to step into this situation and say the unpopular thing. That he would have already been horrified that he was deemed unfit to make his own decisions. That his three daughters and his wife were going to have to make his decisions would be profoundly offensive to his old-school sexist world.
But I was thinking today about what he'd want. He would want some sonofabitch to go in, grab the doctor by the shirtfront, and explain that this guy was not going to be nursed to death over the course of thirty years. Don't drown him with treatments, don't hook him up to tubes and respirators and things to feed him and take away his shit and all the rest. Let him go on his own terms. If he has a stroke, keep him comfortable, but otherwise leave him be. If his heart stops, don't break his ribs or zap him with paddles to get it started again. Let him go. He is a man, not an infant to be coddled or indulged. Treat him like a man, with dignity and respect. Honor what he wants.
He'd want someone to go in and have a fit if that's what it takes, to make sure his wishes are honored and followed. I think we may need to have some kind of a family meeting with my father's physicians after he gets home from Boston. I may need to be my father's sonofabitch.
It is not a role I ever imagined I would play. But I think it goes a long way toward my efforts to forgive him for the anger, the abuse, the bullying. If I can advocate for him, this last time, I think I'd feel good about that. And I dearly hope someone would advocate like that on my behalf.
It is the right thing for me to do.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Money, class and respect
My girlfriend looked at my blog this morning, sniffed and looked at me slurping my first cup of coffee.
"Slacker" she said.
Who knew it would be such a demanding thing to maintain a blog?
I've been thinking a lot lately about class. I asked my friend J to write something about money and the division of wealth in Maine, and she did some, but of course what I really wanted was somebody else to write my opinion down and publish it so I could say "See! That's what I've been saying all along!"
Oh well.
Seems like this is one of those times when if I want someone to do my job, I'd better get me to do it. Damn.
I grew up blue-collar Irish. I was taught early to resent people with more advantages than me, to resent the wealthy and those for whom things seem to come easily. Never trust anyone who doesn't have calloused hands, I learned.
So here I am living in an island paradise. Years have come and gone since I was schooled in the fine art of hating the wealthy, and I have done some recovery and growth work, so I try not to compare my own internal insecurities to other people's external appearances, but there are times when it gets tough.
I pause here to catch my breath and so I don't sound like a raving nut-head. That and it is a small community where I live and it does not bode well to speak ill of anyone particularly those in a position to hire me to do things on their properties.
I guess what offends me is the attitude of some of the wealthy. Maybe it's just the nouveau riche, I don't know. I know people with lots of money who do not behave in a manner that screams "kiss my ring."
Attitude bothers me, and I guess the waste associated with excess bothers me. When some of the owners of big, fancy mansions and estates order $30,000 worth of shrubs, pay workers to for their labor to put them in, and then decide "no, I don't like them, take 'em out!" That's the stuff that makes me crazy. It offends me that people can simply throw away the labor and effort of craftsmen who take pride in their work, simply because somebody didn't think ahead far enough to know that 12-foot high shrubs would block the picture windows looking out over the harbor.
What was paid for those doomed shrubs could pay my rent and heat my home for a year, plus buy some groceries. And it was thrown out because it was bought by stupid people who can afford to waste things.
On the other hand, I know people with lots of money who use it carefully, not flinging it around in flashy ways. Investing soundly in real estate, spending wisely to maintain and protect that investment. They treat the hired help like humans, not like appliances; they understand that skilled workers have knowledge that is valuable to their investment and they listen to it.
Perhaps what this boils down to is which kinds of people value me and what I have to offer. I'm not an expert, but I do know some stuff about stuff. I know some stuff about building stuff, some stuff about politics, and some stuff about life. I haven't lived this long and not picked up a few things of value. I guess I just like to think that someone else values what I do, appreciates what I know and what I can do, and will not simply throw it away after I have worked hard to create a thing.
I wonder how much of the animosity within the discussion of class and wealth and socio-economic status has to do with our (my) own insecurities. The uber-wealthy may be as insecure internally as the working poor. How awful it must be to have to rely on others for everything! How vulnerable it must feel to have to rely on people to make the hard look good, the house look good, and the food to taste good. I cannot imagine not knowing how to take care of things. I learned how to change the oil in a truck when I was 12, and how to rotate the tires when I was 10. Spark plugs and wires had to wait until I was in my teens.
It is easy to look with jealousy at people who have comfortable things and few visible struggles. Honestly, though, I know how I hate being at the mercy of my mechanic. I cannot imagine that kind of vulnerability every day to people who make life work.
Does this mean I have turned around to the point of pitying the poor, helpless rich folks? No. Not hardly. I reserve the right to resent the hell out of anyone who does not treat me with respect. I owe no favor to anyone who demands preferential treatment because of their social status. I kiss no one's ring. I kneel before no man (or woman). If that makes me difficult to live with, well, I guess I am not surprised. Or disappointed. I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees.
This has taken a very tangled path. This post has evolved over three (perhaps four) cups of coffee and several side trips around the web when my brain got stuck. What it boils down to, I guess, is a matter of respect. Don't demand what you have not earned. And respect is earned through competence, not through an inheritance or the stock market.
Money somehow seems to magnify the personality of the person who has it. A kind person who has money is seen in a saintly light. A jerk with money is seen as the consummate asshole. Arrogance is rooted in insecurity whether one has money or not, I think, and numbers in a bank account cannot make up for what is lacking in a person's insides. This has got to be frustrating to people whose only assets are in the bank.
I have no bankable assets, really, but I have more skills than many of the wealthy people I know. While money is appealing, I'd rather be able to rely on myself and my own skills to get through, I think. Having tools and knowing how to use them is more appealing to me than having money and having to rely on everyone else.
"Slacker" she said.
Who knew it would be such a demanding thing to maintain a blog?
I've been thinking a lot lately about class. I asked my friend J to write something about money and the division of wealth in Maine, and she did some, but of course what I really wanted was somebody else to write my opinion down and publish it so I could say "See! That's what I've been saying all along!"
Oh well.
Seems like this is one of those times when if I want someone to do my job, I'd better get me to do it. Damn.
I grew up blue-collar Irish. I was taught early to resent people with more advantages than me, to resent the wealthy and those for whom things seem to come easily. Never trust anyone who doesn't have calloused hands, I learned.
So here I am living in an island paradise. Years have come and gone since I was schooled in the fine art of hating the wealthy, and I have done some recovery and growth work, so I try not to compare my own internal insecurities to other people's external appearances, but there are times when it gets tough.
I pause here to catch my breath and so I don't sound like a raving nut-head. That and it is a small community where I live and it does not bode well to speak ill of anyone particularly those in a position to hire me to do things on their properties.
I guess what offends me is the attitude of some of the wealthy. Maybe it's just the nouveau riche, I don't know. I know people with lots of money who do not behave in a manner that screams "kiss my ring."
Attitude bothers me, and I guess the waste associated with excess bothers me. When some of the owners of big, fancy mansions and estates order $30,000 worth of shrubs, pay workers to for their labor to put them in, and then decide "no, I don't like them, take 'em out!" That's the stuff that makes me crazy. It offends me that people can simply throw away the labor and effort of craftsmen who take pride in their work, simply because somebody didn't think ahead far enough to know that 12-foot high shrubs would block the picture windows looking out over the harbor.
What was paid for those doomed shrubs could pay my rent and heat my home for a year, plus buy some groceries. And it was thrown out because it was bought by stupid people who can afford to waste things.
On the other hand, I know people with lots of money who use it carefully, not flinging it around in flashy ways. Investing soundly in real estate, spending wisely to maintain and protect that investment. They treat the hired help like humans, not like appliances; they understand that skilled workers have knowledge that is valuable to their investment and they listen to it.
Perhaps what this boils down to is which kinds of people value me and what I have to offer. I'm not an expert, but I do know some stuff about stuff. I know some stuff about building stuff, some stuff about politics, and some stuff about life. I haven't lived this long and not picked up a few things of value. I guess I just like to think that someone else values what I do, appreciates what I know and what I can do, and will not simply throw it away after I have worked hard to create a thing.
I wonder how much of the animosity within the discussion of class and wealth and socio-economic status has to do with our (my) own insecurities. The uber-wealthy may be as insecure internally as the working poor. How awful it must be to have to rely on others for everything! How vulnerable it must feel to have to rely on people to make the hard look good, the house look good, and the food to taste good. I cannot imagine not knowing how to take care of things. I learned how to change the oil in a truck when I was 12, and how to rotate the tires when I was 10. Spark plugs and wires had to wait until I was in my teens.
It is easy to look with jealousy at people who have comfortable things and few visible struggles. Honestly, though, I know how I hate being at the mercy of my mechanic. I cannot imagine that kind of vulnerability every day to people who make life work.
Does this mean I have turned around to the point of pitying the poor, helpless rich folks? No. Not hardly. I reserve the right to resent the hell out of anyone who does not treat me with respect. I owe no favor to anyone who demands preferential treatment because of their social status. I kiss no one's ring. I kneel before no man (or woman). If that makes me difficult to live with, well, I guess I am not surprised. Or disappointed. I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees.
This has taken a very tangled path. This post has evolved over three (perhaps four) cups of coffee and several side trips around the web when my brain got stuck. What it boils down to, I guess, is a matter of respect. Don't demand what you have not earned. And respect is earned through competence, not through an inheritance or the stock market.
Money somehow seems to magnify the personality of the person who has it. A kind person who has money is seen in a saintly light. A jerk with money is seen as the consummate asshole. Arrogance is rooted in insecurity whether one has money or not, I think, and numbers in a bank account cannot make up for what is lacking in a person's insides. This has got to be frustrating to people whose only assets are in the bank.
I have no bankable assets, really, but I have more skills than many of the wealthy people I know. While money is appealing, I'd rather be able to rely on myself and my own skills to get through, I think. Having tools and knowing how to use them is more appealing to me than having money and having to rely on everyone else.
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