Monday, August 29, 2011

Dilemma in the making

My folks live a long way away from me. Sure I could drive there and back in a day but the journey isn't particularly nice. It takes you around the largest car park in the world (or part of the 125 miles that is known as the M25). Then the M11 which isn't too bad a road if it is quiet. It doesn't need much for it not to be. Then at the end of the M11 there is still as much time to drive although nowhere near the distance to get to them. So it could easily be 2 1/2 hours and often 3. That would mean me driving for 6 hours roughly as I'd be held up somewhere or other. of course L is going to Cambridge so I can perhaps fit some sort of double visit in but then you need to add a hotel stop on to that.

I'm not saying I don't want to but it obliterates a day entirely or two to make it a reasonable length of visit. We will go up in a couple of weeks time to see them as we are already heading up north beyond them. It means coughing for hotels rooms but I'm not really worried about that. I'm just sort of stuck about how often I can visit my dad. I think they used to go and see my granddad a lot in Hospital but I think that was once a week. I used to go when I was nearby up in London but got banned after granddad got to a point where he didn't want us to remember him how he ended up. I can understand that too.

It's at times like this I question why the moved away from here. Here where I could have seen them even in the evening and just driven down for an hour or two. But they moved away as did my brother and it kind of leaves me in a position where I feel a little bit bad about not being there to help out or visit. It sure is a quandary - what to do for the best.

As I said in the blog sometime ago I was a little bit annoyed when I finally calculated that my parents hadn't been down to see me whilst I was ill. Having said that, I've a feeling they must have come down for a day for some reason as they've sat in my comfortable chair that I bought just after I was ill. I wonder if they came down for a day with my brother. I think they probably did and dashed back home because of my brother's dogs. Mind you I might be imagining that as it certainly feels like a long time ago they were here. So, with the proviso that they might have made a visit in the past 5 years it still makes me wonder what I'm expected to do now that Dad's ill?

The thing is that I have to wake up to the fact that this will very probably be the cause of his death at some time in the future and maybe we will find out some more detail on Wednesday. It isn't going to be good news and I suppose they'll give him a series of options and we will just have to live with that. I'm sure he will set some rules and put them in place and things will be what they will be. I'm certain that it will just even out and I'll just have to make the adjustments I need to make and do what I need to do at the time. Now I feel helpless and have no idea what to say about it. Not sure what to say when we meet in a few weeks but that will just be another awkward moment that cancer brings about all too regularly.

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