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my mom will die in australia
singapore sunset
I just got another long email from one of my aunts with the line: "It is sad that we have to tell you that A has only a short time left to live." Apparently it is 2 months max. Mom will be in hospital for a couple days then will go into hospice. Clearly, she will not be able to move back to Europe as she intended.

I hope this doesn't mean i have to go back to fucking Australia. I don't know if my aunts are trying to guilt me into going back or if they legitimately just want to let me know what's up... I don't care. I am super fucking busy at work right now and there is lots of stuff I haven't posted about here (yet) that is leaving me extremely stressed out. Plus my company is American, which means they only give 2 weeks vacation every year and 0 weeks anything else (bereavement leave, family leave, sick leave etc).

Am i shit for not wanting to use my pitiful vacation allotment flying to a country that i hate just to either sit in a hospice or go to a funeral or both? That will literally make me want to kill myself.

My mom says she's happy with the life that she had, and i hope she is. She resented her job as much as i resent mine. The one thing she did different is she got her ass out and enjoyed the weekends, which is something i rarely do any more. So i might be projecting if i think the world screwed her out of happiness.

Then again, it doesn't really matter what she thinks if she only has weeks to live anyways. Not like she can turn it all around.

I'm exhausted. I didn't sleep properly last night partly because of work shit and partly because i don't know why. I just want to spend some time enjoying my new apartment, looking at the mountain, learning how to cook on an induction stove, reading some books, practicing my Chinese, all that stuff that makes me happy. Fuck work. Fuck family. I'm so tired.

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If you have unfinished Mom business or she does with you, and it's important to you to finish it, and you can get there in time, then maybe, yeah, depends. BUT funeral? Fuck no. It would be a sacrifice for nothing. You don't need to go and shouldn't. You are not shit for that. (Says the woman who did not go to her own Mother's funeral when time and money were no issue. She was dead, what the fuck did she care? That was nearly 15 years ago and I've never regretted my decision once.)

That is the angle I have been thinking about it. Like, is there "unfinished business"? I don't think so.

As I got older I started sharing more things about my life. In particular two things I kept secret from my parents for a long time was my regret/confusion around the sex change and my drug use. Both of those things I've talked about now, and of course they weren't as big deals as I thought they would be.

I feel a lot more upset that my father never told my grandfather I was trans so he died thinking I was still his golden grandson.

It's good to hear you don't feel bad about missing the funeral. It's not like I don't love my mom or don't care about her as a person. But if it's the end it's the end. Just before I left Germany she came to visit me in Berlin and we spent hours walking around town and going to coffee shops and just hanging out chatting about everything. It was great. I don't think anything we could do in this last little bit of time could help give better closure than that.

Also, I was glad I did not see her at the end when she was in pain and not very conscience. I much preferred my memories of her as a happy, lucid, sharp, hilarious Mom that she was.

Edited at 2019-03-05 11:47 pm (UTC)

What was her job? Sounds like you didn’t get on much. It has crossed my mind that I might outlive my Australian sister, who has no spouse or family there. I think she’d forgive me for not going to visit her when she’s dead.

She worked her way up from lecturer and prof to associate dean at a university. Although the hours were theoretically good (work at home time and semester breaks), she was always stressed. I think she is a lot like me - always wanting to make sure things are running the very best and not settling for a half-ass job. It's probably a self-inflicted form of stress that will happen no matter what job you do.

I really love her a lot actually, and when we do talk we always have really long, great conversations. But we don't talk often, maybe once every few months. That's still more than I talk to most of my friends.

Sorry to hear the news about your mum. Have you been able to phone her since?

I never use the phone 🤦‍♀️ The only time I have ever used my phone in... years is when I am applying for jobs, and even then only for the companies who are still living in the stone age and refuse to email.

Mom and I exchange long emails every few months or so. I started ramping up to every week recently, but the last few weeks I haven't gotten any emails from her, instead I am getting emails from her sisters, which feels weird and impersonal. Perhaps I will try to email her again tonight after work.

I think Susan gave the best advice here. Sorry you're dealing with this.

i'm sorry about your mom. :( but it sounds like you and she had a good relationship, and i agree that susandennis has the best advice.

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