Abeline

The tears were coursing down my face and my shoulders were screaming as I pumped his chest to the counting coming through the phone, the responders were coming and I just needed to hold on til they arrived. Mum and Joe stood to one side, watching, their faces in shocked open-mouthed poses, their arms holding each other up.

- nothing’s happening, I gasped. Keep going, 2, 3, 4

The responders arrived and shooed us out of the room while they worked on dad. Mum, Joe and I stood in shocked silence until I realised what we were doing

– he has a do not resuscitate doesn’t he – what are we doing?!?

– we’ve got him breathing again.

- o shit, it’s too late

We spent the next 36 hours in the hospital, by his bed, gratified that he was at least unconscious and not aware of what was going on (we hoped). Mum was in complete shock, none of it had sunk in, though we were both hoping that, after having been dead for around 20 minutes, he would now slip away – the ramifications of what might happen if he didn’t were too terrifying to contemplate.

Mostly what I was feeling at that moment was horribly guilty for having helped to bring him back. I felt I’d made him endure all the pumping and pummelling to be brought back for what?, this unconscious semi-state that nevertheless looked very uncomfortable and distressing. He’d slipped away quietly, a little gasp and he was gone, lying on the sofa, watching Wimbledon. Why had I subjected him to all that followed?

I don’t know if I’d gone into coping mode but other than the guilt, I was remarkably calm. It wasn’t so much of a shock to me; when my parents had moved back to the UK a couple of years previously I had registered that they’d both aged, and that dad in particular seemed to have given up. On some level I guess I must have been expecting it. When they’d arrived back I had a mini breakdown – Joe was 17 and I was just starting to look forward to some freedom and getting my life back on track and now I’d be looking after my bloody parents for years to come! I dealt with/got over that but now, suddenly, I was reeling at the future that was now facing me. 

Already I knew we’d have to move in with mum, I’d have to take over everything for her; dad had looked after every part of her life and she was utterly unaware of how to pay a bill or inflate a car tyre. I couldn’t imagine her being happy staying alone in that huge house, or wanting to move into a flat. And she was in a dreadful state, she already was displaying all the symptoms of grief: she felt the ground was swept from under her – she was dizzy and kept loosing her balance; she’d had the wind knocked out of her – she couldn’t catch her breath; in 2 days she aged 20 years. I didn’t know how I felt about living with her. Actually, I did know how I felt, I wanted to run, screaming, for the hills and never look back, but I knew that wasn’t an option.

I’m an only child and have always had a love/hate relationship with mum. She poisoned me against dad at an early age, telling me all her issues with him and everything that he did wrong, and of course I’d hear them screaming at each other at least weekly. I became her partner/best friend/mother as a child and my sole purpose in life was to make her happy. I later realised she had been an alcoholic manic depressive at the time, so I’d taken on an impossible task. I have spent my adult life in therapy trying to work out this relationship and mine with myself, as a result, and not gotten very far. I’m not good enough, there’s always something, I will never be able to please her – but that doesn’t stop me killing myself trying.

And here we have what I would term as a nightmare situation, but I will have to just shut up and put up, and smile and grit my teeth, and move into her house and live by her rules… I’m not entirely clear why I have to do that, but I know if I didn’t, I’d be a terrible daughter and all her misgivings about me will come true. All I knew now was I must do my duty and look after mum.

– me and Joe’ll move in with you, ma 

- no, don’t be silly, give it some time. 

Meaning yes please, when will you come? And by the way, can you stay with me tonight, you can sleep in your dead father’s bed. Sure, I have no problem with that.

Oh My God.

So she’s trying to Abeline me and I’m trying to Abeline her and christ it’s always been like this and will we ever stop? 

There are many things I’ll remember dad for, but his early teaching of the Abeline paradox is definitely one. I wonder if, even at the time, I was unconsciously taking it on board for future use. So she says she wants what she thinks I actually want, when in fact she’d rather do anything else, and I do the same, and neither of us ends up ever actually doing what we really want to do. Her big thing is sacrifice, she’ll offer you the food from her plate if she thinks it’ll make you happy, and, knowing this, do you take the food or decline? She’ll always sacrifice her needs and desires to yours, though she’ll be sure you know she’s done that. As a result, you tell her what you think she wants, not realising that the sacrifice is all she wants, the actual issue at hand is immaterial.

And so we find ourselves at a stand off. Here we are, neither of us being truly honest about what we feel, need or want, both trying to guess at what the other truly desires, to be able to offer it on a silver platter. Add to that my coping strategies and the fact that we’re standing over my dead/dying father’s bed and it’s a stalemate. We decide to regroup, go home, get some sleep (in dad’s bed – eugh) and come back in the morning.

At 3am they phone me to tell me he’s died (again).