First, I would not trust what your sister tells you.
Or what she tells him, Serenity.
You don't know what the sister is telling the father
or the brother.
My sister lies as easily as breathing. That I refused to believe she could be lying only made it easier for them. Like you Serenity, I began questioning and attacking myself to justify what they were saying and doing. It was all so crazy, and so wrong.
You are a fine woman.
Very strong.
And we are right here.
This is the horribleness of our families. We jump to the worst, based upon our histories with them. How could we do otherwise? Your our handling it well. Watch football. What else can you do?
Yes.
And pray. Remember that prayer Ann LaMott writes about? "Help!" "Thanks!" "Wow!"
If he wanted me in his last days, he'd contact me. Right now he is well enough to at least call me today, as he promised, to let me know where he is and how he is doing. But he hasn't.
I'm not jumping to conclusions yet. I am waiting to see what happens. That's all I can do is wait. And wait. Because he won't tell me anything.
I am puzzled, yet it figures, ya know?
Your situation will be different than mine. I like the way Copa sees and is thinking. But: My father's final illness occurred in the area where my sister lived. After his stroke, she was given (or did she take) responsibility for contacting sibs and keeping lines of communication open. Lies were told. A weave of lies, Serenity. When confronted regarding the no info/conflicting info pattern she was setting up, Sister hung up on us and broadcast that we had been rude, demanding,
and had hung up on her. It was all so weirdly, wickedly crazy-making that we didn't know what to think. We concluded that, though we might have been rude and had certainly been demanding,
we had not hung up on her.
That was the one fact that we knew.
Had my sister not hung up on us?
We wouldn't even have known that much. That is how well and convincingly they lie. She believed her own series of fabrications so deeply that she has, over the years that have elapsed, cast herself into a martyr's role
even as she continues manipulating the situation.
There is no win, in our situations, Serenity.
It is what it is.
***
It got worse, and more crazily complex, the longer it went on. When my father died, the true craziness began. And I have posted about that here.
Serenity, as Copa suggested too, I want you to stop beating yourself up on any level.
No family is meant to function this way. No daughter is meant to be away from her parent ~ away from the parent's wisdom or the parent's love, or from holding strong for and loving and witnessing the parent's life.
But in our dysfunctional families that is exactly how it is done.
Until you speak to your father, hold faith with yourself, Serenity. You do not know what he is being told. What you do know is that someone painted a picture for him.
The picture represents you as too fragile to cope. Whatever you do ~ anything you do that is not rock solid will only validate that lie that you are too fragile.
Stay steady state, Serenity.
Find a beautiful card that expresses your feelings for him. Send it with your love, tell him you miss him, ask him to call. No regrets, Serenity. This is not about the sister.
Kindness and honor to your father, now.
Kindness
and honor to yourself, now.
This time is for loving and remembrance and preparation.
Nothing to do with the sister. That is why the card. Direct contact between yourself and your father cannot be twisted into something ugly in a card.
***
I was never to see my father, again. I have posted here about the machinations and contortions and wickedness in the things that occurred in my family of origin after my father's death.
Don't let them twist you, Serenity.
You are a fine, fine woman.
You are very strong.
I am sorry this is happening
but I am not surprised.
You must not be surprised at anything that happens next either, Serenity. You do your personal best through this time. Do the next right thing.
Cedar