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julesmck

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  1. My warm, funny, generous mother (age 67) died in January, and I'm having a difficult time feeling much sympathy for my father because of the way he treated her as she neared death. He's never been the most considerate man, but her illness really seemed to bring out the worst in him. What follows is a laundry list of my grievances, so I apologize in advance - I just have to get them off my chest!: When she was first starting to go downhill, and it looked like we were going to have to take her to the hospital, he refused to go with us because he wanted to run an errand and he said to leave a note for him if we did end up taking her to the hospital. He practically ignored her as she lay dying in the living room (except to offer her a cigarette (!)), preferring instead to spend his time outside on the porch, gazing at her picture and crying. Because the cancer had metastasized to her brain, at the end she could no longer speak coherently though her mind was clearly intact. When she indicated she wanted her bed to be moved nearer to the window so she could look at the garden she had planted and cared for, he said it was too much trouble and that, "Hell, she's seen it a thousand times already - she knows what it looks like". (Of course we moved it anyway, but sheesh!) Another time my brother was reading aloud to my mother some letters she had received from her own (dear) deceased father, and my father said to my brother (within full earshot of my mother, to whom those letters were precious) "Do you want any of those letters? I'm going to throw that s$#& out anyway". When he would give her her pills, he would put them all into her mouth at once and clap his cupped hand against her open mouth hard, saying "she doesn't mind - this is the way I always do it". Nearly every day he would take my siblings aside and say "I wish she would die tonight - I can't take this anymore". As she got closer to death he would read and re-read the booklet the hospice people had given him, poring over the sections that described what people looked like near death, then examining my mother's body for the tell-tale signs. He even went so far as to lift up her shirt for us to examine her (non-swelling) abdomen, saying, "I think it's becoming distended" with more than a bit of excitement in his voice while my poor wide-awake mother could only listen mutely. It was as if she was a piece of meat! Now we hear through the grapevine that he told a family friend he guesses "we [his children] just didn't love her as much as he did because we don't seem very broken up about her death"! Sorry, Dad, but how would you even know since you have never once asked us how we're doing, having lost our mother and all. The icing on the cake is that he has diabetes but for the last two years has refused to take any of his medications, but once she died he started taking care of himself. I'm glad he's started to do that, but why wouldn't he do it when my mother was alive, when she needed him? My first question is, what kind of a person acts like that when their [supposedly beloved] wife of almost 50 years is dying and needs him the most???? Is he just a garden-variety narcissist or is he just plain evil? My second question is, how do I stop feeling resentment towards him? I love him because he's my father, but I no longer like him, and I sure as heck don't respect him. Thanks for listening, Julie
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