Reference: Lifespan of a Memory

My aunt comes marching in the door, quickly heading toward the bathroom. This must be important. My aunt doesn't just make casual appearances. She's anything but casual. She's usually caught in some haughty picturesque clothing, which highly differs from her attitude. She's rather down to earth so to speak, very blunt and slightly crude. I like that about her. She sits on the couch, next to her sits my brother. Beside me are my mom and sister, and my dad rounds out the group siting on the other side of my aunt.

We all knew why she was here. She wanted to talk about her brother... my dad. We're killing him. Very literally that's what we're doing. This is how she feels at least. It's been a while now since my dad told me about being diagnosed with Sarcoidosis. It's a multi-symptom disease in which the person may have difficulty breathing, serious fatigue unchanged by sleep, and a host of other symptoms. We haven't, as a family, been doing our part to ease the pain dads feeling. He takes it upon himself to drive everywhere do all the food buying, cooks, cleans, does "chores" for other people, and not to mention he works.

I've done what I can. I try to cook, clean, take my siblings where they need to go, and I definitely try to help out finantially. In fact, that's what I'm still here for, otherwise I'd have tried to go off to another college in a land far far away! Now you may be thinking "Where's the mother in all of this?" That's why my aunt was there.

My mom's always been kinda... vacant to say the least. She spends most of her time on the computer and when she's not doing that she's on tv or watching a movie. in the past 5-10 years it's gotten really bad. She's lost multiple jobs, she's gaining weight, and it's harder for her to function in general. She never cooks and the thought of her picking up someone from school or wherever they need to go is seen as ludicrous! My dad, apparently knew when he married her it would be a struggle with her. (That's another post.)

My aunt began to cry. We we're killing her brother all because we we're too lazy, and we allowed him to do all the work. She cried so hard it started to effect me and I'm a sociopathic asshole. She asked us all what we could do to help eleviate some of dad's stresses. I emphasised everyone trying to cut back on the peripheral outings. These are the things that leaves dad picking people up at all hours of the night. My sister said that my mom should help her with her "feminine needs." (yuck) MY dad goes to the store with my sister and gets tampons, feminine wash, powders, and makeup and shit all the time for her. I think my mom needs to wake up!

I love my dad and would do anything for him. I'm slightly afraid that my mothers subpar performance might keep me at home for much longer than I want to be. Both parents are obviously getting sicker and I think it's up to me to take care of them. I'm beginning to think I'm going to sacrafice my life to make my parents happy. It depresses me just thinking about it. My siblings both don't work, I do. My mother does now, but is nearly useless when she comes home, and now my dad's sick. I feel so lost and the kids aren't helping.

When my aunt left we all felt like we had some sort of epiphany. Things had to change. My aunt suggested seeing a therapist for my mother (We all really need one.) She also said she will help me get a car so I can act on my own a bit. Things haven't changed much in the past couple days. We'll see. I hope everything goes well. Hope is all I've been falling on so far.

I want everyone's memory of this conversation to last a long time. The next day my brother even with my suggestions decided to "hang" at some kid's house, which is all fine and dandy but they didn't give him a ride home so now I'm sitting at his school waiting a half an hour for my brother to walk there from this kid's house and my mom was "too tired" to do anything. This was the night I planned on hanging with D. I had a ride to and from where I had to go. He didn't. So now my friend was sitting waiting for me while i was sitting waiting for him... Memories die quick. I will be here forever.