Ok...this is probably a GenX question/situation.
I got an anonymous email today to tell me my biofather has been put in assisted living.
Like most early GenX, I was feral, I rarely saw adults and when I did, abuse was brutal and constant.(I was born before abortion was legal, and my mother never let me forget it.) I left her house at 13 and made my own way in the world. (Now, those are some stories!)
I've only seen my father 15 times since I was 7 and they divorced. He's never met my kid, and she just turned old enough to buy booze.
It's not like if he'd ever reached out, or tried to visit I would have said no. I've had the same email address and land line! since 1995, and there are only three people in the world with my name.
I haven't spoken to any of my biological family in years.
I don't know what to do with this information.
Should I try to go and make peace and say goodbye? Will his current wife, barely older than me, let me? Will he even remember me?
What would you do?
@MissConstrue
I'd be leery of any/all anonymous emails about family, quite frankly. Anybody can masquerade as anybody else on the internet.
@MissConstrue I’d it’s not a burdensome drive to say goodbye I would do it. @ClaraListensprechen4
@Pineywoozle @MissConstrue
...if the email was for real, and it might be a scam.
The thing about Altzheimers is that it's famous for wiping memories, and while you might want to do it, you'll still be a stranger saying goodbye.
And I should know--that's how my own dad died.
@ClaraListensprechen4 I did think about that but it doesn’t seem like it would make anything worse and it might give closure. Just my take. @MissConstrue
@Pineywoozle @MissConstrue
Of course. More theraputic for you than for the one you're visiting. And that would depend on how many decades have passed. There comes a point where the past is simply water under the bridge. Before you get to that point, that would make sense.
@ClaraListensprechen4 @Pineywoozle Yeah. I literally have not seen him in person since 1987. He didn't come to any of my graduations, never came to see my child, who is now 21, he's never sent birthday cards or xmas cards or anything. Also, he disappeared my entire inheritance from my grandmother, because while he got older, his wives got progressively younger. He's lived large his whole life on family money, none of which my sister and I ever had access to.
This is a dude, who was a millionaire in the 80s and fought paying $120 a month child support.
Also, he's a republican. But I suppose that goes without saying. ;) (I guess I'm more angry about him than I let myself realize.)
For good reason, looks like.
@ClaraListensprechen4 I am so deeply sorry you experienced that. Thank you for sharing, I know reliving it is painful.
Greatgrandmother (Beloved's) was an amazing woman and Altz robbed her of everything. It was so hard to watch. She thought I was her sister, and I just played along, and got the most amazing stories of them growing up in the Dust Bowl during the Depression, but I would give all those stories to have given her peace and not fear at the end.
@Pineywoozle @MissConstrue
Old folks in nursing homes don't necessarily have dementia but they have to live with those who do and it'll give any sane person a hard attitude.
But there's a factor of decades and the physical changes that go with it. Anyone not keeping in touch won't recognize the person you've become even so.
@ClaraListensprechen4 My great grandad always thought I was my mom and it was kind of interesting even as a kid to get that glimps into her relationship to him. Like I said I think there might be reasons that make it worth the effort but for sure don’t invest in it being some dream reunion etc. @MissConstrue
@Pineywoozle @MissConstrue
Wise words, piney. Like I said, it depends on where things are at.
@ClaraListensprechen4
Yep, plus he might still have lucid times. Also onne of the best vids I ever saw about dementia was a woman whose mom had retreated into her adolescence. At first the woman struggled to make her mom be her mom and it was sad and angry by turns…then she decided to just get to know her mom as she was and it was mournful letting go but then joyous to the end as well as edifying about how her mom came to be the woman she loved as a mother. #Alzheimers @MissConstrue
@Pineywoozle @MissConstrue
Yeah, I had those moments with my dad, to be sure. Playing recordings of the music he was familiar with in his younger days brougth fourth associated memories that would get him talking, but he also got all judgy about the music I picked out...all lighthearted novelty music that my mom was into. Well, I tried.
@ClaraListensprechen4 It does often seem to take the judgy filter off and sometimes about the most random shit. LoL
@MissConstrue
@Pineywoozle @MissConstrue
I should add that I have those same tunes on my play list, for me to hear now and then.
Louis Prima, Guy Mitchell, Milton Berle, ...here's a sample, Guy Mitchell:
@ClaraListensprechen4 I like old novelty songs.😜 One thing I did with my mom long before she got dementia was to find old movies from her childhood and watch them with her. Then when I started living with the BT I got him to watch them with me and we talk about my mom. She passed only a few years after they met but he loved her. He and I often sing old Danny Kaye songs from movies. @MissConstrue
@Pineywoozle @ClaraListensprechen4 @MissConstrue I have a pair of stoneware goblets from my Ren Faire performance years, that a potter made me, one has a pestle and one has a dragon, so I have a 50% chance that one of them has the brew that is true. 🤣. I love Danny Kaye movies!
@MissConstrue That would be the vessel with the pestle lol
@MissConstrue Ack, it’s the chalice with the Palace that has the brew that is true lol
@Pineywoozle Ah, but when the chalice was broken, it was the flagon with the dragon that had the brew that was true!
I understand that Danny Kaye was no great family man in real life, but here's a toast to all the kids who delighted in his public one. And to Hans Christian Anderson.
@ClaraListensprechen4 His kid loved him but there were issues with both parents being equally creative and only one getting the accolades. Women doing anything connected to comedy has always been a struggle, far less now but I knew friends starting out in stand up even 30 yrs ago who had to put up with being either dismissed or demonized..
@ClaraListensprechen4 @Pineywoozle Oh...you know, I'm gonna have to never look that up. There are some people in my fantasy life, like movies and authors, that I just can't bear to have milkshake ducked. Like...Kate Hepburn or Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart or Ted Geisel. I cannot ever know anything bad about them.
@MissConstrue @Pineywoozle
Ya, I can understand keeping fantasyland in fantasyland though I'd like to point out exceptions among those performers who share their personal stories and hardships and do very well nonetheless--even when they were female comedians going down that rough, rough professional road dominated by males.
Carol Burnette case in point, and she was featured as a comedian as far back as the original Twilight Zone. 30 years ago? That road got so much easier for the likes of Judy Tenuta.
Judy was also preceded by Cloris Leachman and Phillis Diller, two other megawatt trailblazers.
@MissConstrue @Pineywoozle
How could I leave out Lucille Ball?????
@ClaraListensprechen4 @Pineywoozle @MissConstrue And a perhaps ridiculous fear is that I strongly take after my mother, physically. If you put pictures of us at the same age next to each other, it’s kinda spooky. I would hate for him to think I was her.
@MissConstrue I wondered about that.
@Pineywoozle @MissConstrue @ClaraListensprechen4
I know it seems like an opportunity to put your early life trauma to rest, but I have to say, I am of the "let sleeping dogs lie" school of thought. No matter what you do, there will be a resurgence of pain. There was rarely an interaction I had with my mother that didn't leave me feeling like shit. I took care of her affairs, but after a point decided not to put myself in line of fire. Didn't visit for 2 years before she died. No regrets.
@PandaChronicle @Pineywoozle @MissConstrue @ClaraListensprechen4 Dig. If it was my mom, as mercenary as it sounds, I would go only to ask for all the old portraits of family nobody else remembers. Daguerreotypes from the 1800s, All of the paperwork and records from Nakba, all the ancestors I know, photo albums of my grandparents, but will be thrown away by whomever clears out her stuff. I know that sounds terrible, but I miss seeing my grandmother every day.
@MissConstrue I don’t think it’s mercenary. I love all the old family photos. @PandaChronicle @ClaraListensprechen4
@MissConstrue @Pineywoozle @ClaraListensprechen4
That doesn’t sound mercenary at all. those pictures that hold any good memories might bring you some peace.
@PandaChronicle Awww, so sorry and I get it. I think it’s such an individual thing that each of of have very different takes and they’re all valid.
@Pineywoozle @MissConstrue @ClaraListensprechen4 yeah, I’d have to fly across the country, in a pandemic surge when nobody is masked and Im immune compromised. Back in the day I’d make the 19 hour drive, but now…that’s a hella road trip.
@MissConstrue It sounds like you made peace with his negligence , so given the circumstances I wouldn’t go either. @ClaraListensprechen4
@ClaraListensprechen4
Yeah, I thought that too, but I have mad research skills, and was able to track his voting record to that address, and discovered that all of his properties had been sold, or redeeded to his wife's kids. The facility can't tell you if patient is there, if they are dementia or altzheimers, but I can ask them to ask the power of attorney to release the information. Whether she will?
Altheimers and dementia do not run in the family though, so I'm not sure why he's there...if in fact, you so astutely point out, he is there at all.
I've been trying to figure out a scam angle on this, and am coming up empty, but emotions are high, and I absolutely welcome common sense! Thank you.