bunchofgrapes

Yesterday I got a text from my aunt: my stepfather was having trouble talking and feeding himself so he was back in the hospital. Going back a few months, my stepfather, John, had a mini stroke in July. He was supposed to stop drinking and smoking. He stopped smoking but like a true alcoholic, he had bottles stashed all over the house and kept sneaking the drinks. When I got the text, I figured it had something to do with him still drinking while on all the meds for the stroke. I talked to my mom last night. They found a mass in his brain.

After we got through her meltdown, we actually had a pretty good conversation about the reality of it all. John has anywhere from 30 days to a year and most of that probably won't be good. We talked about that as well. I don't know if mom will remember this conversation once the doctors confirm that it's cancer or John decides what he wants to do. He has a couple of options but nothing that will buy him more than a year. The cancer is in a bad location. They can operate but they won't be able to get all of it. If they do the surgery, it will be Friday. There's no guarantee they will get enough of it to make a difference; there's no guarantee he'll survive the surgery given his present weakened condition. I'll be surprised if they go this route. If they do, he might get a year. But it could be a year in a nursing home. He could do the chemo. It's a pill and they say there are no side effects. John has said he didn't want chemo but a pill and no side effects might change his mind. The last option is to do nothing and just let the cancer grow. It's an aggressive tumor so they've said this will probably get him 30 days to three months. Mom is letting John make the decision and so far I haven't heard what that is.

My cousin has asked me how I feel about all this and I have to say, I don't know what I feel. I'm sad for John, I feel bad that my mom has to go through this so soon after losing her mom but part of me doesn't know what to feel. I know my cousin thinks I should be very upset but that's because she's very close to her stepfather and estranged from her real dad. I'm not. I'm very close to my dad and John is sort of like...an uncle that I loved and I know loves me but we never really had much to talk about. My mom tried to push the whole "he's more like a father to you than your father" thing and I think in some ways I've always resented that because John has always been like a stepfather to me. He raised three boys. He didn't really know what to do with a teenage stepdaughter. I don't hold that against him. It just means we never really had much to talk about. Even when I call at Christmas or Father's Day or his birthday, we always have one of those stilted conversations followed by "well, here's your mother".

Mom and John moved in together when I was a senior in high school. A year or so later I was off to college. Moved back home for a year and a half after graduation then got an apartment with my best friend. Nine months later I was moving to Virginia. I remember him getting really mad at me when I drove home from college in a really bad snow storm and went off the road and down an incline. I remember coming home from work late one night and hearing the sounds no kid should ever hear their parents make. I remember that he loved wrestling and always pronounced it "rassling". I remember him falling asleep in the recliner. Actually, I think I mostly remember the bourbon drinks he'd fix when he came home from work. He'd have several of those every night, eat dinner, watch TV back in the bedroom, and fall asleep most every night. Those are my memories.

I always felt kind of sorry for John. He really is a nice, laid back guy while my mom is very controlling. I always wondered how he put up with her and once when she was being particularly passive aggressive, I asked him. He said, "well, I mostly just ignore her". I would say maybe that's why he drank but he was an alcoholic when he and my mother met.

When I started this, I didn't think I felt sad. Writing this out definitely helped unblock whatever it was I wasn't feeling. Please keep John in your thoughts and prayers.