I have been a very negligent blogger.  I started this blog over two years ago, fully intending to write and post regularly.  Like so many people, I failed to take the time to do so.  Now, however, newly resolute, I’m beginning again.

Once again, feelings of sadness moved me to put my thoughts into words.  Until six years ago, we always spent Thanksgiving together, family and friends.  At first, we gathered at my parents’ house.  Then, when preparing the big meal grew to be too much for my aging mother, we went to my sister’s.  (By then, I had moved out of the area; and, besides, I’ve never liked to cook).  Fifteen years ago, my mother died.  In the years that followed her death, my father and I continued to go to my sister’s house for Thanksgiving.  I would drive to his house on Thanksgiving Day, pick him up, get to my sister’s around 4:00, spend a mostly congenial afternoon and evening with good food, conversation, and board games, take my father home around midnight, and drive home the next day.

This was my pattern for many years.  Then, seven years ago, my father died.  His illness seemed sudden at the time.  He had been managing on his own, stubbornly insisting on living alone and taking care of himself, since my mother died.  He always told us that he was in good health and never shared any negative reports with my sister and me.  However, he had been going to the hospital for hyperbaric chamber treatments to heal some wounds that just would not heal on their own.  One Friday in May 2000, when the hospital staff went to rouse him, my 87 year old father was unresponsive.  They immediately admitted him to the hospital.

His condition worsened steadily after that day.  At first, not knowing about all of his health problems, we expected him to get better.  My father, innately optimistic, also expected to get better and go home.

My brother-in-law had, for quite a while, been taking my father to his doctor’s appointments.  Once my father was admitted to the hospital, my brother-in-law also was the one who was asking questions and calling me to give me information.  After several frustrating exchanges in which I asked about something and my brother-in-law said, “That’s a good question! I didn’t ask about that”; I suggested that we both talk to the doctors.  I called my father’s primary care doctor the next day.  After getting my father’s permission to discuss his case with his daughter, the doctor called me back.

My father had had surgery for cancer a year or so prior to this.  As far as any of us, except of course for my father, knew, the operation was a complete success.  My father’s doctor broke the news to me that they “didn’t get clean margins” and that the cancer had returned.  In addition, because my father had previously had radiation, they couldn’t radiate him again.  Because of his age, he was not a candidate for any other aggressive treatments.  My father’s condition, at that point, was stable, but, based on the information the doctor gave me, I was sure that my father would not live until the end of the year.

The doctor seemed relieved to be able to share this information with a family member.  I can only guess that my father never authorized his doctor to discuss his health with my brother-in-law, and my sister never asked.  They both were shocked to learn of the cancer.

Like my father, I am innately optimistic.  Despite all that I now knew, I hoped, so very hard, that we would have him for longer than I really knew we could.  He went from the hospital to rehab to home and then, after a crisis when his platelet count plunged so low that it was a miracle he survived it, back to the hospital.  From there, he went to rehab again.  Not too long after that, it was clear that rehab no longer was a realistic option; and he was just a nursing home resident.

My father hated living like this, unable to do anything, unable even to get the movie channel he loved to watch, and in constant pain from his arthritis (and probably from the cancer).  He refused to complain, especially to the nursing home staff.  We tried to act as translators.  When my father told me that he was a little sore, that meant that he was in pain; and I told the nurses that he was hurting.  By the time we got to the end of August (or even earlier), my stubborn, courageous, taciturn father had decided that was ready to die.

My father died on September 11, 2000, the day after Rosh HaShanah.  My sister expressed relief and said that she was happy to get her life back.  My sister, who still lives half an hour from where we grew up,  had, along with my brother-in-law, borne the brunt of caring for our father.  One of them would visit him in the nursing home almost every day; they took turns.  Once exception was the days that I visited my father; they took those days off.

I live a three hour drive from where we grew up and almost four hours from the nursing home.  I drove there and back every single weekend and was upset that I couldn’t be there more of the time.  I still try not to feel guilty over that, although my father made it clear that he didn’t want me to put my life on hold in order to be there.  I was not at all relieved at his death; I was desolate.

My brother-in-law had often made it clear that he though I should be doing more for my father, although he never could explain how he expected me to do more when I didn’t live nearby.  He was angry, as he often is; and he directed this anger at me.  He eventually admitted that he resented helping my father as much as he did and felt it to be a burden.  I am very glad that he never showed this to my father.

My sister supports my brother-in-law in everything he does, even when it means alienating or rejecting her only sibling.  She has proved this to me more than once.

I had always wondered whether my sister and I would still have a relationship once both of our parents were gone.  We are so different.  We are, in fact, opposite in every conceivable way.  Still, she is my sister.  That’s important to me.

We had to communicate for some time.  We had to clean and empty the house.  My sister, who is a realtor, took care of selling it.  We had financial matters to resolve.  And then we had nothing.

I spent the Thanksgiving of 2000 at my sister’s, a sad Thanksgiving for me, notable mostly because of my father’s absence.  I’m not sure if I was there for the Thanksgiving of 2001.  I definitely have not been back since then.  In fact, I have not seen her for at least five years, although I have tried.  She has not agreed to any of my suggestions.  We have not even spoken for at least a year, and this tears at my heart.

I realized about three and a half years ago, after one of the few conversations that we have had, that my sister dislikes me.  I’m not quite sure why that surprised me, but it did.  The realization surprised me and grieved me.

Now we are rapidly approaching another Thanksgiving, two days away.  I have not heard from my sister; nor do I expect to.  I know she will spend a happy Thanksgiving with friends and her husband, and I do not begrudge her that.  I also know, though, that she will not spare a thought for her only sister; and that makes me profoundly sad.

For some reason, in this year, seven years after our father’s death, the loss of my sister upsets me more than ever. I will try not to dwell upon it this Thursday. I doubt that I will succeed, but I will try.