My father left my mother many years ago. After
five children and constant arguments, he just stood up one day, packed his
stuff and left us. I remember my mum called his relatives but instead of their
support, she got abused emotionally and verbally by his siblings who bluntly
refused to help convince my dad to return home. Consequently, my mum raised us
alone.
Those years were very tough but more so for my
mum who struggled to make ends meet. As she worked so much, she lost track of
us and this led to some really wild times in my family; we got into all sorts of
trouble, making a challenging situation for my poor mother even more
challenging. Luckily, we outgrew those wild phases and turned out okay.
One night, my mum called me with the most
unexpected news – some relatives of ours had dumped my dad in her home.
They’d
shown up, woven some stories about my dad and how he’d been abandoned by some
woman months before when stroke paralyzed half of his body. While she was still
trying to understand what the story had to do with her, two of them had carried
my father into the house and dumped him on her couch. She was still trying to
process and protest when they took off so the end of her story was that my
father was in her living room …on a permanent basis. This was thirty one years
after he left.
My poor mother was a woman who had been
ravaged by the vagaries of life and time and honestly, she was a bit fragile
from all she’d been through. My siblings and I had recently been having
discussions on how to get paid care for her because we wanted to give her some
relief from the hard life she had. And now this happens. I was so mad!
I called my siblings and we all rushed over to
my mum’s house to behold a man we barely knew or remembered. For hours, we argued
on how best to handle the situation and no one suggestion seemed to sit well
with everyone. Being a religious person, I figured this was the perfect time to
turn to God for answers so I prayed. I also slept over that night. The next
morning, after cleaning my father up, I went to church and spoke with my
priest. Like I expected, he preached about forgiveness and told me to forget
the past, and encourage my family to take him in and care for him. So I went
home and talked with my mum and siblings. While they screamed their outrage, my
mum was quiet; she didn’t like it but she was also a deeply religious woman who
had witnessed the power of God’s grace many times in her life.
So, after three decades of abandonment, we are
caring for a sick man we barely know. I pity my mum the most because she has to
live with him but we got paid help and go often to help out as much as we can.
Everyone talks about how tough it is to clean the shit and piss of their loved
ones in such bad health conditions so try to imagine how tough it is for us to do
these things for a man who abandoned us without a second thought. My mum was
not good enough for him when he was able bodied but now, she’s perfect for when
he’s sick. My siblings are angry but what do we do? After the many times God
came through for us in our very difficult times, I’m worried about having
hatred in my heart or being vengeful. This act of charity is our way of paying
God back – at least that is what my mum and I believe. Otherwise, I would just
dump him by the roadside.
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