i’ve been concerned about my parents’ mortality.
\nbeing an only child of two single (for all intents and purposes) parents, all of the aging-related issues and concerns fall upon my shoulders. i’ve started to think that i should schedule weekly phone calls with both my mom and dad. conversations we will not miss. for any reason. if one is missed, i will immediately assume the worst and rush to their home and hope not to find a partially-decomposed body being eaten by the cat. (you know, they both have a cat now, but never while we were all together did we have one. just the dog who was frightened of me. interesting.)
\ni really worry about that. that they will die suddenly, without provocation. die in a manner which is unpredicted and tragic. they will expire and i will never have the chance to tell them all the things you’re supposed to say to someone when you know they’re about to die.
\nthe other thing i fear is a lingering, degenerative disease which will eat away at them slowly, painfully until there is nothing left of them but a deflated balloon draped over a deformed skeleton, with tubes and monitors weaving themselves around — inside, outside — the body i used to think was impervious to everything. every<\/i> thing.
\ni don’t want to be alone.
\nregardless of how long i go without seeing or talking to them, knowing they are there, living their lives, i know i will never be alone. i will always have a place to go. someone will always love me. if i need them, they will be there. unconditionally. forever.
\ni try not to think about these things. they make me cry. they make me uncomfortable. they make me very, very frightened. to know that at some point, near or far, i will be the only one like me left. alone. an orphan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
i’ve been concerned about my parents’ mortality. being an only child of two single (for all intents and purposes) parents, all of the aging-related issues and concerns fall upon my shoulders. i’ve started to think that i should schedule weekly phone calls with both my mom and dad. conversations we will not miss. for any …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}