Ever have anything dawn on you, or strike you with an unnoticed significance, years after the event? Betcha most of us do. But…I’ll bet this one takes the cake.
My mother died of self-inflicted cancer — she smoked herself to death — when I was pregnant with my son. Said son is now around 40 years old.
That means she died about four decades ago.
At the time, my parents lived in Sun City, Arizona — a revolutionary dwelling arrangement for the still-kickin’ elderly and retired. Their dearest friends from their ten-year sojourn in Saudi Arabia had joined them there shortly after they found the place. Ruth and Hollis, this couple were named.
Ruth and my mother were like sisters. The four of them — the two women and the two men — formed a tightly knit unit, almost as close as a family. When my parents retired to Sun City, Arizona, Ruth and Hollis soon followed, buying a house in the same tract a couple miles from my parents’ place.
Over time, my mother smoked herself to death.
After it was discovered and announced that tobacco smoking was linked to a number of cancers, my mother went meh! and continued to puff away. WTF? It was coming from Big Brother, after all, and his evil Gummint Agents who desired nothing more than to control our lives. Right?
Yeah. Right.
She smoked constantly. No joke: She never spent a conscious moment without a fu*king cigarette in hand. First thing she did before she lifted her head from the pillow in the morning was light a cigarette. Last thing she did before she turned out the light at night was light a cigarette. Hell, she even smoked in the shower! She smoked every goddamn one of her cancer sticks down to the filter. Or, if it had no filter, until it was about to burn her fingers.
Not surprisingly, she did indeed develop a nasty cancer, and it did indeed kill her.
***
Some years before then, Ruth and Hollis had moved to Sun City, where they passed much of their time in my parents’ company.
My father struggled to care for my mother through her hideous last months, weeks, and days. And when she died…
…when he most needed a friend…
…those two moved away.
Ruth remarked to me that the horror of my mother’s ugly death was more than they could cope with.
Uh huh.
And how was my father — their alleged dear friend — supposed to deal with the horror?
Let me tell you what I think about that:
A thousand curses upon them
Damn them, damn them, and damn them again.
He needed their friendship.
He needed their support.
They didn’t have to do anything other than BE there, out in ugly Sun City, to be his friends, to say they cared, to assure him that (maybe) life would go on. Yes, even without Julie.
But they yanked that out from under him.
Ruth told me they couldn’t stand to watch my mother die.
For the LOVE of God, how the fu*k did they think my father felt, watching my mother — the most profound love of his life — die in horrific, terminal agony?
The cruelty of their abandonment, the meanness of their behavior, has only recently struck me…come back to smack me upside the head.
Damn them!
I never knew what happened to them, after they left Sun City and fled back to Texas. Sincerely, I do hope they each suffered horribly. But…rather doubt it. If they were smart enough to stay out of an HMO (my parents had no clue!), maybe they got decent medical care in their last days. But…who knows?
A thousand curses on them, and may those curses ring down through Eternity.