The three words that floated through my head before I fell asleep last night were:
Impenetrable, inured, indefatigable
I thought of how my father has given me this wonderful vocabulary, how we studied for the spelling bees, how he encouraged me to read so many books, way beyond my age level. How yesterday, on the phone, I thought the word “inured” and two second later, he said it. Nobody will ever, ever take this away from me.
Impenetrable and indefatigable are similar enough. My spirit and drive and force of will yesterday would not be stopped. It was even more rewarding that night, to know how it buoyed my father’s spirits, hearing how I had entered the battlefield, pushing things forward, maneuvering through the medical system and every time an obstacle came into my path, I pushed it aside. It truly is not a system designed around the patient, and the wires and tape and numerous locations and branches and divisions simply fuel the Hydra that it is, every time you lop one head off, two heads grow back in its place. I was absolutely drained & exhausted by 3:30, but I left work early & went home to update JWo, my aunt, and then a closing call to dad, just to make sure he knew everything I knew, and in case he had any other questions.
A lot of people have asked me if my mother knows about this whole situation. (My parents have been divorced about 6 years or so, and my father re-married 4 years ago.) I haven’t actually spoken with my mother in nearly 3 years. The topline is that we don’t have a relationship because I’m fat, which always shocks people, because even the most physique-obsessed people can’t comprehend severing ties with your offspring over weight. Believe me. I know it’s nuts, it’s taken a lifetime to get used to, and while I spent many hours and years fighting the reality of the situation, I have decided to put more energy into living my life than lamenting what could or should have been. I cannot control another human being, only myself. It may sound like a skin-deep problem, but with most everything, there is always more beyond the surface, and who knows, maybe someday I’ll finally write that book, “Fat Like Me” and give the whole subject the time & space it’s occupied in my world. This is a long-about way, but important background, of bringing us to the last word, inured. (Dictionary.com: “To habituate to something undesirable, especially by prolonged subjection; accustom”)
When I spoke to my father yesterday, he let me know that his friends alerted my mother to his condition, I think he wanted her to know so if she wanted to try & make peace with him, or in her own heart, she would have the opportunity. I of course indulged in 10 seconds of bone-cutting sarcasm, because she knows that for me, my father hung the stars in the sky, and she would know how all of this is ripping me in half, and someone capable of being a mother would set aside her own anger, her own problems, to support her child. My father, who hates the notion of me steeping my heart in anger for even a minute, chided me gently for it, and I reassured him, that 15 years ago, all of this would have hurt me so much more, but that I have gotten used to the mantra of not caring. And the word “inured” floated by in my mind. Always paranoid I might use a word incorrectly, I didn’t say it. But then he came back and said, “Yes, you’ve become inured,” and it was like we were hanging the stars together.