I have several major health issues. None of them is lethal, but my quaity of life has been substantially affected. When my wife appealed to the Dope for help earlier this year, it was because the latest shitty diagonosis had so upset me that I’d become withdrawn and uncommunicative. Her concern was … inaccurate, but not unwarranted. If I’d gotten the news, say, ten years ago, I might well have reacted by giving myself a neat lead injection. But I have her now, and the kids; as discouraged as I have been, I want to live a good while longer because I want to witness as much of my kids’ lives as possible.
\I have told only a few persons about my situation: basicially my wife and stepdaughter, my siblings, my father, and my work wife. (My bio kids are too young to understand.) I’m sure my married siblings told their spouseds; i know my work wofe told her actual wife. But otherwise I asked everyone to be discreet, but I see no reason to spread the news. Everyone seems to have honored this except one: my asshole father.
Dad and I don’t get along, as that last sentence implies. I love him, but I don’t like him. He’s a Pentecostal Christian who believes in the myth of miraculous healing,for one thing–but then, so are my sisters. The bigger thing is that he’s convinced that he has a direct line to his fucking imaginary God, who will always guide him to the right path; consequently, anything he wants to do must be right. Like I said: asshole.
Over the weekend I got a phone call from a less assholish PC. Dad’s pastpr. whom I’ll call Bill. Bill’s a nice enough fellow, but in no sense of the word “friend” is he mine. I haven’t seen him since my brother’s funeral last year; I haven’t spoken with him in 30 yesrs. No previous antipathy on my part, just no desire to be around him. So there was no reason he should have my phone number. But he did. Dad had given it to him. Dad had, moreover, told him in great (and somewhat inaccurate) detail about my health issues, hoping that Bill might counsel me and lay his healing hands on me and get me to take Jesus into my heart. I told Bill that I had no more confidence in Jesus than I do in Herakles, and also pointed out that, if he and his congregants actually had any healing mojo, they should have been able to prevent the death of one of the church’s minister’s last summer from extreme idiocy, by which I mean refusal to take his diabetes meds. Bill suggested that I was allowing myself to be “deceived by the Enemy,” at which point I decided my time was better spent doing virtually anything else and hung up.
A while later Dad came by, as always not bothering to call first because, hey, who needs manners. In a conversation conducted via intercom. He’d heard about the conversation. Dad asked me why I refused to have faith; I asked him why he had told Bill all about my business despite promising not to. Dad replied that the Holy Ghost, by which I mean his own fuckking arrogance, had released him from that promise because it was more important to get me right with God. Once upon a time I would have explained to him the logical error of trying to frighten an atheist with the condemnation of the Almighty, but I was out of fucks to give, told him that he wasn’t welcome to visit or to see the grandkids, and broke the connection.
So that should be that. My wife is too nice to say that was long overdue, but I can tell she thinks so. My work wife is less nice. My stepdaughter has conflicting loyalties and is wisely choosing to say nothing, at least to me. My baby sister is concerned that I’m allowing emotion to lead me down a path that I’ll regret later. I don’t think so. I just don’t have patience for Pere Rhymer’s shit right now. I may never again. I don’t know. Anyway, I could luse feedback from people who don’t love me or him–hence you guys.
Thoughts?
