ReallyMe-
Thank you for your post.t was truly insightful as to the correlation between my father's preoccupation with money, and his own fate. Years before, I had warned him that he was setting himself up as a King Lear prototype, and I let him know as well that I was certainly not interested in the Cordelia role.
I had a much older brother who I had never been told about, who was a a ward of the state due to brain damage. When mainstreaming became the norm for those in institutions, my father became alarmed at the idea that he might have to assume some financial responsibility, and he enlisted my help in going to the institution, etc. I loved my poor brother at first sight, and for the first time I perceived my father's N traits (somehow I couldn't discern this before, despite the incredible privations and abuses that I myself suffered as a child).
Later my brother contracted pneumonia, and he was sent to the hospital where he caught a "super-bug", and was kept in hellish torment. No one could enter the room without a "spacesuit" type of gear, etc. My brother was strapped down, fed through a painful tube, almost totally blind, mentally challenged, with no hope of recovery. He was a gentle and innocent sentient being in constant pain and isolation. I was stricken by this and did all that I could to help him. I spoke with his social worker about instituting a no resuscitate order, which would have spared him the torment he was going through, and she reacted as if I were a serial killer. I think he was the perfect client for her at that point.
My father was unmoved by my brother's plight, called me a "little fool", and said that he feared getting stuck with the bills if he meddled in the matter. I tried to initiate legal proceedings in order to get standing in the matter to no avail. I offered to shoulder the financial responsibility, although I was not wealthy like my father. My mother was completely out of the picture, I didn't even know her whereabouts, and she also had abandoned my brother.
My older brother, a prominent person who had left home the week of his 16th birthday and made his own way, was unmoved when I asked for his help and support in the matter. All of the "smart" people in the family were confortable; only the fool had nightmares every night.
My brother died in his torment and I still cry at the thought of his reticent and gentle manner, his life and his death. In an odd way, my father's last days mirrored my poor brother's. He begged for help, wanted to go home to his gigantic house, wanted to be placed in a decent facility, yet I could not overcome the machinations of his wife, and her power of attorney. I did what i could, yet I remained the despised Little Fool.
Even the burials of my father and eldest brother bore eerie similarities. My eldest brother was interned in a pauper's grave, with murderers and homeless unidentified "strays". My father did not inform me of his death until it was too late for me to make arrangements. My father had bought some expensive plots many years before. His wife actually told me that she couldn't afford a casket (my father often presided over Masonic funerals, and many times took over the expenses for poorer lodge members, etc so this was ironic). My father had a large steady income, real estate worth millions, etc, so this was beyond nutty. I think that she tried to sell the his plot, but was foiled by the law. My 'King of Funerals" father was cremated, his remains placed in a cardboard box, and given a pathetic service. My other brother did not even show up.
Love is what matters. I told that to my NH who just left. He also said that I am a fool, that all marriages are loveless. But I refuse to continue my family's sad legacy.
