Hell Upon Hell
i called my aunt she's 82 and after a couple of broken femurs she can barely get off the couch anymore she spends all day stuck the couch contorted in front of the tube while her husband tries doing laundry making food and going to the store "i feel worthless" she said now she even has to wake her husband in the middle of the night to help her out of bed so she doesn't soil herself "i can't even allow him a decent night's sleep" she said her husband a man of the community in more ways than one driving their son to success that was never in his cards the father her husband my uncle a lifelong community server stuck now at home too and she said she can't leave the house anymore unless she's in a wheel chair but it doesn't matter much since the only times she leaves are to see her doctors i felt genuinely sad and defeated like always when i can't ignore anymore how the game's overwhelmingly rigged in hell's favor then i asked my aunt about the rest of the family she mentioned her daughter my cousin who had a baseball sized tumor removed from her brain over a year ago she said she's recovered well though there's residual problems but they're considering taking away her benefits including insurance since she could sit at a computer and do something for a living now that she's recovered she said her daughter at 57 without a lot of skills if she loses her insurance will have to pick it up on her own at a cost more than she'll ever be able to make but she'll have to do it cause the cost of treating the residual problems from having a baseball sized tumor removed from her brain is even worse "so what's a person supposed to do?" she asked what a shitshow i thought what hell all around i thought even before the tumor my cousin always seemed to have it rough bad marriages a kid in prison and when out always strung out and laborious jobs that never panned out no money no decent men and parents as upstanding citizens who made it clear they desperately wanted her to be more like them then my aunt told me how she and her daughter despite their troubles still can't get along "like cats and dogs" she chuckled "the ways it's always been" again i felt cheated and defeated wondering why an acknowledgement an understanding of mutual suffering doesn't lead to something else perhaps suffering's too strong a word for what they're both going through it may be too strong but it's probably pretty close and i can't imagine why in the midst of so much suffering they still can't refrain from giving one another even more suffering i dunno i think maybe people just get used to their suffering they find ways of appreciating it maybe even savoring it once they've decided there's nothing else sometimes i feel like i'm trapped in a bosch painting or sartre's play i'm trapped with nowhere to go nothing to do except crawl under the dirty carpet and hide and weep at this whole goddamned predicament and sometimes i wish i'd never made that call to check up on my family like i'm supposed to then again theirs is a reality of a kind i don't get just sitting here with my coffee and keyboard
mrobins71 