So I took Tom to the doctor again today, for a checkup, which went as can be expected. He was given medications, and we went home. Upon returning home, he started to cough up blood. So it was back to the emergency room again. While chest x-rays were being performed, I thought I'd check up on my mom, who's also in the hospital--only in Cincinatti. When I called to see how she fared, my aunt grabbed the phone, and began to scream at me just what a horrible girl I was for not visiting yet. Stumbling verbally in shock from a woman that has never raised her voice to me since being alive, I couldn't help but frightfully explaining that I had no gas or cash to make a trip to Cincy and back, and still be at work the next day--I included that Tom's doctor was literally two minutes away from our house, which is a big difference from mom's hospice, roughly 200 miles away. Not to mention that he was vomiting blood, which is, you know, sort of critical. This got me a string of lines from my aunt about being more concerned about my friends rather than my family, when it's more along the strand of "someone I can actually help is within two feet of me, and while I'd love to see my mom, my car has no intentions of running on fumes all the way to Ohio." And I mentioned, over and over again, that I was sorry for not being there. Over and over. Soon after, my aunt told me I should be ashamed, and that I was a horrible daughter for not being at mom's side the entire time (though her condition is fair--FAR from critical), and said she would tell our entire family about it.

Then the phone went back to mom, who seemed complacent in comparison. She mentioned Kim had a point, but not as harshly. When I called dad to tell him I was going to Cincy, he said to go friday when I didn't have to work, and that he'd also give me gas money to go...and that he needed to talk to my aunt about her behavior. The rest of my day has been spent playing "Threads of Fate" with Tom, who felt a bit better after getting home.

So that's it. My mom's family hates me now, because I don't get paid well enough to go back and forth to Cincy.

When I said I was the black sheep of my family, I lied. Now I really AM the black sheep of my family.

And it's today I realize, not exactly family-wise, that I've never felt this alone before.









--MURPHY--