Hungry Ghosts

My parents are selling their house. I am deeply disappointed. Not so much that it is my childhood home, but that it is a gesture of pissing in the wind. I'm not sure if I've witnessed such a blantant lack of gratitude for what one has.

I'm disappointed that my mother chooses to remain in deep denial and that my father isn't sure enough of himself to sit down and review various options before deciding on this permanent non-solution to mom's problems.

I think I've been extremely angered with her at times in my life, but this takes the cake. To ignore not just the material comfort and beauty of what she already has, but to ignore the obvious position that my dad doesn't want to leave the city, that he doesn't want to sell the house that worked so hard for, that after retiring just months ago, isn't quite ready for such a definite change, pisses me off.

Yeah, I am sad and a little angry that my dad doesn't stand up for himself, yet I know my mother's bullying ways.

I hate, hate what is happening and yet there is little I can do. I've offered to do the footwork to help establish a blueprint of options, the idea of renting the house out and explore other areas being the top one. I've offered to work out the arrangements even.

I wrote a three page letter to them voicing how selling now just doesn't seem the right time, the neccesary decision.

I've spkoen with their friends, and everyone, everyone knows it's the WRONG thing to do.

As far as I am concerned, when my dad dies and if my mother survives him, she's on her own. I hope she's saving up for a good senior home because I am not taking care of her. I'm washing my hands of her.

Her personality has a hunger that she feeds the wrong foods to. I am not her soul food, neither is my sister or my father. She's more frightened of herself than anyone I know. I feel that I've made very decent attempts to "be there" for her, when it was convenient and when it wasn't, when she was helping herself, and when she wasn't.

But she seems to want want want, the Chinese (and I'm sure other cultures have similar terms) have what they call "hungry ghosts" and that's what my mother has.