So much of pregnancy is waiting—to confirm the pregnancy is real, to feel the baby move, to have this increasingly cumbersome being finally on the outside. Of course, once the baby is born the list of things you wait for merely shifts.
What are you waiting and hoping for in the life of a family member?
My cousin, ten or so years younger than I, and I are now friends. We didn’t grow up knowing much about each other’s life. I was very fond of her mother, my Aunt Mary. I have now heard my cousin say multiple times that she hated her mother. I have let her know that I loved her mother but that we can still be cousin-friends. We have become closer as aging adults but do not discuss her feeling. I wish that before she dies, she will be able to forgive her mother for what she perceives as her mother’s dislike and “hate”. I can’t accept it as true; I believe that this feeling on her part hurts her a lot.
My grandparents are chronically ill, in pain, grandmother with dementia, grandfather is having severe difficulties moving. After a few decades in the middle class, they are now poor, which makes their life even harder, of course. I would like for them to die before their suffering gets any worse, just have it all be over. (I often wonder if I am a bad person for hoping that they die soon.)
No., Maggie., I don’t think you are bad for thinking of this. Lives that are painful or so limited generally are not life as we know it. A natural death or one prolonged by unsuccessful means in unhappy and uncomfortable old age is a blessing.