In a few days, I’ll be turning 32. That means it will mark 32 years of constantly being guilted for living a “privileged” life during which I always had a roof on my head and food on the table to eat. It will mean 4.5 years since losing my brother, who had not only that guilt daily, but our parents’ constant criticism that led to his untimely death.

It’s always the same repeated issues with them. I found out when my mom called today that the doctor had told her that some of her recent x-ray results were in, so they presume she had pneumonia, but they’re still unsure. To see if it is this, they’ve prescribed an antibiotic specifically to attack the potential pneumonia. She has a five-day course, and hopefully she will be better. Assuming this all works and helps her, she’ll be fine. What I told her today was not fine was that my dad failed to answer the phone and purposely avoided answering the phone when she had made it clear that there was an “emergency” yesterday. That’s not acceptable. Here I am, on the other side of the country concerned, and he just ignores me. And THEN he tells me to ‘quit calling’ over e-mail, which is just stupid.

Maybe in a normal family, my mom would acknowledge that my dad should have just answered the phone and was flustered, and he should have just told me about the x-ray results and just said not to worry. She would have said, sorry that we made you worry; we really didn’t mean to. He was just exhausted. Next time, we won’t do that again. That e-mail he wrote you was inappropriate.

But that didn’t happen. Because… My family isn’t normal. It is everything but.

Instead, she defended him, saying he does so much for her, that no one else has done anything for her while she’s been sick (including me, of course), that I need to be grateful for all he’s done for our family because neither of us would have anything without him.

“How would you like it if you called me 20 times and I never called back when something was wrong?” I asked her. “If I call and you don’t answer the phone, then I’m just not going to call anymore.”

She completely misses the point. “Well, no one is forcing you to call. If you don’t want to call, then you won’t call,” she responds. “And, are you saying that if something were to happen to me that you wouldn’t even call home? You know, you’re so Americanized. You always see things the way you see them. You need to learn to be grateful. Who do you think paid for your education?” (It always, always comes back to this, doesn’t it?).

“Have you forgotten that I’m not your only child?” I was steamed. “Do you think Ed should be feeling grateful right now? The two of you do all sorts of things and you never, ever want to admit you are wrong! You think you are always right! You’re not always right! He isn’t here anymore!”

It could have easily gotten a lot farther than that, but I managed to temper my words. “I can’t believe you would say that to me when I’m sick,” she said.

I’m just so sick of all their arguments, their immaturities, their lack of logic for almost everything, from the simplest situations to the worst emergencies like when Ed went missing. Nothing they have ever done has had any logic. It all followed some irrational thinking, some immature path that led to nowhere. In their eyes, I am always wrong. Everyone else is always wrong. They are always right. There is absolutely no other way it could be. The older I get, the less and less patience I have for all this.

What was so nice about the last two weeks was that I had nearly zero contact with my parents. It was so refreshing to not have to dread some senseless argument, listen to my parents accuse me of doing something else to hurt them or reject them, or really, any of their usual drama where they victimize themselves and make others out to be predators. The closest annoyance I had with them was when I had food sent to their house shortly after I came back, and my dad sent a pseudo-thank-you email. I call it “pseudo” because he basically said, ” Thanks for the food… But it arrived at 6:20, and we had already eaten at 5….” In fact, they usually eat at 4:30. Well, guess what? Delivery services for dinner usually start at 6pm — that’s considered a normal eating time. It’s not my fault that these restaurants don’t cater to his senior-citizen eating hours. And even so, they can eat the food the next day and the day after that. The food isn’t going to spoil. Why can’t they just express gratitude and leave it at that? Is it really so hard?

So the drama has to begin again once I get back into this country within a week. My aunt texts me to tell me that my parents hurriedly left the house in their car this late afternoon, and when my aunt asked my mom if everything was okay, all she said was, “It’s an emergency,” and ran off. That’s always a good way to make sure everyone is calm and collected. So immediately, my aunt is confused and tries to call me to let me know. I wasn’t immediately alarmed given the nature of my parents and their secrecy, so I called their house and their cell, and no response. Multiple calls later, still no response. My aunt then calls to inform me that they’ve arrived home, but my mom is resting according to my dad. So I figure, okay, now they are definitely home. So I called the house. Three times. No response. They can clearly see it’s me on the caller ID. Why is he not answering the phone?

I call my aunt again and tell her that they still aren’t answering the phone, so she suggests that I e-mail my anti-social dad. So I email him and asked why he wasn’t answering the phone, and that my aunt said it was an emergency. What was going on? Is everything okay?

Within a few hours, this is his exact response: “It is not an emergency. Quit calling so many times.”

So, I have a few thoughts on this response. 1) He failed to disclose what the issue was, 2) he’s completely deaf to the fact that my mom called this an emergency, and anytime anyone calls anything an emergency, with normal people who actually care, well, they might actually be concerned, and 3) maybe if he actually was going to be a mature human about this, he could have… I don’t know… just answered the phone and told me what happened so that I wouldn’t have had to call so many times?

On my last full day in San Francisco early this month, my dad caught a bad flu. I’m not sure how it happened, but he did. I really didn’t think much of it at the beginning. Everyone gets sick at some point during the year, especially during winter. And because my mom loves to mother him like crazy, she got too close to him and even drank out of his cups and bowls, and so she got sick, too. So the last nearly three weeks, they’ve both had terrible colds and flus. My mom has been asking me to come home to take care of them “if you have time.” That’s her passive aggressive way of saying, “if you care, you will come home and take care of us. If not, you’re a terrible daughter and don’t give a shit about us.” I’ve been calling regularly to see how they are doing, but that’s not enough.

My aunt who lives upstairs from my parents came home a few days ago from a long trip to China and Hong Kong, and of course, she realizes they are both sick. So she texts me to ask me if I know they are sick and if I’ve been talking to them. Well, obviously I’ve been talking to them. They’re my parents, and yes, I do talk to my parents. Then, to exacerbate the matter, my cousin then texts me the exact same question, phrased as, “I’m coming back to visit mom and see your parents (that really means… I’m coming back to see my mom, and your parents just HAPPEN to live downstairs, so, I guess I will see them too since I can just knock on their door). Mom says your parents are both sick. Have you talked to them lately?”

I don’t know if either of them realize this, but basically what they are doing is by asking that, they are implying or asking if I care that my parents are sick, and doubt whether I even talk to my parents. Because apparently, since I moved 3,000 miles away, I don’t care about my parents. Because I’m not like my cousin, who basically calls his mother (my aunt) a few times a day every single day to give her updates on stupid things such as what I ate today and how the temperature fluctuated in Sunnyvale and if I washed the dishes, there’s no way I care about my parents as much as he does. Because I’m not codependent like he is, because I’m not still attached at the umbilical cord, because I don’t wish my spouse were just like my dad, maybe I don’t think much of my parents.

What they all need to realize is that I left home to survive. Ed stayed home, and now he’s dead. I talk to my parents at least two to three times a week now, which is a lot given how dysfunctional they are; that’s more than most people around my age I know who have happy relationships with their families. I have done a lot for my parents, and I really don’t need my relatives breathing down my neck to ask me to do something so basic as to call my parents because I already do it, and I don’t need to be told.

I spent this afternoon leisurely working on my scrapbooking project, which I’ve neglected since the summer time. While in my crafty mode, I was interrupted by my mom’s call. Her voice is grave, and I can tell she’s completely exhausted. In her words, “I have no juice left” (she likes to think she’s a battery). She’s been taking care of my dad’s every need since Friday when his cold started, and now, his cold has somehow blown into complete body aches and pains, as well as a fever of 101 F. She’s worrying, and of course, she thinks he’s going to die. “I need to share this with you because we’re immediate family, but no one else,” she says. Yeah, because the next thing I was going to do is email our entire family and extended family to let them know my dad has a fever.

Maybe a few years ago, I would have been a bit alarmed by this call, but this time around, I don’t really feel anything. My parents blow every situation out of proportion. It’s exactly like the cliche of “the boy who cried wolf.” If you cry all the time, no one will take you seriously.  My mom makes herself worry so much that she gets sick. But she also does that just by babying my father and making him seem like he’s incapable of even getting a glass of water. “You just don’t understand how weak he is when he’s sick.” Actually, I do. Unless you’re cripple, you’re not too weak to get off the couch and get a glass of water in the kitchen which is just about 30 feet away. He acts like a baby. And she loves to enable it and try to make me feel sorry for her, which I don’t anymore in these situations. You can tell she’s probably going to get sick in the next couple of days in the same way she did back in January when my dad was sick when I came home, and she worried so much that she had to take medication for her ailments and came down with the worst cold. Sure, he might have a fever today, but maybe it could be gone tomorrow. I’m sure I’ve had a fever at some point when I was really ill in September, but I don’t immediately think I’m going to die because of it.

And who knows. Maybe every time I post something like this, I am just waiting for the worst to happen. And then I’d write about that. I’m just so done with listening to all this worry for the sake of worry. And I’m sick of witnessing their vicious cycles of babying and whining.

After my work day ended today, I checked out of my hotel and went back to my parents’ house. My mom was clearly disappointed that I’d been in town since Monday night and hadn’t seen her, but that was obviously due to scheduling and the fact that I wasn’t even in the city for three of those days due to our work retreat. Because my dad was feeling under the weather (as I am, unfortunately, too), we ate dinner together at home.

They’re having some construction work done on the house; they had insulation put into the walls of the bedrooms and also had new insulated “green” windows put in, which means that not only do they retain heat and prevent the cold from seeping through the glass, but they also prevent UV light from fading colors on photos, carpets, and such. My bedroom, even when the heat was not on, was noticeably warmer than what I was used to.

I sat on my bed for a while, doing nothing, which is actually extremely hard for me to do. I stared at my brother’s large framed photo, the same photo in the same frame from his funeral (I hate saying “my brother’s funeral” — that sounds like shit). And then I got really angry, wondering why my parents are deciding to do all this construction now so that Ed can’t even enjoy or reap the benefits of all this. Ed wanted to get new windows. He asked for insulation and more warmth in the house, and he never got it. He even offered to pay for it with his own money despite not earning much at all. And they both rejected his offer and said he was being ridiculous, too high maintenance and demanding of fancy things. The criticisms just rolled off their tongues. How can you want so much when you don’t earn so much? they would respond in various ways.

I don’t think they remember this, though. They probably block it out of their heads, try to forget all the ways that they failed their only and now dead son. They probably don’t remember that Ed wanted these things, or they choose to ignore it. When my mom originally told me a few weeks ago that they were having the windows re-done, I immediately blurted out, “Why didn’t you do this when Ed asked to do it?” I couldn’t help it; I was so infuriated. Even simple things that Ed asked for… a warm house… that could not be granted. It’s not like we were ever poor or lacking money to do these things. We were just being cheap.

On the flip side, at least my parents can enjoy it now. I’m happy they’re doing this now… but I’m angry they ignored Ed’s requests. They should be doing things to make their home more comfortable for themselves, as they’re clearly getting older and have a greater need for warmth and comfort. I just can’t help but be angry about how much Ed was ignored for his entire life. It’s like the anger just can’t ever go away.

I’ve been a little stressed this week because I had two meetings scheduled today with customers that we were ill prepared for, primarily because a colleague on my end didn’t really do his part in organizing the content, so I went to sleep last night feeling very uneasy.  In the end, both meetings went well, but I woke up this morning from a nightmare that really put me in a worse mood.

I dreamt that I was at my parents’ house, and we were all having a family meal together. Ed came home with a guy… who he announced was actually his boyfriend. I suppose this was his way of “coming out” to us. My parents were shocked and angry, and basically ignored the presence of Ed’s boyfriend. And the little bits of interaction they had with him, they were extremely rude and passive aggressive. It was not a fun meal.

Once he left, the screaming began. My mom screamed louder than I could remember, saying that he was already a screwup, but now he’s gay and bringing home men? My dad’s heard in the background, name-calling Ed. And Ed yelled back until he couldn’t take it anymore and ran into the bedroom and slammed the door. I followed him and comforted him as he sobbed in my chest. “It’s okay,” I soothed him, rubbing his back and holding his head. “We’re going to get you out of here. I won’t let them hurt you anymore. Fuck them. You’re going to survive this. We’re moving you out of here.” We started to pack his bags, and since we locked the door, our mom tried to enter the room but couldn’t. She banged on the door over and over, and we refused to let her in. “I’m not letting you in here to destroy Ed!” I screamed through the door. “I’m getting him out of here, and you can scream all you want! You can’t do anything! LEAVE ED ALONE!”

I think I’m going to have dreams like this until the end of my life. They will never end for me.

I was on the phone with my mom, and she asked if Chris had any upcoming work travel given I’ve been traveling this week. I told her that he’s going to be in San Francisco all week next week for his company’s annual conference. Her voice lit up. She said, “Oh, he is? Well if he is, we should get together for dinner at least one night. Tell him.” I told her that he won’t have time to see her because he’ll be consumed with conference events. But what I really wanted to say, which I held back by literally holding my breath a few times, was, “Dinner together? You want to have dinner together with the man whose house you recently threw knives in, and who you said you didn’t have to respect because he’s ‘black’?”

Not all of us have amnesia and just forget stupid shit that she says. Ed never got over the hurtful words she and our dad used to say to him repeatedly over and over, throughout the course of his entire short life. And now he’s dead, and she’s wondering what went wrong. REALLY? YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED????

I don’t want him seeing them.

I got so frustrated with my mother the other day that I actually told her that she should make an appointment to see a psychologist. Maybe this doesn’t seem that outlandish in the average family, but in my family… these are the things that get scoffed at. My parents thought Ed was weak when he was 18 for seeing one, that he merely used it as an outlet to “talk bad” about his parents to “some outside person” who gets paid too much money. Chances are that seeing one will never help her because she lies endlessly to “outsiders” not in her immediate, immediate family about everything and anything, but her constantly telling me that, “you know I am suffering from depression?” is driving me crazy.

Well, you know what? So I suggested this to her, and two days later, she says that miraculously, her “depression” has improved and she feels so much better. She has “God’s word” and her two good (and annoying) JW friends to keep her company and comfort her, and I call her a couple times a week, so that’s enough for now. Wasn’t that just so convenient?

She refuses to be helped. She just seeks attention and abuses terms like “depression” and “anxiety” to get what she wants. She gives a bad name to the people who are truly suffering… like her son once did, and she did nothing but make him feel worse.

Sometimes, I really don’t know what to say to my mom. She complains endlessly about suffering from depression, picks fights and disputes with people who cares about her who really aren’t trying to harm her, but she insists they harm her, and she expects me to constantly feel sorry for her and is always asking why I don’t come home more often as though home is the most amazing and lovely experience I could possibly have. Today, she was complaining about missing Ed, and said that my dad didn’t want to hear what she felt and what she had to say. “Your dad is useless to talk to,” she mumbled. “He doesn’t care how I feel. No one cares about me other than you. I have no one other than you.” Then, she went on to tell me that my aunt’s good friend just got diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer, but she’s coping well because her husband is so supportive and always comforts her. “She’s so lucky,” my mom comments. “Her husband actually takes care of her and helps her and listens to her. He comforts her with words. I don’t have that.”

I couldn’t say anything. What am I supposed to say to that? Everything she’s saying is true. My dad doesn’t comfort her; he doesn’t know how to. He is so emotionally inept that just the mere thought of him trying to comfort someone makes me want to scratch my nails on a chalk board. And what am I supposed to do — defend him and lie, or agree and risk getting yelled at later for criticizing my dad?