Betrayed

It's quite possible that betrayed may be a bit too harsh for my title post, but I'm rolling with it anyhow.

I feel like we have been 100% completely surrounded by death and heartbreak the past month or so, I honestly don't know how much more my heart can take. First, it was the grandma of a childhood friend, who was kind of like a grandma to me. Then it was my dad's good friend, and then our neighbor. I still grieve- DAILY- for our neighbor, and honestly I think I will until the day someone else moves into that house, or we move off of this street. It's a constant reminder of how short life is, when I look across that street and see an empty driveway. It's terribly upsetting to take the kids out to play, and look over there waiting on him to bring his kids out like he always did, until I remember...

then came the passing of several celebrities. These really didn't affect me on a personal level, but I had already been cloaked in heartache for those that did for several days now, and so I kind of felt like I identified with those families more than I would have under normal circumstances.

Then, today comes. My mom calls to tell me that my grandpa is in the hospital. This is unfortunately a slightly frequent occurrence because he's had lung cancer and health problems that have resulted from it. For several years now, cancer free. She says that they are running cardiac enzymes to see if he had a heart attack, because he went to the hospital with chest pains. On top of other things, he has small vessel disease, and therefor cannot find a doctor to do stints in his very blocked heart. It's a scary situation, so any type of chest pain send them to the ER just to be sure. Mom mentions a PET scan, blood test, and headed home tonight, will call when I hear something new, etc, Bye.

Then husband calls. He's been out of town for a couple of days, and I notice that the conversation is strange. When he calls I tell him that I think I have figured out that I would like to go to NYC for our anniversary- given that a good friend of mine just posted her new NYC pics (Hi!) and I am just itching to go :) Husband seems very agreeable, and asks me several times "What else is going on?" and I respond with the normal chatter like "Oh, doing laundry.." , "Oh, unloading the dishwasher.." etc. Then husband says that we need to talk when he gets home, which is something that no one should EVER tell me, because I do not like delayed news, surprises, anything unexpected, or anything resembling any of those things. So I hound him until he says "Your mom called me today at 7:15 bawling her eyes out, and said that your grandpa had a PET scan and his cancer is back. She said for me to NOT tell you until we get back from vacation because she didn't want to ruin your trip, and that I HAVE to figure out how to convince you to go to WV to pick up daughter when her visit is finished from up there, I told her there's no way I can convince you to do that unless you know that there is a reason."

I am beyond devastated. My grandpa has had large portions of each of his lungs removed, and I don't see him doing chemo or anything like that. And even worse, with this feeling I have of NOT knowing what is going on, or what course of treatment they will take, or what the prognosis is, I can't even call anyone to ask because I'm not supposed to know. Not only that, I'm the ONLY one in the family that "doesn't know".

I understand that my mom thinks she was doing me a favor by not telling me, when I think quite the opposite is actually true. I can't count how many times I have heard her say that someone was sick and that no one bothered to tell her, and that she felt upset and can't believe that they would keep it from her, etc, and here she is doing the exact same thing to me. the EXACT same thing! In the grand scheme of things, a vacation is not important compared to knowing things about your family and being involved and prepared. I am a huge family person, no matter how far away, and to keep me in the dark is just so hurtful. And to call and burden husband with that information and expect him to be ok about keeping it from me just makes no sense. Now I'm in this horribly awkward position of knowing and being terribly upset, with no one in the family to talk to about it, and having to act as if I don't know when I do get told, so as not to damage the relationship between my mother and husband.

The past month has just been so hard, on my heart. Not in health, but in spirit. I know now more than ever, that we have so much and so much to be thankful for, but I am just mentally spent. I am physically suffering. My stomach is sick, my chest is tight, my emotions are just out of control. And I think, understandably so. Right now I just want to be so far away from all of this, and it seems like every time we turn around another thing has gone wrong.

So for those of you that do, please say a prayer or kind word for my family. I can't tell you how good or bad things are, because I am in the dark and totally clueless. But I can assure you that to think or pray kind things never hurts, no matter the circumstance.