Night Terror

Summary

The author reflects on the personal and societal challenges of aging and family care in North America, recounting their experiences with their father's nursing home confinement and the broader implications of cultural attitudes towards family and finance.

Abstract

The author grapples with the discomforting thoughts that arise at night, particularly those concerning aging and the treatment of the elderly in North American society. They recount their father's confusion and longing for home during his time in a nursing home, and the subsequent guilt and regret the author feels for not bringing him into their own home. The narrative delves into financial decisions, questioning the wisdom of entrusting a corporation with their father's care instead of using the available funds to accommodate the family under one roof. The author also reflects on their mother's death and the subsequent sale of the family home, influenced by their sister's manipulation and the societal push for independence over family unity. The essay underscores the author's realization of the importance of family as a support system, a lesson learned too late, after the passing of their partner, David.

Opinions

The author harbors deep regret over not providing a home for their father, blaming both themselves and the normalization of nursing homes in society.
There is a critical view of the financial exploitation by corporations in the elder care industry, seen as enriching themselves at the expense of the vulnerable.
The author expresses a sense of betrayal by their sister, who manipulated their father for financial gain, and laments the lack of family cohesion and support in North American culture.
The author reflects on their own naivety and inaction, recognizing their failure to question and challenge family and societal dynamics earlier in life.
A strong opinion is voiced about the importance of family as a source of care and financial security, contrasting sharply with the individualistic and corporate-reliant norms of North American society.

Uncomfortable thoughts on aging in North America

At night, I would often be woken by a train’s whistle, drifting up from the flatlands of Oakland. Gradually, the sound of metal wheels on the track would also make their way to me, a lulling, whispering, rhythmic click-click-clack, click-click-clack.

Once the train had passed, and the night once more settled, I’d remain awake, my eyes fastened to a ceiling I couldn’t see. As the sleeping city murmured and rustled, my mind would grow noisome with thoughts. Concerns. Regrets. Questions. These questions were not gentle. They were sharp, peppery. Sometimes pain would accompany them. Sometimes, that pain took my breath away.

I’d remember my father, in the early days of his confinement in the nursing home, suggesting, gently, it was time to go home. It was time to leave this place, whatever it was, that we found ourselves in. Sticking close by my side, so he’d be sure to get home, to not miss his ride, not understanding that home in the sense he meant no longer existed. He’d sold his home decades before. And my home? There was no bedroom available for him there.

And then, the castigation would begin. The lamentation. Why hadn’t I fought harder to bring my dad home to our house, home to family, home to the only people who would care about him, not just care for him in a perfunctory fashion, but really care. Love him. Why had I abandoned him to a nursing home? Why had I let our cruel society’s normalization of this practice persuade me it was okay?

On the financial front there were questions and missteps as well. Why hadn’t I used what money he had left to buy a larger place that could have housed us all? Why had I given that money over to a slippery corporation full of the fattest cats, enriching themselves at the expense of their fragile “clients.” Why hadn’t I kept that money in the family? Why hadn’t I a clue of finance, or wealth-building? I’d blindly trusted a nursing home, for Christ’s sake, to care for my father in his final years.

Then, I go back even further, remembering when my mother died, and my father was suddenly hell-bent on selling the house. And the way I hadn’t much questioned it. I knew he was being hounded by creditors associated with the money he’d “invested” in my sister’s ill-fated “company.” What I didn’t know was that my sister was urging him to sell the place so she could further fleece him. She wanted to “collect her inheritance” for said “company.” She recently told me, bald-faced and innocent-like, that she “assumed he was giving us all our inheritances too.” She took advantage of him. And us too.

I was too busy living my life to pay much attention, to probe, to ask. I was busy separating myself from my family because that’s what we do in North America. The notion of family unity, of the family being the bank, of family as fortress, that doesn’t exist here. We’re all so busy getting “independent” and essentially signing our lives and money over to corporate entities eager to help us detach from our family by providing all manner of “services.”

No, I didn’t understand what family was for. That all came much later, with David.