Death Becomes Her

I thought I would feel relieved once my neighbor Roberta died. Not because I didn't want her to suffer through the chemo and radiation and all of the other painful side effects of cancer, because I didn't want her to feel any kind of pain at all, I really didn't. As long as I've known her, she has had some form of pain. But her pain and suffering is not the reason why I wanted her to die a swift and painfree death...and it pains me to write this out loud and I am experiencing a lot of guilt because of this, but I started to seriously dislike Roberta during the later stages of her deterioration.

She used to come over every weekend and we would share a cup of coffee and she would eat some toast and hard boiled eggs. She claimed she only liked to eat the eggs at my house because she liked how I made them. I think she was lonely and scared, which was fine. I enjoyed spending my weekend mornings with her. She would eat and then take off after a few hours once we discussed the events of the previous week and of course, she wanted to be updated on what was going on for the following week. Some times she would stay all day and clean out my garage or rearrange my closets. There was always a surprise when I came home from work. I may come home to a weeded garden or she would put mulch along my garden paths. One time I came home and she had Masa install a new garage door for me because she hated the old one. She was always engaged, full of fire and energy and I heard earfuls of her colorful past. She liked to call me her California daughter, as her real daughter lived in New York and she never saw her.

She was a passionate and independent woman, if not a bit calculating and self-serving, but as a single divorced mother who was married to an alcoholic who beat the fuck out of her and then stalked her and beat her until the day he died, I can understand why she would not allow another man get close to her emotionally ever again. I didn't blame her for the choices she made in her life, even if I rarely agreed with her. But that was part of the beauty of my neighbor, we rarely agreed with each other, but we still liked to talk and hang out together.

However, as the cancer progressed and the treatments got more and more aggressive, Roberta turned into a person I didn't recognize. She started criticizing my every move, as a mother and a housekeeper. She didn't like my choices in friends, the foods I cooked, the way I arranged my garage, how I did my hair, the clothes I wore, etc. the list was endless but my patience was not, however, I put up with it because I knew she was sick and this was the illness talking.

When her critical eye was not focused on me, she would denigrate her other friends. I would get exasperated and ask her why she hung out with these people if she disliked them so much. She never actually answered my question but I knew that she was just full of bluster and that she really loved these people, some of whom she has known for over 50 years. Again it was just the cancer and the medication talking.

But when she started her racial rants (and not her usual ones like asian drivers are bad and mexican women just want to pop out as many babies as they can because they are uneducated), but the really, really bad ones about every single race, but if that wasn't bad enough, she started in on how she hated single mothers, poor people, people who are poor but spend over their means, people who have accents, the list goes on and on and on. The icing on the cake was as soon as she finished her first rant of the day, I already knew what the second rant of the day would be, it would be the EXACT SAME RANT AS THE FIRST ONE. It was as though her mouth was on a loop and she repeated the same story over and over again, until I couldn't stand it anymore and I almost would have to physically force her out the door. It was very difficult for me to spend more than a few minutes with her anymore. Our visits got shorter and shorter and fewer and further in between. And each time I saw her, she looked thinner and sicker and was meaner.

The last real conversation Roberta and I had was about 2 weeks ago. I spoke to her about getting hospice care instead of the palliative care she was currently signed up for. I won't go into the details but hospice care is a more comprehensive program for people who are very sick and can't take care of themselves anymore. She needed hospice care because the palliative care program was calling me at work telling me to go to Roberta because she was too sick to be alone. I also spoke to her about getting her daughter signed on as her power of attornery. She was getting close to that time where she wouldn't be able to make decisions for herself...She refused to take my calls or return my calls after that. I was angry with her because she was doing this to be spiteful to her daughter with whom she has had a poor relationship with for years. I've learned throughout the course of our friendship that she is the main reason she and her daughter do not get along. I was so angry that she would rather have strangers make medical decisions for her instead of her own flesh and blood (who by the way, wanted to be there for her mother and was doing everything she could to be supportive and caring, Roberta pushed her away too) I decided at that time to wash my hands of the whole thing and let Roberta do what she wanted to do. I wanted no part of it.

Roberta died today at 12:08 pm. I am not relieved. I am sad, tearful and heartbroken. I wish it could have been different in the end. I can't even begin to imagine what her daughter is going through. I just hope she knows that though Roberta was brusque, uncaring and at some moments, down right cruel, deep down inside, she was a loving and caring person who just had a hard time trusting the people closest to her because the people closest to her hurt her the most.

Roberta had a hard journey from the get-go. There is very little relief for her survivors, but I know that Roberta finally has relief from her broken past and her tormented memories. I now fully understand why we say RIP when a person dies.

Rest in Peace, Roberta, the pain is gone.