Reflections from Rural Oklahoma (Patreon)

if he's not dead by now, he's as good as.

"he had a full life," they said. "a good, full life."
this surprised me. not because of any fault of his own, of course, but because for the past ten years or so the only things i've heard about him have been his pain and failing health. i should've known better than to not take that with a grain of salt or eight, but then i'd need so much salt that i could give Morton's a run for their money.

originally my mother told me he had 3-6 months left to live. they found it late, and as old as he was chemo wasn't going to be more harm than good. he said he'd rather enjoy those last few months as best he could than fight a miserable, losing battle. but then, he'd always been like that. he would tell my mom of his chronic pain, and my mom would tell him that he should try this cool new diet that involved not eating wheat, dairy, sugar, or meat. she tried that diet for a while. think it almost killed her, maybe on account of not a whole lot of food being leftover besides. but it also made her symptoms quieter, so onward she preaches. her father would retort that he'd rather live one year enjoying all the most delicious, unhealthy foods the great american economy could offer him, than live ten years fasting on oats. he lived most of ten years since anyway. potato chips may be junk food, but i'm pretty sure they don't cause cancer.

a good, full life. more than my mother, anyway.

a few years ago we weren't on speaking terms, but when covid took my grandma, i chose to give her another chance. she was at arm's length, and we had issues to work out, and she blamed most of them on a gas leak. but even as recently as christmas we were on good terms. we had a nice meal, we saw The Boy and the Heron and it was good enough of a time that i thought things would just be fine. we got the prognosis in january, and i thought that sometime in the next 3-6 months i'd take a road trip with her, and it would even be just fine.

granted, i'm sure anyone would be destabilized by hearing that, contrary to the prognosis, their father is entering hopsice now. we had to start planning the road trip right away, as soon as it was feasible. it's a 12 hour drive, give or take depending on how you go. her car doesn't work, but a friend might've gotten her, or perhaps she'd rent and cass could drive? we began work-shopping modes of transport so as to minimize the amount of time we'd spend on the road with her. even on decent terms with her, i prefer not to be around her more than i can help it, and it evolved into a real farmer-crossing-the-river situation. she was understanding at that point though.

that ended when we got the word that his condition was declining even faster than the previous breach of expectation expected. "get down here as soon as possible" became "get down here NOW." he had one good day, and wasn't getting up after that. my mother's grandfather went out the same way. when my mother told me as much, i put on my big girl pants and said i'd drive with her both ways. she had a doctor's appointment on wednesday where she'd find out if the bloody sore on her back was her own home-grown cancer, but we'd go after that.

...only, she wanted me to stay at her house wednesday night.

her house is currently enjoying two different kinds of moth infestations. the outdoor moths are just there for the year, i'm sure-- that's happened before-- but the clothes moths have been there since 2008. she won't get the house bombed; exterminators use chemicals, and she thinks herself as susceptible to those as the intended victims. no wonder i've had nightmares of her and insects together since i was a kid. when we first moved out i saw shadows of moths everywhere. it would ruin my day-- had to clean everything and check all the linens for eggs. we didn't find any for the first year two-- and then we did. moved again. safe ever since.

i do not want to stay another night in that house, ever. i know the odds of me picking up an egg or larvae are small... they tend not to like active movement... but they are not non-existent. i remember one time my mom was driving me to school and we had to pull over because she watched a larvae hatch right on the shirt she was actively wearing. my skin crawls thinking of it now.

i expressed to my mom that i did not wish to stay the night. i would get up earlier, take the two hour bus to her house, and we would leave none the later for it. her arguments progressed from "it'll be easiest for the trip" to "for emotional support" (because she might have cancer*) to "please please pretty pretty please".
* did you know that moth larvae can bite at the skin and cause bleeding and sores? i didn't.
when i would not budge on staying the night, she expressed that her body had gone numb, began to cry, and hung up.

less than an hour later, she texted me back to inform me that she had achieved "zen" (her choice of word), and was fine with me meeting her there. we began researching the best route for me to reach her house in the morning and realized that i would actually have to connect to a station that was on the way of our drive anyway. i asked if she would just pick me up along the way rather than bussing and driving back and forth between the same spot.

"no thank you :)" she said. the smiley face is added here, but i could feel it. i attempted to negotiate, but i quickly saw the path the conversation would be taking-- she had already budged by allowing me not spend the night. she would not budge further. i have been aware that my mother is a control freak since i stopped talking to her before. she has to feel in control to feel safe, and nothing else is real to her.

i called her the next day and began the conversation with "mother, if i am to go on this trip with you, i need to know that the conversations we've had the last couple days are not going to be an enduring pattern."
she immediately said, "no, i'm fine :)".  this was a baffling response to me, since she not only had not asked me to elaborate on what pattern i meant, but also reached into the air and pulled out some new issue for her to even be fine about in the first place.

the forty minute phone proceeded in a symphony of second-hand embarrassment. 

• in the first movement i did my best to explain that "no, mother, i need to know that you are going to treat me like a rational adult." she did not listen.
• in the second movement, she began bargaining without concession-- i could simply ignore her the whole trip. i could put a blanket over the back seat and not look at her. i could use a code word to communicate that she was driving me mad. but all of her solutions were from the singular foundational ground that i was going with her no matter what, and she did not understand the issue.
• in the third movement, i expressed that if she cannot treat me like an adult, no, i will not be going with her, i will just fly. then began the guilt tripping. "I just want you to be aware of the consequences if you don't come [with her specifically]"
• finally, she proceeded to such banger lines as "you're punishing me for something i haven't done yet," "it's unfair you went to your grandma's service with your dad after how he treated you but won't do this" and "well you may as well just not come at all then." the conversation ended when her words failed, i expressed that i wished her well and was going to hang up, and she beat me to it. 

I walked away from that phone call feeling like I had blood on my hands. But by sheer chance, we had happened to record the entire thing. We were recording for issues with our landlord originally, but here was a real record of what the fuck just happened. Cass spent four hours going over that call with me, observing where her own excuses contradicted each other out of convenience, what sorts of tactics she was using, and how there was almost more awkward silence than me actually speaking.

It became very clear to me by the end of that review that my mother was, at no point in that conversation actually listening to me. She was talking to some other Ame. Nothing I could've said would have changed that, so holding my ground was all I could have done. 

But, cass said, she wasn't about to let me go out to Oklahoma and deal with her alone-- not when she would clearly say anything and play the endless victim. She took time off work, some friends chipped in to help cover costs, and she got tickets for both of us right away. 

Much thanks to said friends, to cass, and as always to all of you for being here and giving me a bottom line in the first place. For the patience and support as well.

Anyway, Oklahoma.

My grandfather's house was large, and we were promised that we could stay there. But in the day before the trip, suddenly a change of plans-- they booked us at a hotel instead. There was no room "due to the hospice care", they said, but I think the tactful omission was that my mother had us scooted outward. That was just fine with us though.

In a previous post, I dug in existentially to the fucking Choice Privileges premium hotel parking spot services.
And from another previous post, I am forced to bring this meme back:

We parked in a Choices Privilege spot temporarily-- just to check in. Imagine my surprise, then, when the little display popped up with "Thank you for being a Choices Privilege member! :)" Apparently grandma is subbed to them for some reason. it's not just quality inn-- it's a multi-hotel network. my bad. but suddenly we are the assholes staying in the premium spot. Furthermore, at night, every premium spot was filled. In the morning, every spot was empty. These are real people coming and going and using this service in this small town in Oklahoma, and not only do I have to reconcile with that fact, but I have now been one of them for some reason.
The hotel lady said our family was delightful when making the reservations though. That's something.

That first night we ended up at a Denny's (as no one goes to Denny's-- only ends up there) at 2 am. The place was oddly packed-- some local basketball team came in for celebration, but they were far from the only ones. One serving staff greeted us-- and then forgot about us. It was the apparent manager that came back flustered and out of breath, apologizing in a thick southern drawl about how sorry she was -- the other server was new (and she swore, getting worse with training), and they were the only ones on for the night. We were forgotten several more times, my order was gotten wrong, and we spent so long there that cass had to retire to the hotel room for sleep in advance of me finishing the food. I met the manager again at the register. The machine froze, and she excused herself to tend to the food. Not only were they only two serving staff for a crowd of 30, she was also doing the cooking. I encouraged her to take a breath. "You seem like you need it," I said.
She said, "Sugar, what I need is a shot of gin, a glass of vodka, and a tequila chaser."  We would later learn that she was working 18 hour days after firing the great majority of her staff for being "crackheads". All of the guests were perfectly patient with her, tipped well, and her own care despite reminded me why 'southern hospitality' is its own stock phrase.

The next day, we proceeded to my grandfather's at a humane hour. "Don't bother waking up early-- he tends to sleep in", we were told. It was a queer notion to me given that I was under the impression he was hardly waking up at all, but I suppose those were just his normal hours. My mother had done me the "courtesy" of texting me to inform me that he might not remember who I was, specifically in the way of forgetting I had transitioned. He was having hallucinations, she said. I didn't understand why hallucinations would make him misgender me, but it would not be the first time my mother employed a lapse of memory to cling to the past after a fight.

And in Oklahoma of all places. Pretty confident that they are topping the American charts both in 'places that trans people dont want to be' and 'places that dont want trans people to be there', I googled just to confirm. Wouldn't you know it, a non-binary student was just beaten to death there earlier this month. Joy. Thank you for tempering my expectations of everyone involved, mother.

But apparently my grandpa had been waking up. It was scarce and painful-- he had few lucid moments between his suffering and medications, but as early as the day before he had been able to talk and joke still.
That wasn't so when we arrived. The man we saw in the hospice bed did not talk. He did not move. He was half the size I remembered him and stuck in bed with a breathing tube under his nose and clinging to a bright pink teddy bear.

And his feet--

I mentioned his chronic pain earlier. I may have even, in some distant past talked before about how I was pretty sure that his troubles were somatic. My mother specced into new age medicine and nutrition. In contrast, my grandfather had the money to purse all the best treatments that modern medicine could offer. Even that was so ineffective that he went so far as to have a pump surgically installed directly into his spine, and this pump would constantly administer a full supply of morphine directly to his nervous system. He developed a tolerance to moprhone, but the alternative medication rendered him temporarily blind. So it was for the whole ten years I hardly talked to him.

When I went in to see him, his whole body was withering. A man somewhere in his 80's, dying of cancer. Of course he'd be worse for the wear all over. His feet were uncovered-- I didn't take a picture and had no good opportunities to in the future, to my regret-- but I could see them clearly enough that first time. 

He had maiden's feet.

They were small and taut and pristine. Save for a scraggly toenail or two, they would have been almost picturesque for a woman of youth.

How is he going to be dying of cancer-- wrinkled like a raisen, dark splotches on his skin, brown teeth hung perpetually open...
...but his feet, the one thing that cause him endless amounts of pain throughout his life...
those are what are pristine.

I don't get it.

Cass was there with me, and her eye was caught by a certificate on the wall. A governor's commendation-- for exceptional service managing correctional facilities for youth. That was when they said he had lived a full life. I told them I had only heard of his pain. I expressed something similar to him in text when he was still equal to the task of messaging, and he impressed upon me that he and I had not talked directly in more than a decade-- only ever through my mother. I apologized for it-- I said I didn't often know how to relate to people of older generations.

But there was something right there. My oldest patrons will remember youth corrections is exactly what I was working in before I started Patreon. Not only that, apparently he ran arcades in the past. I went in there and said something stupid about how most people over a certain age barely know what video games are. He ran arcades. I had no idea. 

Fuck.

But he was asleep. His eyes didn't close anymore, but his breath was as a snore. The others attending him weren't so sure, but I'm pretty certain he didn't hear a word I said. We excused ourself, and cass suggested we go for a drive to help clear my head.

I do not care for rural Oklahoma. The banks look like churches, the churches look like banks, and there's way too many of both of them.

Like look at this--

"Oh, First United, that must be their methodist church" I said, like a moron-- nope it's a goddamn bank.

In Henrik Ibsen's Brand the main character stresses that a good church ought to be so grand, so pristine, so sublimely beautiful that even just stepping inside it makes a man feel more pure.
Well, how's this?

I suppose it makes sense. After all, money is more powerful in America than God.

God is still strong though. I heard about and saw more chik-fil-A branding in this one weekend trip than I'd seen in the past several years combined. Maybe decades. There was a ranching supply store, a long john silvers that i didnt think still existed with a perpetually broken sign reading "No schedule found!" in bright read text. There was a place advertising "Loan Sales" which I'm pretty sure is not how loans work. 

And between it all-- nothing. Oil, gas supply, plastic sales, flooring and pipe companies...
...nothing for people. 

All of these things have purpose, of course. But I couldn't help but think they had no point. 

There's a good local ice cream chain though. Absolutely delicious-- and cheap. I think we must've killed two dozen scoops between us this weekend. It was inhumane, and wonderful. One thing in Oklahoma has a point. If nothing is there for you, ice cream is there for you. Stand behind Braum's. One of the serving boys asked bashfully (again in a thick drawl) if cass and I were dating. Five years, I told him. "I could never," he smiled. And then nervously, added-- "Ah, I don't mean that in a disrespectful way or nothin'! I just mean I'd get broken up with."

We deigned to step into a walmart. We wanted groceries for the weekend to keep our food costs low, and there were no other stores. The internet says that minimum wage at an Oklahoma Walmart is $11hr. The entire time we were in the store, I was paying attention to what one hour of working there gets you. Turns out, it's not a whole lot. We left without buying anything. The prices were higher than here; Denny's and ice cream were honestly cheaper. I suppose that's what happens once you've operated at a loss long enough to successfully run off your competition. After all, why not? Why shouldn't they price gouge the market? What's anyone gonna do, drive to the next city over for a can of beans?

We gathered my wits and returned to my grandfather's house for dinner. It was a good meal, though my mother did not choose to join us. She brought all her own food from Denver to conform to her dietary needs. Organic food is her baseline. The caretaker told her that she actually raised the cattle the beef was from herself-- gave them all the shots and knows everything in them so she can assure my mother that the meat was 100% organic. My mother had brought a beef stew with her anyway.

So now let's play a game.
In light of this information, what did my mother, a completely rational human being, choose to do?

A) Eat the caretaker's assuredly organic meat
B) Insist that she'd feel more comfortable sticking to her own stew
C) Try a little bit and see how it affected her before deciding one way or the other
or, perhaps,
D) Fish all of the meat that she had brought out of the stew she had already prepared, discard it, and replace it with the new beef

:)

this is what i'm working with here.

The first time we visited, my mother was taking a tactical nap. She was absent for dinner, too, so I just presumed that she was going to avoid me the whole time. That would've been fine with me. After dinner, we were gathered in the kitchen and she appeared. She complimented Cass's shirt, said nothing to me, and walked up to me for a hug. I was not particularly comfortable hugging her after our previous lingering conflict, but that didn't seem to matter much to her. 

I asked how she got there since I didn't go with her (and she had been adamant she would not drive alone (until she threatened to drive alone to guilt me into coming)). Apparently, she drove with a previous roommate. I wondered what the point of any of our past conversations was, and knew there was none.

My grandfather suddenly gave a wheeze from his far off bed. The whole house scurried to attention in fear he was choking. We found he wasn't, and trickled out of the room (as not more than a couple people were meant to be with him at a time to prevent overstimulating and agitating him). My mom stayed behind. I watched her through the camera they set to monitor him. She had a tender moment, and he seemed to be awake. I couldn't hear anything she said, but I saw her groom him a bit, whisper to him, listen back, rest her head on his shoulder, and then quit the room. 

Where she left the camera screen, she came into view in person in due order. She was obviously crying. In another circumstance, I ought not have asked, but I called out-- was she all right? She shook her head no, but kept walking.
...And parked herself just around the corner. I am pretty sure I saw her peeking back to see if I would follow. It felt like a high school level of bait.

I decided, no, I would not take it. I was there to see my grandfather. And if he were awake, then was the time.

I entered the room. The caretaker was in there still, and she offered to step out to give me privacy. I said I didn't feel it was necessary. I hardly knew what I was there to say anyway. I was just there to be there.
My grandfather stirred. I told him I was there, and reminded him who I was. He could not talk back, but he did offer a quiet grunt. That was more than I got before, and it was as much as I was likely to get. It was an acknowledgement, if nothing else. I proceeded to try to say what I had before. He grunted back again. He heard.

And then my mother came swooping in. She was no longer crying. Her disposition was as if nothing had ever been wrong, though only a great total of two minutes had passed since she first left the room. Suddenly I did wish for privacy. I did not feel comfortable leading a conversation in front of her. The caretaker I'd never met before, sure, but not her. And then someone stepped out from the bathroom, and they began talking about irritable bowels, and my mother was eager to offer her nutritional remedies. My grandfather grunted back twice, but I began to fear that it was less from acknowledgment and more from agitation with all the noise. So, I excused myself.

I thought perhaps I'd be able to pick it up shortly, or the next day. That night, they were forced to change his medication. He would not be waking up again. 

In the end, my mother successfully trampled on the last moment I would've had with him. The caretaker was willing to offer me privacy, but my mother was willing to either set aside her tears or make crocodiles of them in the first place to see that she heard whatever it was I had to say. We left bitterly that night.

Later, I texted her telling her that I was not comfortable carrying on as if nothing bad had happened between us. We needed to have an adult conversation about this before she presumed further.
She did not respond.
When we arrived at the house the next day, we learned that she had already begun the trip back.

By the time we left the next day, my grandpa had been read his last rites. I told him good bye, and thanked him for living. He was still breathing, but he did not hear me.

As we drove out, we had one last stop. Those of you who were with me at the start of the pandemic may remember this post where I talked about my grandmother's sudden death... So the currently-dying grandfather was her husband, divorced. She remarried to another fellow who I've known as a grandpa all my life, and it turned out he had happened to have moved to the city we were flying out from. So we enjoyed a spontaneous visit with him too.

It was the first time I'd seen him since before my grandma passed, and I think the meeting was cathartic for both of us. I expressed to him directly many of the doubts that I had talked about in the above post-- was my grandmother really such a narcissist as my mom had led me to believe? Oughtn't I have trusted them more? Of course, the man who married her would have a certain opinion on this, but... he started crying in the middle of the restaurant, and then so did I. And I think that was answer enough. 

In contrast, my mother had called this man miserly. He handed me $100 for gas unprompted as we left.
I will be in touch with Morton's.

Oklahoma wasn't so bad, really. South, rural, and red.... but my grandma said God love us all equally, my aunt said we have to be true to ourselves, and my grandfather who was not capable of saying a thing certainly did not misgender me. No one did, in fact. Everyone was delightful, from the hotel lady, to the denny's manager, to the ice cream boy. The person who was worst to me by and large, with no competition, was my mother. 

She still has not responded to my request to talk about what happened. I don't feel compelled to chase it. Those close to me encourage me to consider if it's really worth continuing to try and have a relationship with her. I suspect it's not. I know she is losing her father and this is a trying time for her, but I am accepting that as an excuse about as much as any gas leak. She does not see me as an adult, she does not listen to me, and she will say anything she can to get her way. In return, I can expect the occasional gift of a partly-used bottle of vegan worcestershire sauce, or whatever other trash she is looking to get rid of. 

i checked how much vegan worchestershire sauce is at walmart. just about exactly $11. 

i think i'd rather work there.