"Another visit with my mom. Some say it is my dreams but I'm not to sure about that anymore. No matter what this kind of visit during the night I can live with. Dam I sure miss you mom and I really like your night time visits. They do not scare me, they make me so very happy. Mom always asks about my brothers. She tells me how beautiful her Great Grandkids are and how proud she is of our kids. She wishes she could be with us but being with Dad is all she has wanted for so many years. I have never talked about this before but you need to no how mom is doing." (just a side note that he did tag his brothers in the post as well - I took their names out for privacy).
I commented on his post, said I thought that was awesome and thanked him for sharing. To be honest, I didn't know if I should comment on it at all - it's kind of like when someone gets cancer and you don't know what to say or if you should say anything. The illness is the elephant in the room... or on your Facebook feed. And it's just as easy to hide someone on Facebook as it is to avoid them in life.
But then dad texted me later in the day quite angry that nobody had responded to his post. He said he was disappointed because the people that mean so much to him hadn't even "liked" it. We texted back and forth a few times and I also got the sense for the first time that he is angry at being sick. A death sentence he said. It makes me so very sad that my dad has to live knowing what is happening to him and how it's going to end.
So what's a person to do? I myself have hid many people on Facebook... and none of them are sick and dying. I know dad puts some out there stuff on Facebook and it can get annoying at times and that hide button is just so tempting. Really, it would only take a few seconds to drop down and click on it... the same amount of time to click the "like" button... and only a few seconds longer to make a quick comment. What do you say? Honestly, I don't know. But I also never would have realized how important it was to my dad to have someone comment on his post.
What you can pray for... that my dad's hallucinations continue to include his mom and are not bad (he has ones that he won't talk about).
What am I thankful for? My text conversations with my dad cause when he is texting, it's generally a sign that he's doing better.
