And what I neglected to TELL you...

I have gotten off the bus twice in the last ten days....

And Peter was sitting at the cross-walk in his wheel-chair, looking forlorn...

EXCEPT...

He hadn't put on his pants, just covered his private parts with some sweaters and whatever he could find, and cover his nakedness....

It gets to be twelve below zero here right now.... And there he was, panicked, and wanted to get across a four lane thoroughfare, to a telefone cell, and crying. Because he thought I wouldn't come see him.

The first time... I fucking flipped out.

He's gotten OUT of his place, seemingly, but can't get back in. Without help. He has to wait till someone wants in and push him up the ramp.

Sometimes he doesn't remember important things.

Sometimes, he doesn't remember what happened an hour before.

This leads me to the worst dilemma of my life....

He wanted me to adjust his sock today, and I nearly threw up. Gangrene smells so awful... you have no idea, and he is just so adamant... 'I'm not going in, because I'm not going to come out'. Uh-huh. No longer any sense in reasoning with the man.

'They are going to cut me again.'

Well, if that is true, he is to blame, because he just let everything go, and it isn't my fault.

Over the decades, I have yelled, been horribly 'hurtful' just to get him to do the right thing, although it hurt me, cajoled, threatened, you name it, have been there, because I cared.

And no, I still 'care'....

But tonight, am 'at the end of my art', as they say in Austrian, when you no longer know what the hell you should do.

Y'know... it is sort of ironic.

You learn to love someone with all your heart, and they are wonderful, funny, sportive, intelligent... and even then, tragedy strikes, and you get confronted with something you never would have believed would happen, because it was 'perfect'.

And felt 'protected'.

And all of a sudden... YOU are the one who is suddenly 'the protector'.

Life is a bitch, in other words...

I'm not complaining. Really not. But am baffled. I so wish that my father had told me more about how he dealt with my step-mother, and I would have been more prepared for all this...

So everything is on a day-to-day basis.

But it can't go on like it is.... He needs round-the-clock care.

And for me....

I don't know who to turn to at the moment.

He needs some serious help.

I don't fucking CARE what people think, or what they say, and gawwd, they have said a lot...

You love whom you love...

And if you make a committment, it can break your heart.

You stand by them. That is how I was brought up...

Sometimes...

I could just barf. I do what I possibly can and go on.