Feeling guilty

I went to visit my brother tonight.  I had a bunch of things to talk about.  This week my daughter is finding out about college admissions and she is doing pretty well, she is even getting merit scholarships.  This is a hard thing to talk about with friends because you don't want to make them jealous.  I am missing my parents a lot this week because they are the folks who I would normally call, and of course, they have passed away and are not longer around.  My brother is my only other family so I told him.  He was pleased for her, but I know he feels badly that he never went to college or anywhere, for that matter. 

Then I told him the one of my parents best friends (the wife) died this morning, and that I had gone to visit both of them last night.  I hadn't seen either of them since my father died, but once the husband called to let me know his wife was in hospice, I felt that he had a pretty strong need to see me, so I went.  This is a pretty weird family where the daughter is not on speaking terms with her parents, and there is a whole long story of my parents getting cut off from a lot of their friends because of this issue. 

So their son is in town with his wife for the "transition".  He looked exactly like his father, bald, old, and pretty fleshy.  His wife seemed really bitter, her mother had just died a few months ago.  The strangest thing was that it turned out the son was in the same kindergarten class as my husband, he even brought out an old class photo.  I told my brother that story.

Then I got enough nerve up to tell my brother I was going to Spain with my husband, daughter, and son.  He took it ok, but he immediately said he was happy for me but that he wished he could go somewhere.

I would like to take my brother on a trip, but it would be a huge amount of work.  The biggest problem is that he is incontinent and won't tell you when his diaper needs to be changed and then that can get really messy.  Changing diapers with him is so intimate, I have issues with it.  I suppose I could get used to it.  Then there is the medication issue, you gotta remember what he takes when, it's pretty complicated and if you screw up, you could kill him.  Meanwhile, he walks at a snails pace, I mean, really, really, slow, and he tires pretty badly after a block or two, so you would have to do a trip that was sedentary, I'm not even sure what that would be.  I am going to have to think about it.  I am feeling pretty guilty about it though.

He was drinking coffee and choked several times.  I know this is going to have to get worse before we know what the problem is.   It took three years for the doctors to realize he had gallbladder problems when he was throwing up off and on.