Obligation

I would like to write that you have only one main obligation - to be happy, and all other, smaller obligations, you should give to yourself or someone else, based on whether it brings you burden or joy. But no, I can't say it like that, but I would like to...

I have had and still have difficult relationships with my mother. We practically don't keep in touch because after her divorce from my father, our house saw many different men - the so-called stepfathers. In my subjective opinion, between the three of us (her children, brothers) and the man, she always chose the man.

You could say this is a childhood resentment. Yes, it is. You could also say that she tried for us and also had the right to happiness...

Yes, she had that right, just like me, and my brothers wanted to be happy. But it turned out that her idea of happiness did not coincide with ours.

But now I won't write about her obligations to me or mine to her. No. I brought the description of my relationship with my mother for comparison.

According to my wife (in her words), she had a happy childhood. Although her father often drank and was sometimes unruly, her mother did everything possible to smooth things over. She had enough love for all five of her children - she covered them with care like a warm blanket and gave herself completely to them.

About nine years ago, her mother was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
At first, her hands began to shake. Although she took all the necessary pills, the disease progressed. Within a year, she was bedridden, stopped speaking. Further examinations revealed that she also had Alzheimer's disease.

One of my wife's brothers took on the obligation to care for her. No one asked him to - he decided on his own, as he was the only one among the others who was not a family man, and moreover, in our city, among all relatives except us, he was the only one who lived there.

(In Kazakhstan, there are no good free centers for people like her, and most often, if a person was taken to such a center, they would soon die. We couldn't afford to place her in an expensive clinic, so she stayed at home.)

For eight years now, he has been by her side - feeding her with a spoon, giving her pills on time, changing diapers.
My wife visits them about once or twice a week - when she needs to bathe her or when her brother needs to do his own things in the city.

Several times he had nervous breakdowns. He said that he could no longer stay with her, that he needed to build a personal life. To which my wife replied:
– Yes, of course, I understand you. You can stop taking care of her, and I will do it.

But shortly afterward, he responded:
– No. I will do it myself.

The last time they took their mother for an examination, the doctors were surprised that a person with such diagnoses, bedridden, lives for so long... This is an exceptional case.

She no longer reacts to anyone, does not recognize...
But her brother does everything possible to keep her alive.

I said to my wife:
— If this happens to me, please, send me to a specialized center. I don't want to be a burden.

To which she replied:
— No. I will clean up your shit.

Then she asked:
— And if this happens to me, what will you do?

I said that I would send her to a specialized center. After that, she hit me. And I said I was joking.

So sometimes, obligations that are not asked of us are stronger than any others.

This is just a photo taken by me on today's run