He and my mom had two chihuahuas and one of the first things he did after my mom died was get rid of the two dogs. I should have seen getting rid of the dogs as a harbinger of his relationship with me and my sisters.
At first he was the dutiful husband and I was living in the group home and he used to drive down every other week on a Sunday from Santa Rosa which is 190 miles away and we would go to my moms grave and mourn. We did this for more than a year and we would go out to eat lunch afterwards and talk. We continued this ritual for about a year and a half including when I moved out of the group home into the supported housing apartment.
Then the visits dried up, he just stopped calling and he never came down again and he stopped calling period. He would send out an email to the family including his two sons about twice year telling us about his health problems and what he was up to. I remember I told my sisters at the time that he was trying to distance himself from us. They are both eternal optimists and see the good in people and they said no, he’s just busy and has a weird way of expressing himself but I had my doubts. So we would get the emails at Christmas. and we would exchange Christmas cards and I would send an Amazon gift card to him and his wife and we always got the email at Christmastime.
But in the email he never asked how we were doing or asked anything about our lives. I would always send an email in response and update him on my life but he never answered to comment or wish me well. This went on for several years and we visited him once a year when my sister was here from Mexico.
Well, this year I wanted to mail him a gift so a month before Christmas I emailed him asking for his address. I emailed him three times and never got a response. For the first time he didn’t send out a family email and we didn’t get a Christmas card from him. It was like I told my sisters years ago, he was trying to distance himself from us and now he seems to have cut us out completely. It hurts a little, I’ve known him since 1988, 37 years, and was over his house many times and went places with him and my mom. In fact, the last six years of my moms life I was over their house about once a week, eating dinner and socializing and playing cards, I often went over in the afternoon and spent the evening there.
And they did not live close by, it was about a forty minute drive by the freeway but I made sure I always visited, he always seemed glad to see me at the visits. And now nothing. He’s a cold bastard, I don’t understand what I did wrong. Oh well.