The Dying Narcissist

One wet May morning the phone rang. It was him, my dying narcissist father. His first words were complaints about the terrible weather. It had rained for several days and he was unhappy about it.

I tried empathizing and then commenting that it had been so dry, farmers were likely glad to get the rain. No success. "April showers may bring May flowers, but May showers only bring MUD." I tried the beautiful, peaceful noise of falling rain. Nope. I tried the since-we-can't-change-it-we-might-as-well-try-to-find-something-good-about-it. No again. "There's nothing good about it." OK, so he wants to be unhappy. I listened to more of his complaints, but when I stopped trying to cheer him up he angrily ended the conversation.

One phone call I initiated ended in him angrily ranting about his civil rights being violated because a restaurant wasn't allowed to serve him beer on Father's Day. Actually, the call ended after my mother got on the phone and chided me for stirring up his anger when I wouldn't agree that his civil rights had been violated.

Then there was the first call I made with my cell phone. I resisted getting a cell phone for years, but relented when my father's end was near. I called him to give him my number when he went into his routine of angrily telling me what I should stand for in my life and what I should value. It ended with him mocking me after I tried to turn the conversation away from his rant.

When the end was near, I investigated hospices. I found one that was nice; one where if I was terminally ill, I would chose for myself. He would hear nothing of it. He didn't trust me. He *knew* what those places are like. I was shocked (and obviously naive). How could he believe I would put him in some awful place? It's just....not me. But, looking back, it was perhaps quite telling. When my father's mother (my grandmother) needed extra care, she refused to even live in an apartment complex that catered to senior citizens. It frustrated him to no end. It made me wonder, would he have put her in some awful place if he thought he could get away with it?

The last conversation I had with him, was so very typical. I visited him at home. He complained about how he felt. He lectured me on what I should stand for. He gritted his teeth and hissed angry, hurtful words at my mother when she didn't supply what he wanted immediately when he wanted it. Ever the enabler, my mother explained that it was the cancer; it had moved to his brain. But his behaviour was nothing new. He'd been like that for as long as I could remember. And, so had she.