Remorseful Seaweed

Remorse:  A feeling of regret or sadness for having done wrong or sinning.

I want to help but I don't see the point in trying to help someone who doesn't want to be helped. It's a waste of my time and an irritation to the person on whom the unwanted helped is being foisted.  Last time I came in I spent hours and hours getting my parents financial records in order - sorting, discarding, setting up a system that would keep everything ship-shape as time marched on.  I came home to renewed chaos - I can't even find the old records let alone monitor what has happened in the interim.

I started to battle some guilt as the doctor was emphasizing the fact that dad should go down for breakfast and dinner, that one of the big pitfalls of the surviving spouse of a long-term marriage is isolation.  I haven't been encouraging dad to do this - it seems roughly equivalent to encouraging a rock to apply to grad school.  But then again I have the benefit (or the curse) of decades of routine with my father.  The doc wants dad to socialize and I could help but the doc isn't around when dad performs his daily rejection reading of the menu, and in high dramatic form.  If I could wheedle and cajole him into going down a time or two it wouldn't change the fact that he won't do it when I'm gone.  I loathe wasted motion.

You'd think that as you get older that you'd have seen everything at least once.  But then there was India and now there's this.