Support?

I cooked some fish soup and dry noodles and vegetables and headed to the hospital. It was the second time today, the first time being lunch time. As I left, my brother was snoring, for he had fallen asleep.

I let him rest, thinking he needs I to get over the jetlag, and thinking also he'd join me later at the hospital. After eight or so, I got a call from him saying he's not coming tonight.

"I'm too tired..." he said. OK.

But so am I. I know he has jetlag, and I know before I said nobody can expect him (or my sister-in-law for that matter) to be present at the hospital most of the day. But really, I was upset he did not even bother to come to the hospital to see mum, even though we live only around 15minutes away from the hospital, on foot. And earlier when he visited, he stayed for less than an hour (granted, my nephew was becoming restless, and my brother decided to take him home...)

To think when I first arrived back here, I did not even have the time to get over jetlag. It was almost a full day after i landed until I managed to go home and shower. I was back at the hospital two hours later. Imagine how tired I was then... And how tired I am now, three months (and counting...) later.

Mum shook her head when she spoke on the phone to my brother. I knew what she was thinking. And later she said: "I can tell whether he has heart or not..." Meaning whether his mind is fully into being here and being with mum, or whether he's halfheartedly here just for the sake of being here.

Perhaps my brother really is very tired. I can never know how it is to have a baby who cries and needs content attention. I can never know how tiring it is to be in his shoes, to have to lug seven suitcases and so much baby accessories and travel so far around the world. And I can never know what it feels like to have obligations towards his own family and towards mum. Perhaps as they say, once you get married, your heart lies elsewhere... Perhaps he really is tired, and I should not be too harsh on him.

But in all honesty, I am more upset by the fact that he seems (till now) to have done so little to spend time with mum, and when he does he sits there and taps away on hid phone playing games... I am not so much upset that he's not doing much to relieve me of my tasks, but that actually by being here and doing very little (so far) he's actually upsetting mum and making her
very disappointed at his behaviour. In a way, the way he's now, his aloofness and handsoff-ness to everything is exactly as mum had predicted before he arrived.

I just hope my brother will change soon, or otherwise his plan of spending three months here with mum may have to be cut short, and may do more damage to mum's condition than good...