Naughty Road
patreon
A super weird place
🕑 Added 2025-07-05 09:04:41 +0000 UTCI thought long and hard about sharing this piece. None of you signed up for personal drama, but since there is some overlap with the development of the game, and you can't completely separate the creator from the creation, I decided to go ahead. Feel very much free to skip this if you don't need to hear this kind of personal stuff.
I'm in a super weird place right now. The last couple of weeks have been kind of nerve racking, as the woman who graced me with the gift of her love for the past 25 years is jumping through the hoops of medical tests and consults to discuss inconclusive results and more medical tests, and while we figured out along the way she's a diabetic with a side of hypertension, and we're getting those under control, we're still not quite sure what's causing her abdominal pains in the area of her liver. Then, out of the blue and with no real warning signs, we learned that another important woman in my life, the one who gave me life, and with it the ability to love in the first place, has mere weeks left as the result of an aggressive growth that spilled from her lungs into her abdomen, where it's now ravaging her liver. What are the odds, eh?
It is super weird to sit at that hospital bed in the lung ward and look at the frail, barely recognizable face of the woman that was the bright and warm center of my childhood. Weird, to see her draped thinly over the sharp contours of her bones, as if Death in its eagerness to arrive is brazenly forcing its grotesque visage into our midst. I'm trying my best to listen to my mother and sister chatting over their tears, but I'm having a hard time understanding them, because from the room next door the desperate wheezing of another patient can be heard. As they're gasping for breath with all their might they sound like they're drowning. I think an uncharitable thought I immediately regret as I get up and close the door to the hallway, and the room grows noticeably more stuffy and warm. But at least we can hear each other now. I wanna say I hope the other patient made it through the night, but I'm not sure if that would have been a blessing or a curse for them. Soon, that same consideration may very well apply to my own mother.
Returning home, we learn that while they still haven't found out what's causing my wife's pain, it's not That at least. Not the thing that's eating my mother alive. That's something I guess, only losing one of the two women central to my existence to it. At least, in the immediate future, something whispers at the back of my head. Memento mori and all that. Oh, fuck you, brain. More tests will probably follow if getting the diabetes and hypertension under control doesn't improve my wife's condition, but for now it seems her discomfort is improving, ever so slowly, way too slowly for my comfort, but I'll gladly cling to that this week.
The hospice they moved my mother into is kind of weird, the entrance door to the ward located in a quiet, empty hallway in an out-of-the-way wing of a sprawling complex that is primarily a home for the elderly. But when you're admitted inside after ringing the little bell, it's sort of cozy. There's a nice outside terrace with plenty of green, connecting to the street, so you could take someone for a walk on a mild summer's eve like this, if they'd still been able to get into a wheelchair. There's a big TV screen in the living area, currently turned off, its screen dark, and a comfy looking couch and some sofas, and even an honest to god CD rack. I think I recognize the Queen double album that I also have in a box at home that I never bothered to unpack after the last move. There's some real classics on there, The Show Must Go On, and Who Wants To Live Forever, to name a few. There's a skinny man wearing a cap sitting there, talking quietly to family or friends. He is shockingly young, although you'd have to look twice to see. But we walk straight on through to the room at the end, on the right. She doesn't talk so much these last few days. Conversations tend to loop, and she loses the thread after a couple of sentences. Two weeks is an awfully short time for so much decline. She says to tell the doctors to start sedating her starting tomorrow, after some girlfriends have come by to say goodbye. They're gonna have a reading, some poetry, and someone's bringing crystals. And after that, it'll have been enough. She'll sleep through the last bit, sleep without dreams. I get that she wants that. Super weird, but I get it.
I am in a super weird place right now. It's familiar, but it's not any place you can get used to ever, I think. You may find me AFK a little more than normal during these weeks, but I'll continue working on the game, as there is real solace to be found in keeping busy doing something you love to do, as long as you keep in mind it's not a place to hide from it all. And creating something is a small act of defiance against old man Entropy, who is gunning for us all, the big equalizer that wants to turn everything to dust and noise. I've already decided to add him to the pantheon of the new game world. See, I'm coping through art. You're a pretentious shit, something whispers in the back of my head. Oh, fuck you, brain.
One final note: everyone involved is well insured, and getting the best care modern medicine has to offer, and finances are not an issue. So don't go subbing or tiering up over this, please. We'll pull through.
Comments
Naughty Road
Cheers.
Edmund Porter
Hi, I can only reiterate the thoughts of the comments above. Life sucks,but you just have to keep going. Chin up!
Naughty Road
Thank you for your support!
Austin K
I just joined because I like supporting what you do after the Itch and steam news. Giving my support how I can to you working through this grief of losing family. It’s never easy having dealt with similar and really take the time you need as you can.
Naughty Road
Thank you. I will.
Kees Beets
I lost my both my parents 2 years apart my father past away 18 January 2022 and my mother 20 April 2024 All I can say is family is important and you your mental health take care of yourself and your family
