Old Age

I’ve got a thing for writing happy blog posts. In life, I like to think of things that make me smile, small joys in nature, and the common denominators that we all share like loving baby animals or appreciating when someone smiles or waves at us while passing by. But today I’ve decided to move away from that and write about my relationship with my mother, which has never been ideal.

I’m at an age when many of my friends have parents that are infirm or growing that way. We baby boomers are getting old and our parents, even older. Infirm is a delicate word for a person who might just need a little help now and then, maybe from a neighbor, a family member, or even someone hired to look in on them now and then. It wasn’t long ago that my sister and I thought of our mother that way. Neither of us lived near her anymore and we often talked about who could take her to a doctor appointment or fix a light that didn’t seem to work anymore. My mother lived in her own house, still drove her car to familiar places, and seemed pretty active in her senior center where she often played cards or other games. A neighbor mowed her lawn or shoveled her snow. We thought she was doing okay until she wasn’t, which came as a bit of a shock to us.

My mother had decided to sell her house and move in with my sister, which was a decision my sister and I thought was for the best, but one that did not come easily to my mother who was pretty unsure of where she wanted to live. As moving day approached my mother refused help in packing or selling the things she owned. We lifted our hands and just said oh well, but really, we should have intervened. Moving day was a catastrophe with not much being packed, my mother’s cat running away, and the expensive movers packing up stuff that my sister would later trash like used paint rollers, old sponges, threadbare towels, stinky boxes of stuff that had been stored in the garage, even broken plastic pots.

My mother settled into the rooms that my sister and her husband had spent days updating to give my mother some semblance of space and privacy. The cat was never found despite driving back two hours to look for it, and it became clear my mother’s mental and physical needs were more than we all expected. My sister began unraveling my mother’s bills for medical treatment, her oxygen tank, her prescriptions, and it turned out that although my mother kept all her papers, that she was woefully unprepared to now get services in a new town. All this creating a giant headache for my sister. And then my mother announced, after being with my sister less than a month that she wanted to move.

It’s been a year, and my mother now lives in an assisted living center about 10 minutes from my sister and 90 minutes from me. During that year my mother fell and broke her hip, and even after surgery and physical therapy, must rely on a walker. The thing is, she forgets she needs a walker and falls if left alone. So now my mother is in what is politely called a memory care unit. Her room is closest to the nurse’s station so that she can get close attention. But she might as well be in prison. The residents surrounding her are unable to speak or speak meaningfully. One holds a baby doll. Another is forever roaming and picking something invisible from the floor or the arm of a chair. My mother sits with these people, mostly ladies, in a lobby area with the Golden Girls playing nonstop on the television.  She says she is bored.

There is no place else for her to go. My mother is incontinent, needs oxygen, and needs help standing up or sitting down with her walker. Her memory is going. When I visited her last, she asked if it was the first time I had been to see her. She talks about driving her car to the store or planting flowers outside her window, and people visiting that have never been there. She can’t figure out how to answer her phone most of the time, but sometimes can call me back after I call.

Both my sister and I hope that my mother does not live long. What’s the point? When I visit her, I look around at the other residents and wonder how many years they have been there.

Still, sometimes I have good conversations with my mother, where I think she is listening, and then telling me something about herself. And that seems good, because for years I would visit with her and she would fill the time by doing a cross word or word search in her book, or maybe asking me how much my shoes cost, or how much I paid to get my hair done, and then gleefully telling me how much less hers cost.

So this is it. My mother’s final years. I visit about once a month and enjoy spending time with her. I see my sister then, too, and I think dealing with my mother’s issues has brought us closer. But when my time comes, I don’t want to end up like my mother. Let me go in my sleep, or after a courageous battle with a disease or anything, where I can still think and move about, maybe slower than in my prime, but still with confidence.