When I went to care for my Father in early January 2oo9, I knew I would also have to keep tabs on Ma who lived about 1/2 a mile away. I fell into a routine of stopping at Ma's on the way home to check on her and make sure she had groceries or anything else she wanted. You could always hear the TV playing from the street and often something was burning on the stove. I had not begun monitoring her medications which I later discovered that she was taking inconsistently at best. At times there would be evidence of some mishap and I was deeply concerned but kind of stuck. As my Father grew sicker I slept less and less as he required help for the simplest of things. One time I was so worn out I didn't stop to see Ma on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday, so Wednesday morning I stopped by before work to find she had barricaded herself into the house. She had the furniture piled in front of door to keep some unspoken intruder out, most likely fictional, except the door opened the other way and I climbed over the barrier and loaded her refrigerator with groceries and she never stirred. Kinda scary. I waited until I saw that she was breathing and left for work. She never knew I was there. At this point I realized that she was a lot further along than even I imagined. It is like any bad situation you are in, a loveless marriage, a rotten job or long term financial difficulties, you never realize that things are worsening while you sit in the middle of it. Moving in to take care of my Father gave me that opportunity to stand back and assess things in a different light. Ma required more attention than I had been willing to admit to myself. I decided it was time to move her out of the house and the neighborhood. Although she resisted, even she knew that it was time.
The arrangements for my Father's memorial came off well and the focus now became getting Ma safe. We moved her into a secure apartment complex with me and she was disoriented for quite a while. The first day she was there she decided to take a walk when I was sleeping. When I found her gone I called my sister and brother and we began looking for her. She was discovered by my sister holding the police and an EMT crew at bay with language I would never have believed she ever heard let alone used. She had went to the wrong building and tried to enter the wrong apartment. This was the first of many adventures as Ma fought her dependency and tried to maintain a modicum of control in her life. I was called home from work by relatives when Ma broke into the house she had lived in --- more police. People were real understanding and helpful, but the stress was intense. She finally settled in to a routine and life became less eventful. The real craziness is in the day to day challenges that are intermittently comedic and frustrating.
I disconnected the stove before she arrived to insure she wouldn't create an inferno in the high rise. I came home one day to find her making grill cheese sandwiches on the stove. Without gas it is really an amazing undertaking. She stayed at it and hour and then all but poured her "sandwich" into a bowl and ate it with a fork. She asked if I might like one and I told her I would pass at this time. She turns her nose up at the microwave ready meals I purchase for her and eats bologna sandwiches all the time. At the end, her cremation will smell like the corner deli. She loads up on ice cream and juice, completely ignoring the meals I cook for her or the vegetable entree's I stock up on. Thank God for Progresso Soups which she likes for the time being.
It is not the major upheavals that are most frustrating now, it is the little things that go on day to day. Putting away dishes that are dirty, spilling things on the floor and forgetting it while in the process of going to get a mop to clean it, hiding soiled clothing in corners that aren't discovered until it starts to smell, the dumping of tea into the sink without regard for the staining that occurs, and my personal favorite, seeing things that are not there. Thank God for medications. I have to physically hand her her medicine every day or it won't be taken and she has night terrors. It is like caring for a child who has a lifetime of independent action and is resentful of your necessary interference. I have become my Mother's servant and sometimes I think she enjoys it just a little too much.
