Mommy Dearest

I spoke with my mom last night for the first time since the new year.  I hate to admit it but she rarely remembers if she has spoken to me or not and our conversations are so exhausting that I "forget" to call for a couple of weeks at a time.  I do check in via my other sisters who she calls regularly so I'm informed but I just don't have to suffer through the phone call.

My mom turned 80 this past August and for the past six months she has just been deteriorating, physically and mentally.  She is a diabetic who is just not inclined or truly doesn't understand how to take control of that through diet.  When I was there in April she was doing great!  I explained how she has to eat every few hours to keep her insulin stable, what types of foods she should be eating, etc.  I even bought a little notebook and wrote down meal and snack ideas and simple recipes she could whip up quickly for herself.  I kept it very minimal because my mom is not known for her love of cooking.  She said she was going to keep it up because she really could feel the difference.

Of course, she did amazingly for a while and then she lost interest.   She started eating out more.  I believe it's because she craves the interaction with people.  I understand that 100%.  Since my dad passed away she lives in her home in Florida all by herself with nothing but solitary, empty days looming before her.  She goes to Bingo and Lunch Bunch and get-togethers at the club house but in between she is lonely and bored.

I also left a notebook for shopping.  I told her as she realizes she is out of something to write it in the notebook and then bring it to the store with her.  She was getting to the store and wandering around aimlessly and going home with crazy things that she couldn't even make a meal out of and forgetting the basics like bread and milk.  The problem is, on the way to write in the notebook she forgets what she is doing and ends up doing something else or she forgets to bring the notebook to the store.

Last night she told me she had gone for some xrays.  She had taken a fall off of a new kitchenette set she had purchased.  It was a stool with three legs and she said she just fell backward off of it.  Why on earth she bought a stool to sit on at 80 is beyond me.  She needs four legs, a back and a seatbelt as far as I'm concerned.  She also told me her sugar has been very low.  She danced for two straight hours at the New Year's Eve bash at the clubhouse and "forgot" to eat.  She forgets to eat alot, a huge problem when you are a diabetic.  She said she hasn't felt right since.  She can't see, she is weaving when she walks, she can't finish a thought, let alone a sentence.

She is scared.  I could hear it in her voice, she is terrified.  She cannot retain anything she reads and right now she is sending money to a "debt consolidation" firm in Plano, Texas so they can pay all of her bills and she can write one check and not get so mixed up every month.  They are getting a phone call today from me because I can't tell if she is just so confused or if this is as shady as it seems.  NOT ONE THING made sense about this plan.  She said they "found" her when I asked how she found out about them.  Call me paranoid but when a business like this "finds" a confused elderly woman in a senior housing complex no good can come from that.  It doesn't help that I googled them and cannot find anything, not a good sign.

My first inclination was to fly to Florida and just stay with her for a month and get her together.  Get her diet in order, get her finances in order, get her home sold and get her to Connecticut.  This would be so much easier if she were there.  At least most of my family is there and could pop over and help her when she needs it.  Heck, it's only five hours from me and I could go home for a weekend just to get her straight for a while.  As we all know, I live on Brokeback Mountain (well, without all of the homosexuality) and flying there is NOT an option.  It's times like this when our financial irresponsibility downright hurts.  It kills me that I can't, really can't, go down and just sit with her and comfort her.  I know just that would calm her down immensely.  I will do what I can from here but I can't lie, it stings.

I think the most upsetting part of all of this is that I have siblings who are drug addicts/alcoholics and they have siphoned every penny they could get from her since my dad passed away.  My dad was like the gatekeeper.  He didn't work hard his whole life to give his money away to people too lazy or irresponsible to earn their own.  My mom is another story.  She loved giving them money.  She has been a mom since she was 17 years old.  She had her last child when she was 39.  Mothering is all she's ever known and I think it helped her feel still somewhat in control of those children.  We told her she was enabling them to continue drinking/drugging.  We told her for every dollar she gave for rent money, car payments, gas, cigarettes, that was one more dollar they had to buy alcohol or drugs.  I believe deep down she knew.  I also believe she was so lost without my dad that she had to find purpose.  Being mired in their dramatic lives kept her mind busy.  It was stressful but it was a distraction, albeit a disastrous one.

Am I angry with my siblings?  You betcha.  However, they are addicts.  I have enough experience with them to know the root of addiction is selfishness.  What do I want and how am I going to get it?  They don't think of the hurt, the consequences, the fact that their disease affects every person who has ever cared for them.  Even their recovery is completely egocentric.  It's like the slate is wiped clean and they get to forget every horrific thing they did while using and live their blessed and wonderful lives from the day they decide they want it.  Oh, except of course when the get to the "amends" step when they call you up and vaguely apologize for whatever injustice they may have perpetrated against you and you must forgive them so their "recovery" can progress.  Yes, I am bitter.  I've been through too many recoveries and relapses not to harbor some ill will for the process.

Mostly, I blame my mom.  My other siblings and I tried to warn her.  We asked her who was going to give her money when the others had taken all of hers.  Her answer was always that it is HER money and she will give it to who she wants and spend it the way she wants.  She always said she would be dead before it ran out and we warned her as well that she could live another 20 years and she needed to think of herself and her needs.  Again, we were told it was HER money.

I'm heartbroken.  I listened to my mom's breathless, unfinished sentences and something in me broke.  The despair and desperation in her plea for guidance and help broke me.  My mom doesn't want to accept the limitations of her body and her aging mind.  She has fire and spunk but I really sense fear now.  Fear that sheer force of will is not going to be enough this time to make her physical being cooperate.  Fear that her independence is coming to an end.  My own mortality has never been more shockingly clear to me.  My own fear that once my mom passes I am, essentially, an orphan.  I will not have a living parent left in this world.  It was the first time I had thought of that and how I will feel, what it will mean. 

I will do what I can from here.  I wish it could be more.  I wish I could comfort her like she did me so many times when I was a child.  I wish distance and money were not an issue.  I wish my mom hadn't squanderd her money on adults too selfish and lazy to earn their own.  I wish my dad were alive so none of this would be an issue.  I wish my mom's mind and body would just cooperate and get her to death comfortably.  I wish I didn't feel so helpless and sad.  I wish growing old weren't so hard.  But like my mom has always said, "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."