Living With Mom

I have many friends who are in similar situations to my own.

D moved in with his mom one month after I moved in with mine. D’s mother has dementia. He’s an only child. He has two aunts, and two cousins who are both is age. He faces challenges I can’t even imagine. And he does so with grace, compassion, and a commitment to ensuring that his mother receive the best care possible.

His life has been dominated by his mother’s needs. In the beginning he could manage with the help of friends and neighbors. As her condition gradually worsened, he had to depend on his boyfriend (now EX) and the fact that they worked different schedules, leaving them very little opportunity to be a couple in any meaningful way.  Eventually he had to start hiring ‘baby sitters’.

I don’t know how you make a judgment about when one person can manage the needs of a dementia patient at home. But I fear the situation is rapidly becoming impossible, and D will have to make the difficult choice to put his mother into a care facility.

I can easily imagine that he will have very mixed feelings about doing that. He certainly wants her to have the best care, and he would also like to have his own life back. I know that he has been putting at some parts of his life on hold, making choices that favor being home, being around, being available to take care of his mother’s ever-increasing needs.

He shouldn’t feel guilty because he can’t offer her the care she needs at home. But I suspect that he will have a hard time accepting that. He WILL have given enough, even if his heart says otherwise.

G moved from California with his father. G’s father is of sound mind, but his body is failing in a variety of ways. Hip replacement. Back problems. Lots of physical issues that make it difficult, or impossible, for him to do all the things he’s always been able to do.

G has been great. I think that like me, G has gotten to know his father in a new way that gives him a profound appreciation for who this man is, and that he could never have known just by being his son, all grown up and living away.

In contrast, there’s R. He’s living with his mom, and one of his brother’s who is going through a messy divorce. I’ve known R and his mother since I was five years old, when I first moved to Florida and R became my friend. She’s always been a strong woman, used to having her opinion and believing that if you knew what was good for you, you would have it too. Used to taking care of the business of the family: paying bills; making sure things around the house get done; keeping a schedule with students; taking care of her own mother; and generally making sure the world is a better place.

Unfortunately, between her hearing loss, and the various physical infirmities she simply can’t do those things any more.

Even having a conversation with her is difficult. She just can’t hear and the nature of her hearing loss is beyond the reach of hearing enhancement technology.

R and I recently spent a day together out at Universal. We’ve known each other a long time, and although we don’t get to see each other often, when we do it’s like no time has passed. It was a great day: perfect weather; no lines; and best of all, we like all the same rides.

We went to Finnegan’s for lunch. We sat there talking about our mothers. Our situations are much the same on paper, but profoundly different in practice. My mother and I genuinely enjoy each other. Even if I wasn’t her son, I might well be her friend if the world had given us the opportunity to meet.

R and his mother… Not so much. He is doing everything he can to help. But it’s not enjoyable for him to know his mother in this way. She is not someone he would choose to have a relationship with at this point in their lives.

I don’t mean she’s a bad person. Far from it. She’s a remarkable, interesting, strong, opinionated, compassionate, generous and kind woman. Or at least, that’s the woman I knew, and the woman R grew up with.

But at this point, her life is very limited. As a result, she’s basically frustrated. All the time. About everything. She’s not pleasant to be around.

But R must be around. He must help. Well.. Not MUST. But he IS around and he IS helping. And it’s clearly a sacrifice in a way that my helping my mother isn’t.

Then there’s J. J is a single mom with a daughter in college. Her mother is a retired nurse, or possibly doctor. At first, when Mom, J and her daughter were all living together it was really kind of great. Three generations of strong, intelligent, interesting women sharing a big, comfortable house.

But then Mom started to have some health issues. Major back problems. Surgery. Hospital stays. Pain medications. Immobility. Just .. lots and lots of things, one after another.

One day, J and I were sharing stories about some of the things we had been experiencing. I’ve done this. WELL.. I’ve done that and this! Kind of a one upmanship about the things that happen with dealing with Mom.

Naturally, I was telling her about “Dick, it’s time to change my bandage” (You can find the story here: Damn it Jim, I’m a Doctor, not a…). Finding my mother lying on her bed, on her side, panties down around her ankles, flank exposed so that I can clean and dress the 12 inch wound on her hip.

Yep. J was appropriately horrified and amused. Then she said, “Have you had to wipe?”

To which, I replied, “You win.”

My favorite one is “bricklayer” from THE DEVIL IN THE DARK.

Well, I’m not a doctor, nor do I, like DeForest Kelley, play one on TV. Nevertheless, after my mother’s hip replacement and subsequent MRSA infection, she was going to need care.

I wanted her in a nursing home, but her disastrous experience with Florida Hospital Nursing Home on Cortland Ave, left her adamant about not going back into a nursing home. ANY nursing home. She wanted to at home.

We had to rearrange the house. Move furniture, change the heights of things. My brother, Ted, installed a grip bar next to her toilet. All the carpets came up. The bedroom was completely rearranged.

My mother came home from the hospital with a PICC LINE  into her heart. She also had a 12″ x 1″ x 1″ open wound on her left hip where the surgeon had removed the necrotic flesh. For a while she had a WOUND VAC (Negative Pressure Wound Therapy) which a nurse came to manage.

I was not thrilled about this, but she needed daily IV infusion of a very expensive antibiotic.

The nurse trained me how to do the antibiotics. There was something like 23 steps involved, which I carefully wrote down.

I’m not particularly squeamish, but I’ve not been trained to deal with, or spent much time around sick people. The idea of having to do something, that at least in principle, a trained Nurse is supposed to do, and that theoretically if done wrong (well grossly wrong, like well beyond incompetent to the point of moronic) could result in my mother’s death, left me less than eager to perform the required daily task of connecting and disconnecting her IV.

So there I would be in my little office off the living room, and my mother would say, “Dick, it’s time for my medicine.”

Before I moved in, I reviewed The Landmark Forum. I did so with the specific intention that would help me deal with the fact that I would be living with my mother. I wanted to know that I could do this, and that the commitment I was making was for the right reasons.

The intention I created (sorry if this language is a bit odd, but it’s very “Landmark”) is that my mother would have the experience of being loved.

So, when my mother would say, “Dick, it’s time for my medicine” I couldn’t just get up from my chair, walk into the living room and say, “I HATE THIS! It scares me to do this. I’m afraid I’ll make a mistake. I’m afraid I’m going to kill you. I’m afraid that you’re going to DIE. I’m afraid.”

Doing that would not be likely to give my mother the experience of being loved. Terrified maybe, but loved, almost certainly not.

And it’s more than just not saying what I felt. I knew that if she saw the look on my face when I heard those words, or noticed how my hand would shake as I was opening the packages, preparing the various implements of her imminent death at my hands, that she would not have the experience of being loved.

So, each day, when she would call out for me to come and do her medicine, I would get up from my chair, and stand in the doorway of my office. Breathing. Slowly. Until I was sure that the look on my face was calm. That my hands were not shaking. That the thoughts screaming at me were acknowledged and let go.

Then, and only then, would I walk into the living room to do what had to be done.

Some days that moment was longer than others. But in all the time I was doing that particular task, it was never quick.

Once the WOUND VAC came off, my mother required the bandage on her hip to be changed. Again, the nurse trained me how to do what needed to be done. Again, I wrote down the steps in great detail.

Unlike the IV, this particular task did not create the sense that I was about to be the cause of my mother’s demise. This task had a different kind of discomfort associated with it.

My mother would call out, “Dick, it’s time to change my bandage.” Which meant that when I got up, I would walk to her bedroom and find her lying on her right side on the bed with her panties around her ankles, flank exposed, so that I could remove the bandage, clean the wound, and apply the new bandage.

Wow… I managed to get all of that into a single sentence. I’m not sure if that makes it less or more creepy and disturbing, that for months on end, I basically was massaging my mother’s butt on a regular basic.

But I had made a commitment. A commitment that my mother would have the experience of being loved.

In that moment, that required that I do what needed to be done, respectfully, with consideration and compassion, as efficiently and caringly as I could.

Dignity is an interesting thing. I’m clear that dignity is something that is one’s own. Others can seek to deprive one of it, and mankind has in its history come up with many inventive ways to attempt that. One can relinquish it, which we have also found myriad ways to do. But in the end, one’s dignity is one’s own. It can’t be taken without our consent, but that doesn’t mean having someone try to take it a positive experience. It’s not.

To fulfill my commitment, I had to acknowledge my mother’s dignity, as she lie on the bed, physically exposed, allowing me to minister to her need. There was no possibility of my mother having the experience of being loved if through my actions, words, or thoughts, I did less than honor her; the position she was in, which required her to ask me to do what needed doing; or her essential dignity as a human being.

My entire life my mother had talked about GRACE. It’s a Catholic thing. One of the things she would say is that it is an opportunity for Grace to receive the help you need graciously.

Well, if Grace is something you can earn through your thoughts, words, or actions, my mother earned a richness of it during those months. As difficult as I might have found it to do what needed doing, I have no doubt, that having to have it done, was by far the greater burden to bear.

So, I’m not a Doctor, and I don’t play one on TV. But I had the honor and privilege to getting to do a small bit of doctoring for my mother at the time when she needed it.

My mother is well at this time. Very well, actually. We both hope, and frankly, work to ensure, that she remains well. But should she have need of that kind of basic medical care again, we both know that it is possible for her to stay in her own home.

Should we face a greater need… Well, we are both practical people, and no point in crossing a bridge that is not at the time on our route. But I am confident that whatever choice my mother makes, we will do it together.

I have faced illness in the past. I’m profoundly grateful for Antoine. My mother understands what he means to me, even if others never will, perhaps because I might never tell them.

No one knows what the future holds. I truly hope that I never require such care, but if I am faced with that need, I pray that I have a small fraction of my mother’s Grace and dignity, and compassion for whoever is unfortunate enough to have to deal with me.

Lucy does not like bromeliads.  I learned this recently when, due to the construction, my mother moved all of the potted plants she had near the front door out back. Over the course of the next few weeks, Lucy very carefully removed all of the bromeliads from their pots. She left the other plants completely intact, but destroyed the roots of each of the bromeliads, thus making it clear it was not just a question of them being in the wrong place, but that they will not be allowed.

It looks like this: 

Gardening was one of the very first forms of self-expression that Lucy engaged in when I got her. She took it upon herself to rearrange most of the back garden at Warwick. Here is the artist’s rendering of the house:

Unfortunately someone has destroyed the back garden that Lucy worked so hard on. Here’s how it looks now:

It’s a shame really. It was quite lovely. Lucy worked very hard on it. As she did on Venetian Avenue here in Orlando.

Lucy likes rose bushes. She has never ripped one up or asked that it be moved. She also likes Bougainvillea. The bigger and thornier the better.

She is tolerant of hibiscus as long as they are where she wants them. If they are not in the right place, she will dig them up and put them where they SHOULD be. Not planted, of course. That is for me to take care. But she will put the carefully uprooted plant in the exact spot where it belongs. Any attempt to put it elsewhere will result in a second demonstration of the second spot. Failure to comply will then result in the destruction of the offending plant.

When my beloved sister-in-law, Susie, gave me a Meyer Lemon Tree for my yard on Venetian, I took it out back and waited. Lucy told me where she wanted it by uprooting a large hibiscus, leaving a lovely hole, and taking the tree out of its pot, leaving it, roots perfectly intact, next the hole.

I assume she was as excited about the Meyer Lemon Tree as I was. That particular hibiscus did not survive her enthusiastic removal.

She is very picky about cacti. Only certain types. Only in certain places. Only of a certain size. I had a very large, well-developed cactus under my bedroom window. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of it before Lucy pruned it. I estimate it is now about 1/5 its original size. Here is what’s left:

It took her several weeks to make it acceptable. I knew she had a project has she was spending lots of extra time outside. I went and looked several times to see if I could figure out what she was doing, but never found anything obvious. I only discovered the nature of her project when she came running into dinner one evening with a large thorn stuck through her upper lip. Once removed and examined I was easily able to find the site of her work. She had been quite thorough. I actually did not expect the cactus to survive, but they are hearty and once down to the size she wanted, she has since left it to grow with only an occasional trim.

While Lucy has a great interest in her garden, fences are another matter all together. Fences are in some cases a suggestion of a mere boundary, to be ignored entirely if there is something of interest on the other side: like a hunka hunka male dog. If not ignored altogether, a fence is treated as a minor inconvenience which, with a bit of effort, can generally be modified to suit her needs. Her needs mostly being she can come and go (mostly go) as she pleases.

The fence on Warwick was, in my estimation, quite substantial. Most of the yard was enclosed by a tall wooden fence, which you can still see in the picture above of the back yard. But on the one side was a 6 foot chain link fence. This was fine with Lucy until the new neighbors put up a nice wooden fence along that side. This not only blocked her view, but more importantly prevented her from getting nose to nose with the new dogs.

I do not know how long it took, but eventually she was able to find a spot where the chain link has been joined poorly. She tore it apart, and bent it back, exposing the new wooden fence on the other side. By the time I discovered what she was up to she had almost managed to chew through the 4×4 bottom cross beam of the new wooden fence.

My discovery was because of a large splinter in her lip which sent me scurry around looking for her construction (or de-construction) site. Took quite a while to find and the only way I was able to prevent further work, which was very close to creating a substantial hole in the wooden fence, was to entirely block off access to that side of the house. This took Antoine, Jeffrey and I the better part of an entire day, as Lucy was very interested in continuing her work and took down the barriers we had erected three times before we finally got something she was unable, or perhaps just unwilling, to deconstruct.

When I moved to Florida, a SOLID fence was a priority. Both the house on Harvard and Venetian had good fences, although Lucy did substantial ‘work’ on the big gate across the driveway on Venetian, requiring considerable repairs on two occasions.

Prior to moving in with my mother, one of the things we did was expand the fenced area of the yard. They had a small back yard with tall wooden fences on the two sides and a three-foot wooden fence across the back. I’ll look for a picture when we can get at the stuff so you can see. It was … small, and Lucy had gotten used to having quite a large yard and garden in which to work.

We added a large section on the south side of the house, utilizing a 70 foot section of the neighbor’s side fence for one part and adding a five foot chain link fence around the other two sides, adjoining to the house to make a large rectangle giving the dogs a big area to run around in. This area has become a favorite place for both of them. From there they can see our cul du sac and the other cul du sac, as well as the regular stream of people who walk along the creek on the east side of the property to get from one neighborhood to the other.

It is quite common for Lucy and / or Princess to be waiting out in the yard when I come home. They bark excitedly in greeting, waiting for me to get out of the car and take my first step toward the house. Sometimes I stop to check the mail box or put the garbage cans away. They wait and then… RUN around to the back and in through the dog door just in time to meet me at the front door when I step into the house.

Such a fun game.

The little wooden fence across the back was quite nice. Very rustic. A low fence, giving a lovely, unobstructed view of the pond. A perfect barrier for Bandit, my parents’ previous dog, and Princess had apparently never challenged it in any way.

Unfortunately, this was one of those fences that Lucy considered more of a visual barrier than a physical one. The first time the neighbors had their Labs out to swim in the pond, Lucy just … walked right through the fence. It might as well have been nothing more than tall grass. Here’s a short clip of Lucy playing the pond.

You might notice there are other dogs. I find it amusing that they basically ignore her completely. She’s like that kid at the playground who doesn’t quite catch on. The other dogs are not actually playing WITH Lucy. They are playing AROUND her. She can sniff butt all she wants but they aren’t gonna sniff back.

It took quite a while to get her back into the yard and cleaned up. Of course, this happened just as I was about to walk out the door, all dressed up to dance. She had to have a quick bath, get dried. It was a mess. I was late.

And my mother was not exactly thrilled that Lucy had punched a big hole in the fence. I blocked that area off as best I could, but it was a very temporary arrangement.

I tried putting some chicken wire across the back. This did little to deter her. The next time the neighbor had the Labs in the pond, Lucy just bit the tops off two of the wooden panels and jumped right over. Took her all of five seconds.

So, we ordered a white PVC picket fence and had it installed. I don’t exactly what it cost, but my mother was … not happy that we had to do it.

The neighbor brought out the Labs and ….

Lucy punched through the picket as if it was tall grass. So up went more chicken wire. Which lead to:

Chewed fence posts. This actually did take a BIT of work. Maybe … 30 seconds, and she cut her mouth, not that she cared, cause her ‘boyfriends’ were back in the pond, ignoring her.

My mother was about as furious as she ever gets (which is actually not very furious at all, but it’s still interesting to experience.) We needed a solution and we needed it NOW. In addition to the damage Lucy had done to the garden and the fence across the back, she had also done a fair amount of modifications to the wooden side fences. This included, but is not limited to:

1. Tearing a whole through the bottom of three boards of one side, which my brother, Ted patched.
2. Chewing up several of the large cross beams
   
3. Removing an entire board from the other neighbor’s fence, which my brother, Ted replaced. (Sorry, no pic of that one.)

This lead to the decision to electrify the fence, which sounds drastic, but considering that Lucy had done hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars of damage with only more to come, I was fully in favor of a little shock treatment to get her attention. She is a smart dog and I figured one good shock would be enough.

So, we added the electric horse wire to fence:

All the way from the north gate, down the north side, across the back, up the south side, around the corner, and across the wooden fence in the new section. All told, somewhere around 300 feet of fencing, with both a top and a bottom wire. Brother Ted was once again, very helpful.

Lucy, to my knowledge, touched the wire exactly once. She is, after all, a very smart dog.

She also figured out that the fence was not always electric, but rather than test it herself, she used the other dogs (Princess, my father’s dog that lives here, John Paul’s dog, Amy’s dog, Ted’s dog, basically ANY dog that was handy) to test the fence for her.

I suspect that she had a variety of techniques to get the other dogs to bump into the wire, but I only witnessed the hip bump where she knocked Amy’s dog, Bella, into the fence. Bella was leapt several into the air, and so Lucy knew that the fence was currently (pun intended) on. Fortunately, Bella was fine.

It didn’t take very long for the other dogs learned to stay far enough away from the fence so that Lucy couldn’t use them to test it. Lucy learned that if she chewed between the wires without touching them she could still do a LOT of “work” on the fence or the plants near it without fear of being shocked.

She even managed to get over the back fence once without getting shocked, or shocked badly enough to stop her.

For good or bad, Lucy is older now; she is no longer concerned about getting out to the pond to swim with her ‘boyfriends’, or go on a walkabout. The electric fence has been disabled and is in a state of disrepair.

She still chews on parts of the fence, but she seems to mostly have given up on major gardening projects, although when I was out in the yard taking pictures of this post, I did notice that all of the azaleas that used to line the back fence are gone. There were still there last Spring and Summer. Exactly when she removed them, and where she put the debris, I don’t know.

I’m hoping she lets my mother’s beloved orchids live, although, who knows. While curious about Lucy’s gardening philosophy, she has not exactly been forthcoming on details. I only get to see the results and must use that to draw my own conclusions about her likes and dislikes.

One thing is clear. Lucy does not like bromeliads.

This past year (so this little story is out of time sequence) I decided I wanted to watch FARGO, the new TV series on FX. I knew it would be stretching the limits a bit, but I wanted to see what they were going to do with the story and the cast looked GREAT.

Plus, I can now watch things late at night because my dear friend, Dawn, had given me a set of TV EARS, which, while not the most comfortable thing I’ve ever had stuck in my ears, certainly do what they are supposed to do.

Well, it’s violent. Something my mother has grown more accustomed to as we have watched an ever growing variety of programs. The first really violent program was PERSON OF INTEREST. Since it’s a computer thing, and I do computer things, I really wanted to see it. Thursday nights. I recorded it and we watched it time delayed about an hour.

After it (PERSON OF INTEREST, I’ll get back to FARGO in a minute) was over, my mother said, “It’s violent.” No surprise, but I had liked it and wanted to see more.

Next week, recorded it again and watched it time delayed, after which my mother said, “Well, it’s violent”, at which point I decided that it would get added to my list of late night programs.

Week three came and it recorded. I was looking for something on the list of recorded stuff to watch and my mother said, “What about PERSON OF INTEREST?”

I was a bit surprised and responded, “You said it was violent.”

To which she replied, “It is, but it’s very good.” It has since become one of her favorites, although we are not happy that they killed off the nice police detective.

So, FARGO is violent. Very violent. More violent than PERSON OF INTEREST, and less funny. I wasn’t sure if my mother was going to stick with it, but, oddly enough, it actually became the first program where we watched TWO episodes in a row; a veritable BINGE WATCHING of the show for my mother.

In this one episode, the main character has gone out to the big house of the widow whose husband was killed in the first episode while having sex with a prostitute,  which we got to see. The stabbing to death, while having sex with the prostitute, pinning the poor girl under his body, with his blood running down all over her.

It’s violent. And it has (for American TV) fairly explicit depictions of sex, a new category of concern for me as I pick programs to watch.

So, there he is, out at the house, explaining about the insurance policy. It turns out, the husband has stopped paying the premium, which the wife doesn’t know. He’s supposed to tell her, but he’s basically a wimp and doesn’t want to tell her this unfortunate news. So he dithers.

She, the widow, reaches the conclusion that the apparent delay in the process of the policy could be … hmm… helped along… if she offered a bit of … encouragement.

The next scene is them upstairs, her on her hands and knees, dress hiked up around her waist, him behind her, banging the bitch for all he can get.

The depictions of sex on American TV have gotten more explicit than when I was a child. There was a commercial, for MITCHUM DEODORANT.  It showed this handsome guy, in bed. He would sit up, and the sheets would slide down showing his bare chest. He would say, “I didn’t use my deodorant yesterday, and I may not today.” You can see the commercial here.

My mother would then sputter, “MMHHUMP! I don’t need a naked man in my living room.”

So there I sit, watching an unscrupulous insurance salesman, who has murdered his wife, give it doggy style to a widow whose policy expired because her dead husband didn’t pay the premium, with my mother sitting beside me.

It was like one of those noses that you can’t NOT look at. Or a zit right in the middle of someone’s forehead. Or spinach in someone’s teeth as they talk to you. It was all I could do to NOT turn and look at her.

Waiting. Waiting to hear what she would say about THIS, given that a shirtless man advertising deodorant was enough to set her off for my entire childhood.

And… Nothing.

Next week we record FARGO and start to watch. The widow is in the insurance company office with her two sons, the insurance salesman, and the insurance salesman’s boss. She is demanding action on payment of the policy. The boss explains that her dead husband, murdered while having sex with a prostitute, had stopped paying the premiums. There will be no payment.

The situation slowly sinks in. Her face goes through a few interesting contortions (she’s a good actress, Kate Walsh). She turns to the insurance salesman and screams, “I LET YOU CUM INSIDE ME!”

My mother, a good Catholic woman, is no fool. Her mind is sharp. Her hearing is all too good. There is NO HOPE that she just missed that, or doesn’t understand what it means.

I sit. Waiting. Dreading what she might say.

Nothing. She says, nothing.

Until the commercial break, at which point she says, “It’s a good thing your father is dead.”

When I moved in, the space available to me was limited. Some shared public rooms (living room, dining room, kitchen, and the second bath), and two bedrooms, one of which would be my sleeping quarters, the other my office / den.

In the office / den I managed to fit a filing cabinet, a five shelf lawyer’s glass front bookshelf, a smaller bookshelf, a small dresser, a large dresser, a desk with computer and extra monitor, a desk chair, a television, a rocker / recliner, an antique coal bin and several pieces of artwork.

There was not a lot of extra space.

The idea was that I would have a private space that I could use to “get away”.

A lovely idea. However….

Lucy likes to be close, so there had to be enough room for her to lie at my feet. And the ‘other’ cat decide this was the only room she was willing to be in. Princess can not tolerate a closed door, nor would Boo, and Lucy made frequent trips outside to patrol the perimeter, work on her gardening projects, bark at the neighbor dogs, and water the lawn. In other words, the door could never really be closed all the way.

My mother likes certain TV programs, but has no interest in others. And there are a very few which she finds objectionable. One of those is THE SIMPSONS.

I’m not sure why she finds THE SIMPSONS so objectionable, but she does. So I recorded it on my TIVO and would watch that, along with a bunch of science fiction and horror programs in which my mother had no particular interest, in my room.

With the door ajar so the animals could come and go.

My mother would watch her programs, many of which I had no particular interest in, in the living room on the larger flat screen that I had moved over with me.

So there I am, sitting watching my programs, with the door ajar, Lucy at my feet, trying to keep the volume down.  And it seems that … the volume in the living room just got a bit louder. Unfortunately, this means I have to turn up my TV just a bit, or I can’t hear the witty dialogue between Bart and Lisa.

Then my mother’s TV seems to get just a bit louder. So I turn mine up.  And … and… On it goes till it is just too loud to be reasonable.

Night after night, the unintentional (I assume) volume wars, invariably result in my giving up and going into the living room, usually after my mother gives forth a heavy SIGH, loud enough to hear over both TVs all the way in my little fortress of solitude.

One night, as we are sitting there watching something I like, but my mother doesn’t particularly care about, she starts telling me about her friends. They are a married couple, been together 40+ years. She just can’t understand how they can each be in different rooms watching different TVs. Sometimes they are even watching the same program.

How, she wonders, and people live like that. Why, she and my father never needed more than one TV. If she didn’t like what he was watching, she would just read. And if he didn’t like what she was watching he would do something else, sitting there, together, in the same room, watching (or not watching) the same TV.

It’s what decent, normal people DO. Or, at least from my mother’s point of view, it’s what people should do, decent, normal or not.

It became a recurring topic of “discussion”, meaning that as I would be trying to watch something my mother would have a new story, about some other couple she knows, who don’t watch TV together. And she is truly and profoundly confused how they can do this.

After about six weeks, I finally figured it out. Not that she was intentionally trying to make this known. It’s just something, that at some core level, is TRUE for her: People who care about each other do not sit in separate rooms watching separate TVs.

So…. I sold the second TV. Gave the rocker / recliner to my sister, Amy (on loan!) and moved the second TIVO unit into the living room.

And stopped recording THE SIMPSONS. Because, normal, decent people who care about each other apparently sit in the same room, watching (or not watching) the same TV because it show you care.

 

My mother likes to talk. Granted, she can be quite entertaining, but having heard the story first hand, then getting to hear it again when she tells one of my siblings on the phone, I do not then need her to tell me about telling my sibling. After all, I just heard the entire conversation.

Given that I have six siblings and of a given evening she might talk to three, four or more of them, the opportunity to hear a story and the story about the story, and the story about the story about the story is …. substantial.

Pointing out to my mother that I have already heard the story serves no purpose. The telling of the story has nothing to do with my need to know it. It has to do with her need to tell it, which is large and a driving force in her life.

I reached the conclusion that we all need to express ourselves. We each have our own threshold for telling the story of a given event in our life. Mostly this works out just fine since we end up telling a variety of people over time: someone at work; someone at lunch; someone at the store, etc., until we have met our personal quota for the telling of the story.

My mother’s personal quote runs between 15 and 20 repetitions. That’s for an ordinary story. For the important things, like the garbage men didn’t come on time, or the fruit she bought at the store was not really ripe; well those things require much more telling for her to process them.

I quickly developed a technique that, as it turns out my father had mastered long ago. I only sort of listen.

Usually this is fine. After all, if I’m going to hear a story get told 15 or 20, and the cast of characters in the story is people I don’t actually know, by the time she has reached her story telling quota I’m sure to know all the salient details. Right?

Yea. Generally. Except….. My mother has this habit of tossing in a sentence here and there which is not actually a part of the story; a sentence which contains information which might be of great significance to me, like, “Oh, I made a doctor’s appointment for Thursday at 2:00 and they told me I shouldn’t drive myself.”

This is important. I’ve just been told that I need to make sure my schedule accommodates her appointment. But when those vital details are embedded in the middle of a story about what she had for lunch, with people I may or may not have ever met, at a place I’ve probably never been, and given that I’m only sort of listening, it’s easy to miss.

Especially since that particular aside is unlikely to come up in subsequent tellings of the tale.

I remember noticing that my father would occasionally say “What?”, which we all assumed was related to his hearing loss. In truth, his less than perfect hearing might have had something to do with it. But I have since come to believe that it was more likely him having noticed that my mother had just said something that was not, in fact, an actual part of the story he was ignoring, but rather one of those potentially very important, unlikely to be repeated asides which he would be held accountable for knowing at a future time.

And thus I found myself going, “What?” on a fairly regular basis.

My mother is truly amazing. If I manage to utter the magic word in a timely fashion, she will always, without hesitation, irritation or variance, repeat the last sentence she just said, thus allowing me (and my father before me) to bring to full consciousness the all important tidbit of information she had just casually embedded in an otherwise unremarkable flow of words.

This is wonderful. A second chance. A moment of redemption. An opportunity to serve my function.

And a curse. Because it also means that I can’t actually NOT listen. I must always sort of listen, or risk missing the one important thing that was most certainly buried in the storm of words, and which if not known about can not be elicited by inquiry.

If I miss the narrow of window of opportunity to utter “What?” then in order to discover the hidden gem I must ask a question. “Did you just say something about an appointment on Thursday?” is perfect. That will almost certainly elicit the necessary information.

“Did you say something about Thursday?” Or “Did you say something about an appointment?” Which question I ask depends entirely on what key word got caught by my “sort of listening” filter.

If I’m lucky the story in question had no events that happened on a Thursday, or there is only one appointment that she has not yet told me about.

Unfortunately, for a wide variety of reasons, asking “What did you say that I actually needed to know?” is not a question which will result in an answer that has value or significance. From my mother’s point of view, everything she says is of interest (if not to me, than at least to her.)

So, “What?” has become an invaluable tool of communication, and a simple way to show that I care, if not about her story, then at least about her.

Once I had moved in with my mother, patterns of interaction quickly arose. My mother was used to getting up fairly early, often before 7:00am. I was used to sleeping a bit later, generally getting up around 8:00am.

With two dogs, and a cat, we would put a baby-gate across the door to my bathroom to block the dogs in at night (their dog door is in my bathroom.) The baby-gate has a section of the screen cut out for the cat. Dog must stay in and not bark, but if we blocked the cat from coming and going, NO ONE was going to get much sleep. Ahhh… Animals are so wonderful.

As soon as my mother would get up each morning, she would hobble out of her room and pull the baby-gate aside, allowing the dogs to go out. Being a courteous woman, she rarely made enough noise doing this to wake me, even though my bedroom door is RIGHT next to the bathroom door with the baby-gate, and, my bedroom door was always open. The cat and dogs MUST be able to wander from room to room during the night or NO ONE was going to get much sleep. Ahhh… Animals are so wonderful.

Anyway… One morning, I got up to discover the baby-gate was still in place. Hmm. That’s odd. And the french doors to the porch were still closed. That’s VERY odd. And the blinds in the kitchen are still up. That’s VERY ODD INDEED!

So I opened the blinds, opened the french door, moved the baby-gate and got into the shower.

By which time I had decided that my mother must have died during the night.

For the next 90 minutes, which is how long I managed to make the hot water last by moderating the temperature to just barely warm, and water pressure to just a trickle, I thought about … IT.

When I got out of the shower, my life, as I knew it, would be over, and I would have to immediately start dealing with the institutions of death.

Who would be my first call (my younger sister, Amy.)  My second (my brother, Bill, co-executor of the estate.)  My third (Stuart, my dance partner, so I could cancel our practice session.)  Then my brother, Kane.

Do NOT call John Paul at work. Do NOT call Mary at work. Do NOT call Ted at work (do I even have a phone number for Ted, or his wife Susie?)

Should I call paramedics? Or should I just call a funeral home. Which funeral home? (My mother was not happy with the people who handled my father’s funeral, so not them…..)

Since it was a Thursday, I was supposed to go up to Seminole High School to teach the after school dance program. I would not cancel that, so I would have to make all the arrangements before 2:00 so I could be on time at the school. (Crazy, I know, but that’s what my plan was.)

Who was the lawyer again? What’s the name of the woman at church that keep’s Father Walsh’s schedule? Do we do last rights at home, or at the funeral home?

Did I have any other meetings. Was there anything in the house to feed people? Don’t forget to feed the dogs. By the way… Where is Lucy? She usually spends her morning on the floor in the bathroom waiting for me. Great. Are the dogs in with my mother? Please, don’t let them be chewing on her dead body. That would be hard to explain.

I had a lot on my mind as I wasted gallon after gallon of water trying to avoid the inevitable: having to get out of the shower, and actually go CHECK to see if my mother was dead in bed or not.

Eventually, there was no more adjustments I could make to the temperature or water pressure. I had to get out of the shower. And even if I let my hair air dry, it would still only take SO long….

Stealing myself for the worst, I dried my hair, got dressed and started walking to her room. Quietly. Slowly. One step. One step. One step…. Until I could just see the corner of her bed. Inch forward to see a bit more. Inch forward again and …. Is that her dead body under the sheets? Another tiny step forward and…

I suddenly realized that her blinds were open, and I could hear the water running in her shower.

My mother was not, in fact, dead!

One might expect to experience relief. Joy. Perhaps some might be disappointed (those who don’t LIKE their mother.)

I was more concerned that she would catch me sneaking around and wonder why?

I quickly retreated. Went out to get the paper. Made a light breakfast and sat reading the comics waiting for her to come out.

About 20 minutes later (by which point I had called Stuart to say I was going to be late, and having read much more of the paper than the comics) my mother emerged.

Before I could say a word she started talking about how she was so surprised when she woke up and looked at the clock. It was nearly 9:00 and she couldn’t believe how well she had slept. She hadn’t slept that well in … well YEARS.

But she had to take a cold shower. It never ceased to amaze her at how much water I could use……….

Yea, Mom. It’s easy when you’re staying in the shower trying to avoid finding your mother’s dead body in her bed.

As I sat there listening to my mother talk about cold showers and good night’s sleep, I had the realization that it was not a question of IF I would some day have to deal with my mother dying. But WHEN.

The day would inevitably come. And in all sincerity, I truly hoped it would happen at home, in her sleep, and that I would awaken to find my mother dead, in her bed. But not today, as it turned out. And hopefully, not soon.

Once the decision was made that I would move in, meaning that all the rest of my siblings also thought it was a great idea, my mother decided that she wanted to do a few things to the house before I actually made the move.

Sounds simple, but, like most things, it’s better on paper.  A “few things” turned out to mean taking up the carpet in three bedrooms and replacing it with tile; enclosing the screen porch; taking down easily two hundred framed paintings, pictures and prints; having all the walls in the three bedrooms, living room, dining room and kitchen painted; and generally getting rid of stuff so that I would have some space to put a few of my things.

Like my table. My custom-made dining table that is 6′ x 6′ without leaves, and with both leaves in is 6′ x 10′.

The re-hanging of art was an exercise in restraint; at least from my mother’s point of view. We ended up hanging only 50 or so items, some of which were mine. Some were obvious choices, like her Abby original, and the three panel oil on canvas of the Organ Mountains. Others were less obvious choices, like the acrylic sunflowers, and the false color prints of the Rio Grand Valley as it runs through Las Cruces, NM, made from images taken by LandSat.

Ah, compromise. Something which we would learn to do a lot of over time.

So, the house project completed, it was time for me to schedule my move. We picked Wednesday, May 6, 2009 as my move date. I schedule a truck and some guys and continued to pack, and pick and choose what few things I would be bringing with me.

On Monday, April 27, I went over to drop off Lucy (my dog) and head out to dancing. When I got there, my mother said she wanted to talk to me. Now, my mother and I talk all the time, but this was obviously different. First, she never announces her intention to talk. And second, her tone was not her normal, happy self.

Clearly upset, she told me that she had decided she did NOT want me to move in. Six months had passed since my father had died, and she was doing just fine on her own. She didn’t need me and she didn’t want me to move in.

I was shocked. Stunned. Stupefied. But I wrapped my head around the idea and told her I would do whatever she wanted. It’s her house, and if she didn’t want me to move in, I would NOT move in.

Still not really understanding what was happening, we sat there while she continued to talk about how she just didn’t need me to move in and that she was doing fine.

My mother repeats herself a lot. But this was not her normal tell-the-same-story-several-times thing. This was sounding like she was trying to convince herself that she was doing the right thing.

Eventually, I asked, “What’s really going on?”

After a pause, she said, “I don’t want to be the reason your alone and not happy.”

I’ve never doubted that my mother is amazing. And it shouldn’t surprise me that she would put my (potential future) happiness above her own needs. But I never expected this.

So we talked. More like, I talked. About how when she and my father were first married, how they lived first with one set of relatives, then another. How her parents came to live with us for a while. How regardless of circumstances, they always managed to make things work.

I talked about how I wasn’t worried about being alone and unhappy. That if I met a nice guy, he would obviously need to know and understand that I live with my mother. That I would never consider getting involved with a guy who didn’t understand that commitment and what it meant.

I said suppose I DO meet a guy. Would it be a problem if I told her that I was meeting him for dinner and wouldn’t be home till the morning?

Well, of course not.

If I was seeing a guy and he happened to be here for breakfast, would it be a problem?

Well, of course not. She would be THRILLED if I had someone in my life like that.

And so, there we sat. Both crying a little. Both knowing that we could do this; we could make it work. And that it would require we be honest with each other about our concerns; considerate of each other’s needs; respectful of each other’s lives.

That we could do this because I knew, without doubt, that my mother loved me and wanted me to be happy. And she knew that my making a commitment to be there and help was not me giving up something, but us creating something, together.

Years ago, when I was still living in Oakland, CA at Warwick Manor, I kind of assumed that at some point my mother would end up living with me. I even talked with an architect friend about what modifications I could make to the house so that she would have a nice private suite with her own bath.

Well, as it often the case, that’s not how things worked out.

Early on the morning of Thursday, November 6, 2008, I got a phone call from my mother. My father, Harry Lamberty, had died during the night. I drove the half mile over to my parents house.

I found myself sitting at the dining room table with my mother and my brother, Bill. He and I were co-executors. My mother was telling us about receiving the call from the hospital. How when she had left on Wednesday night, she didn’t expect that she would never see him again. That if she had only known….

Listening to my mother, I had but one thought: I can’t let her be alone.

Without further thought, I said, “I’m going to move in with you.”

At first there was silence. Then, Bill looked up, with tears in his eyes, and I knew, this was the right thing. Of course, the rest of the family would have to weigh in, and there would be a lot of things that needed to happen first, but, in my mind the decision had been made; had really been made all those years ago back in Oakland.

And now, it was time to start Living With Mom.