COMING TOGETHER--76

It is Saturday. I see Mom found her car keys, but I saw where she put them before she woke up. So I have hid them. So far she has not argued with me about them; I think she just forgot.

We went to our favorite breakfast place, The Egg. Mom ate well but I know she is losing weight. She wants to see the Superman movie next week, so we will go. She is in love with Russel Crowe. Mom is a movie star addict, when she was young with Robert Montgomery and now.

I think she fell in love with what my Dad looked like in his WWII uniform, more than she fell in love with him. Their marriage changed so much from the late 40s till Dad died 15 years ago.

I am reading to her the Maggie Hope mystery novels. They're set in WWII but from a modern feminist perspective; the novels are not realistic but they have a woman as the hero, not a man. Mom likes that.

Now that it is Sunday morning, the rain has continued. I knew Mom would not get out of bed if she heard the slightest rain. She likes to act afraid of any wind, any rain, any bad weather. I don't think she's really all that afraid, she just uses that as an excuse to withdraw and do nothing. As her energy wanes, as she loses interest in being with others, this is what she does.

So I went to church. Mom's church is an impersonal place, like a bank: you dress up, you deposit money and then you leave cordially without really knowing anyone. For me, it is a neighborhood church--if you're from the right neighborhood you fit in, if you aren't, you don't.

I wonder how those people get through the week without the spirit of God.

COMING TOGETHER--75

Now it is Friday. We went to do Mom's hair, but then it rained hard so she didn't feel like going to a restaurant afterward. I drove us back through a hard dark rain. We went through the drive-through at Steak and Shake, then we came home to watch a WWII movie, Above and Beyond.

The movie was about the first 50 bombers flown across the Atllantic to help the British. Mom identified with it more than any other movie I have bought her because my Dad was in the first Army Air Corps graduating class to fly American bombers across the Atlantic. Her emotions got to her, so she left the room, she didn't finish the movie.

The movie was not about the AAC bombers going over the Atlantic, they did that a few months later. This movie was about the first bombers flown by civilian pilots, crew, navigators. They had minimal training, especially in navigation. The flight was scary, over bad weather, with just enough fuel to make it if the navigator didn't make a mistake at all.

So I got ice cream out for both of us.

Mom is losing the vision in one eye. She has a sad, pained look. I felt sorry for her. I hope she will let me write checks for her, starting tomorrow. I am thinking her time is shrinking.

WEIGHT AND WAIT
It is now Thursday, the day I take Mom to get her hair teased and stiffened.  I think she looks better when her hair covers her head, but teasing her hair is an old lady in the 1950s thing.  This is her day out of the apartment.  Right now it is raining but I don't think that will deter Mom.

  My worry is that she is losing weight.  I know sooner or later her immune system will weaken with the loss of weight.  So I wait without telling her what I think her losing weight means.  I don't think she has the mental presence to realize any explanation I might give.  I don't think she has the fear of losing weight to want to change.  And I don't know if eating more will even enable her to gain weight.
   This just might be being 92 years old and aging.
 
  So we will live another day, doing what we do every week.  Fortunately I think I have talked my mother into letting me write checks for her.  I have been wanting to for the last few months.  She miswrote two checks and that has bothered her enough to bring this up to me.

  I expect that after Mom gets her hair teased, she will want to drive around to shops and malls so she doesn't have to go back to the apartment, and merely lying there as she does all day.  Maybe today will be different, but I'm prepared to spend the day bored--for me bored not for her.

  Our life is so different than people younger, working, trying to get to some place they think will make them happy.  I don't know that I ever found that place, or ever will.  I'm not saying I'm better off or smarter, just that I have a different viewpoint on life than they do.  I saw the speeding traffic go by our apartment, flying for the Tollroad, for office buildings and sales and spending.
  There's a hurricane in Florida, where my sister Nancy lives.  Got to send her an email to see how she's doing.  Family has become more and more of my life.

COMING TOGETHER--74

Now it is Sunday night, late. I have had a good Sunday going to church and taking Mom to the Galleria to get her toe nails clipped. She has a deformedd toe, the middle toe so the nail has grown too long, causing her much discomfort. It also can get infected easily. So we go to get her toenails clipped every two weeks.

Everythihg went well. We came back so I could get some sleep before my night job. Mom slept well, then I read to her from a WWII novel which she likes.

Really, there is nothing to say about today worth reading.

+++

Here it is Monday. I delivered laundry, then went to a softball field to get some exercise. When I came back, Mom had her sights set on the Egg and I, our favorite place to eat. This has become an imitation date for her. I wish we didn't go so often, but familiar places are what old people like. We're going to see The Great Gatsby this afternoon, around 7pm. Mom needs to get away from the apartment and so do I.

Being here so much makes her lazy and uninterested in anything. Maybe the movie will be good for her, but taking her there won't be anything I want to do. I just have to pay for the priviledge of her paying the rent. So this is it.

Well, it is late Monday. Mom has forgoteen the movies. I bought a movie of Dial M For Murder, an old intricate murder mystery with Ray Milland. Mom stayed interested in it all the way. She didn't like The Big Sleep with Bogart and Bacall. It's too slow for her, but Dial M seems to have been just right.

We have had a good afternoon and evening. Right now I am playing Michael Buble'. He is the modern Frank Sinatra, so Mom is here with me listening without speaking. Things are going well.

COMING TOGETHER--73

Mom wants to go to her hairdresser by cab, 16 miles one way on her own. This bothers me. She can't see, she can't take care of herself, she gets lost in places she knows. I am wondering if I should call my brother about this. I fear the worst, that some cab driver or someone seeing her on her own will beat her up, steal all her money. This would not be hard to do.

I wonder if this is the beginning of a confrontation about the way she lives. I believe she belongs in a retirement home. She refuses to go. We are going to have it out over this, one way or another. In a way, I wish some circumstance would hurt her enough to make her realize how defenseless she is. But then even if it did, she'd want to forget it the next day.

I think things are coming to a head. I need to spend money to buy tires for the car, I need to decide about selling the car. I might need it if my living with my mother changes or ends suddenly. If she goes into a retirement home, I will have to find an apartment and get more hours at work. This little mini-retirement life I'm living might be ending soon.

If Mom goes to a retirement home, I will end this blog. My other blog on science and technology might be ending soon. The editor and I have failed to attract an audience outside our own circle. So things might be coming to a halt here, soon.

It is around 130pm at night, Saturday morning, June 1. It's almost too cute, having thiings change on the first--a new month, the 6th month of the year, half-over.

How long will things continue as they are? I don't know, but I fear change will drop upon us suddenly.

COMING TOGETHER--72

Now Wednesday has come. I took Mom to get her hair done. This is a lot of trouble for me but it gives her the feeling of independence. However, some things happened.

Mom got lost in the store in which the salon is located. This upset her, as she likes to think she can get around on her own. It cut into her independence and pride.

Then she wanted to spend the day running around stores, but I couldn't do that. I had to get back to the apartment to get some sleep to work tonight. So I said she should get my brother's wife to take her around so they could spend all day doing whatever they wanted. Mom tried to exaggerate that by saying she could take a taxi, why I didn't even have to know when she takes the taxi and when she gets home. She was trying to get her independence back by separating herself from me.

I took her to the Cheesecake Factory, a good restaurant. Mom goes there because of the huge desserts. She eats a few bites of real food, then says she can't eat anymore. That's a lie. She just wants sweets, so she ordered a huge strawberry shortcake and after saying she can't eat any more, she downed the entire shortcake in easy fashion.

She said she depends on me too much. That is true, but not because she can be independent.

When we got back to the apartment, one of her lady friends called about the fact that Mom had completely forgotten a lunch she was supposed to lead and host today. This upset her.

She admitted she was losing her memory and that frightened her. I took that as the first time in a long time she admitted the truth about her age and her condition. I liked what she said. I told her eating all the sweets she does just takes any nutrition out of her blood, so it affects her mind and body. I think she got the point, but it doesn't matter. It's too late to matter. I expect her to forget what happened today.

This makes me wonder what is going on with her body and why she coughs so much. I wonder how much longer this situation with Mom is going to last.

COMING TOGETHER--71

It is Tuesday afternoon. As I am typing this, Mom is pretending to be asleep on the sofa next to me. I think she is lonely, and is there to be where I am.

I don't always want to be with her, I get tired of having to worry about her eating and health every day, every moment. I like getting away from her, but she has no one else. She is a dependant type who often uses arrogance to mask her dependency.

She badgers me with questions, as a way of talking to me since she really doesn't know how to communicate with me otherwise. I get mad at her constant questions, so I have to remind myself this is her only way to hear a voice in a world she is leaving.

She is like the image of the only person in the universe, standing on the earth shouting out to heaven hoping a voice would only come back. Without me to badger with questions, she is that person hearing nothing coming back.

If you don't believe in God, old age can be frightening to your memories.

So she lies there, just behind me at my right. It imposes on me. I wish she weren't there, I wish she were in her tv room, watching some stupid show. I've never enjoyed being around her, even as a small boy. I think I always knew we were as distant as strangers can be.

I always wished I could live with someone who did understand me, who could communicate with me, and I have known two women like that. They married someone else, so here I am.