On January 6, 2009, my mom turned 95. I really wanted to hold a party for her, but virtually none of mom's friends are alive and at this point, most of mine do not know her.
Two of my closest friends, including one that has known mom for 40 years--someone from high school--were the invitees to mom's 95th birthday. Four of us had lunch at a local restaurant with little fanfare which just seemed such an understatement that I almost felt ashamed for reasons I don't quite understand. I really don't know what I expect of myself or why these days.
As I look back over my life with Evie--her name is Evelyn but most of her friends shortened this to Evie--it is a mixture of love and hate, compassion and resentment and appreciation and rejection. Now, I find myself increasingly unsure about how to deal with her and how to understand all of this as I become more and more her singular caregiver.
This is a story of my side of this relationship; what happens when life produces what we can't control as children and what we didn't bargain for as adults.
Join Evie and me, Cany, over the fold.
Evie still lives alone at 95. She works in the yard, her passion, when she feels well and doesn't when she doesn't. I help her (when I can see she needs it but doesn't want to ask) and often bring flowers for her garden. Mom goes to at least one medical doctor each week, sometimes three. She has two 16 year-old cats that I rescued from an EPA listed toxic waste site and gave to her, as kittens, for her 80th birthday. As an animal rescuer, myself, I would never allow this for my rescue cats. But I know mom's cats have me.
Mom loves animals and they are good company and keep her attention focused on something other than herself. This is important.
If you have elderly parents, you know that often there is no discussion to be had other than medical discussions no matter what you do because sometimes elderly parents cannot intellectually discuss much else. To combat mom's never ending focus on her health (which frankly drives me nuts), I have learned to turn her attention to her past and to our family history and ask her about things. This helps. She seems to enjoy it, as do I, and I get a break on reviewing the last ten years of her medical history for the thousandth time.
Mom's driver's license doesn't expire, now, until 2011. Yes, you read that right. She has never had a ticket or accident and got an automatic extension from CA DMV.
Evie owns a 1990 Volvo with 46K on it most of which I put on the car (when not in the garage) and I cannot tell you how many ooos and ahhs I get (along with offers to buy it) when people who love this model see it. I have talked to her about not driving at ALL. Mom insists on driving to the beauty parlor, about two miles away, which I am going to forcefully stop not by challenging her, but by making sure she gets appointments when I am there so I can drive her. Her hairdresser, who I know and who somehow adores my mom, will help I am sure. We will co-conspire.
Mom, a lousy cook, doesn't cook much now, thank heavens. She has Meals on Wheels. Mom can make her own breakfast and has a microwave (she has a full kitchen, but doesn't use the oven or anything else much anymore, thankfully) to heat dinners for herself and often I take homemade foods she likes, frozen, for her that are microwave ready. I replaced the microwave before Christmas as it was making a really weird noise.
I pay mom's bills, take care of the rental property and hire the maintenance folks (Mom's a landlord, owning a triplex). Mom's next door tenant, R, takes good care of her and the cats when I am not there. The standard rent for the neighborhood is $1300.00/mo., and I keep R's at $800.00. He is Native American and has a cultural respect for elders and, frankly, is just a great guy. He has rented there for five years and because he works for the county, he is now on semi-furlough.
Being of Native American roots myself, and long interested and involved in this culture's history and issues, we have had some wonderful conversations and R has become almost family to me. He calls me when he sees problems happening. R spends holidays with us now when not with his extended family.
The third apartment in the triplex is for rent, which I am handling for her. The last tenant committed suicide by gunshot there and it has proven to be a huge mess, literally and otherwise, and because we must disclose this under CA law, the apartment, which I spent $7K refurbishing almost top to bottom, remains vacant.
Mom's property is very well maintained and we have offered it for less than local rents hoping a nice senior couple would be interested.
No matter who is interested, when I disclose the suicide as required, all walk away. It has been vacant now for almost 5 months. So I guess we just write that off somehow.
Mom's stocks have tanked (she owned a lot of Citibank, something her firm did... need I say more?). Her broker wants to talk to me about what to do. So I make one more appointment and read constantly on the issue so I at least have some sense of what to ask or think. It's not my forte.
Mom is one of those people that I doom in saying that some of these brokerage companies and banks should just be allowed to go bankrupt and the CEOs and shareholders (mom) suffer. I'm thinking of the broader good here as both she and I will shoulder that burden.
Now, while I increasingly care for my mom, I realize I have not lost either the appreciation of her hard life, or the scars of mine under her single mom hand. This surprises me as do my sometimes bitter outbursts as she continually attempts to manipulate me in ways that are subtle and not, and given the stress that sometimes dogs me which I try, but often fail, to hide.
One day I was so angry I screamed at her, slammed the door, got in the car and cried all the way home (over an hour, one way). I didn't even tell her I loved her when I left. I still feel guilty and terrible and that was five months ago. Scream at your 95yo mom? Yes, I did.
I'm no youngster and am single. I was born in '53, a boomer. I had NO business quitting my job, but what could I do? I couldn't afford the cost of hiring help for her, and she wouldn't allow it and would not agree to pay for it.
So, in quitting, I dove off that diving board hoping there was water in the pool.
No broken bones, but quite a splat. And as the economy worsens and my health deteriorates (I am a cancer survivor, uninsured and uninsurable even if could I afford the premiums), worry replaces pennies of hope, ten fold.
*****
I don't really know how to care for my mom (though I am learning) and continually I find myself worried about not only her future, but mine and the sanity of us both. I have put most of her bills, especially the important ones, on auto pay, but others I have to review. I have talked to her doctors about her situation, but had to, in some cases, make an appointment (for me!) to do so because they will not speak to me on the phone. Yes, I have signed all the "talk to the family" forms. They ignore them.
I manage her medications and dose them out in 7-day pill boxes. I have learned that since she doesn't always know WHAT day it is, she just starts at the left and moves to the right, so I adjust when she has to take a pill in odd sequence.
I am an only child with no other family, so all decisions fall to me which is hellishly scary especially now. Friends with extended family tell me this is a wonderful situation. Others--singletons like me (my beloved half brother died suddenly at 52, we were 20 years apart)--more or less nod, their eyes upon the ground as if there are some reassuring words printed there they can articulate.
Perhaps I fear failure. I cannot work, now, given mom has so many doctor appointments and cannot go alone. Mom can't get there, cannot remember what to tell the doctors, cannot remember what they tell her. Lists don't work, trust me. I have tried everything.
In short, the financial effect of this on me has been devastating. We have, as parent-child, a checkered history even in the best of times. Other than our love for animals, we are nothing alike: me a near-socialist and her to the right of Reagan. I don't think there is a single thing we agree upon, though I was proud of her for voting No on CA Prop 8. Yes, I could have just filled out her ballot and had her sign it, but I wanted HER to do the right thing, and she did. She didn't vote for president. She said she didn't think she should.
There have been nights I just cried myself to sleep in worry over this situation. I often feel incapable, depressed, and at at my wits end, not to mention extremely concerned about my own economic future which she is incapable of understanding.
There are many of us out there and mine is just one story.
WHY we do not, in the US, have provisions for family helping their parents is a huge question for me. Surely I cannot be the only one wondering about this.
What should we be doing, as a group--and how--realizing that the situation is just going to get larger as my age of folks are coming more and more to that line should be a huge question.
What are the future's children of parents like me (were I one) to do? And what do we elders without family do given it is VERY CLEAR to me that without an active advocate, elders are, well, screwed?