A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Some days later, as a matter of absolute closure (and maybe for a little more material for this blog, as Mom is such a willing contributor) I listen to the rest of the phone message from the week before.

I do believe, that if there were a contest to see who could get to Hell the fastest, my mother would be way out in front.

In the phone message, she quickly recovers from the fake crying to go on a rant. In addition to claiming that she and Bill have been generous with their time and money, (which is still baffling to me - I haven't seen any magnanimous financial gestures, and we've already been over how stingy they are with time to spend with children and grandchildren. Clearly they are both delusional on these topics) she also claims to have "always been there for me."

I can barely collect my thought on this.

Mom has been a lot of things, but "there for me," or, to be truthful, there for anyone else besides the men in her life, does not crack the list of top 100 things that define my mother. She may like to remember a home life filled with cookie baking and bedtime stories, but that is just fantasy. Maybe that's something she's conjured up to make her feel better when suspicions that she was not Mother of the Year creep in.

But my favorite claim - or is it more accurate to say that it is an accusation? - involves my father.

Yes. She did go there.

She claims that when my father's health was failing, and after a surgery gone wrong that turned a 4 day hospital stay into a 9 week hospital stay complete with pneumonia, intubation, cardioverts, falls, broken bones, medication mismanagement, dementia, mechanically softened food, stroke risks and a host of other disasters, that she provided care for him and I did not.

There is some factual truth to this, on the surface. At the time, Dad could not live alone. He was in a wheelchair part of the time and had limited mobility all of the time. He was also a non-complaint diabetic, meaning if someone did not control what he ate, he'd eat the Twinkies.

He was discharged and went to Charlotte's. She has multiple levels to her house and a lot of short flights of stairs, but she was home full time. Not ideal, but the best possible choice at the time. She is also an RN and could get a quick handle on the diabetes.

After two weeks and about as many near nervous breakdowns, Charlotte asked for someone to give her some relief. Dad was up and on the steps without warning, falling, getting stuck on the toilet and a host of other humiliating and troubling things. All day long. And Charlotte had three school-aged boys. Dad was a full time job.

My brother and his wife took Dad in, however briefly. Their house has a bathroom and a room that could be used for a bedroom on the first floor. Mary-ellen was also home full time. But their wicked children tortured my Dad so (Their son most famously taking his walker and running away with it - presumably in the direction of Hell's Children's Department) and Joe and Mary-ellen practically killed Dad with their diet. Dad was hospitalized once again with grave blood-sugar issues.

So Mom and Bill came up, in what I still describe as an extraordinary gesture. They moved Dad back to his own house and helped him learn to get around. There were no distractions from children or jobs to interfere, and Bill, a carpenter by trade, placed additional railings and other assistive devices throughout Dad's house. Mom misguidedly took him out driving. (And he did drive, until a bunch accidents, as reported by neighbors who saw the wrecks pull up to the house, forced us to take the car away.) We were all grateful for Mom and Bill. Still are.

But what Mom recalls specifically is that I had not had Dad in my home. I admit it. I did not. But it was an option we discussed as a family and had dismissed. At the time, I had (and still do) a 3-story house, with several sets of steps at both entrances, and 13 steps between floors. And no bathrooms or bedrooms on the first floor. And no wheelchair-wide doorways. The house was built way before the modern wheelchair joined the party.

Additionally I had a 6-month old daughter, an 18-month old son, a full time job and a crazy husband, who also held a full time job. And since Hil was only 6 months old, and I had just returned from maternity leave, I was not even eligible to take Family Leave time to care for Dad.

But I did my part in other ways. Lots of other ways. Meanignful, helpful ways. Charlotte will tell you so. And I know so. And Dad knew it. That is really all that counts.

But I would be lying if I said it doesn't gall me just a little that in Mom's mind, it all happened so differently. She remembers only herself as the hero and me as shirking my responsibilities. How convenient for her at this time.

Honestly, I can live with that. The convenient inaccuracy of her recollections doesn't matter. If she wants to tell her wild tales about what a wicked daughter I am, she can. Who's listening? Bill?