My poor old mom

My poor old 97 year old mother is having a very hard time right now. Everything is all about the old man and she, though not being ignored, is not the focus of attention. I've done, and continue to do, what I can for the old man, but here is someone else, someone frustrated, scared, and falling apart. I've promised her to be there for her, too.

My step mother, Harriet is an unusual person. She has better coping skills than most people. Sometimes it works to her advantage and sometimes prevents her from getting the help she needs. For example, she memorized the first grade reader before starting school. She knew it by rote and did not learn to read well. She was called stupid and held back, held back with no tutoring. School was torture for her and she was apprenticed at a beauty shop at sixteen. She was a wonderful beautician, manicurist, and cosmetician. People would wait for her and often she worked from ten to ten. During the Depression she always had a pocketful of tips and her salary would go straight to her parents. She was able to buy her younger sisters roller skates when millions were out of work. She is an incredible knitter and never uses a pattern. It hurt me to hear her say not to buy any more yarn, her eyes were too bad. Another thing she has coped with for years is macular degeneration. I remember visiting back in the 90's and watching her cook for me. She was making matzo meal latkes and using her fingers to see if they were done. She was still cooking until they moved to Minnesota.  She could not adapt to a two burner electric cooktop. She could see gas, but not gauge the heat of the electric burners. My father howled. I tried to tell him how blind she is but he wouldn't listen. She still waits on him hand and foot but it takes a lot out of her.

I picked them up yesterday at four o'clock. I asked how she was and she started to cry that someone had stolen her watch. She looked everywhere. I reassured her that no one would steal that watch, it had fallen somewhere. When I went in the bedroom I heard the watch just finishing the announcement that it was four o'clock pm. But I couldn't find where it was coming from either. So we know that her talking watch was not stolen but is hidden among the clothes and bedding and shoes. She is going to ask the aide who cleans to find it. She asked why she couldn't find it? She looked and looked. I told her it was because she couldn't see well.

The old man is in rough shape and could hardly walk and then barely ate. He has no strength. It takes him quite a while to gather his thoughts so when he does speak, it is without niceties. The aides are taking very good care of him, "Treating him like a king" as the old lady says. She is worried about him but can't do anything and her talk makes him irritable. I have told her that she can call me and vent. She keeps saying how she has been so strong for him for so many years and it is all too much. I promised to come on my days off and take her out for a short time while he sleeps. Just going for a coffee will break up the awful days of watching him die by inches. This is much harder for her than it is for me. They have been married fifty-one years, thirty-five of which I lived out of state and only saw them every year or two for a few days.

So that's the story. I await the birth of my newest great nephew or niece and the news of my father passing. But in the meantime, we the living must treat each other with love. What is the alternative? There is none.