I Take it Back!

My paternal grandma died in 1989.

She had a fall at home and laid on the floor for something like 14 hours before someone found her. The thing that happens to so many elderly people happened to her, she ended up with pneumonia and died about 10 days later.

While the whole family gathered at the hospital, my brand new at the time sister in law took care of the young people (my son was three, my nephew, four) and made sure we were fed.

She brought a fried chicken dinner for 14 people one afternoon and we all sat in the hospital cafeteria and had a good meal.

After Grandma died and it was time to find new homes for all Grandma's possessions that my dad didn't sell as fast as he could (and of course he kept every dime and wouldn't give us any of the things we asked for, none of which were terribly expensive or rare, we just got small things and it's not the things that are the point, you get that, right?) my parents thought Grandma's clock should go to my sister in law. It was an antique with music and a ballerina all encased in a wood and glass case.

We all agreed that she should have it, Grandma had treasured it and we wanted to keep it in the family.

So life moved on, as it does.

A few years later, my brother and his wife had two little boys. I had my baby girl. My other brother and his wife had another little boy, too. 

It was 1995, I think.

There was some, uh, marital strife between my brother and his wife and he moved out of their house over a weekend and got an apartment.

It's their story, and I won't tell it here, it's not up to me. 

I called my sister in law on Monday morning and told her that I did not need to know what was going on. That I loved her and I loved my nephews and that they were welcome in my home at any time.

She did tell me a little bit of what was going on, again not my story to tell, but I couldn't blame her for feeling how she felt.  

But my parents were furious with her. 
They didn't make any effort to find out what was going on, either. They just took his side against her, started trash talking. I was actually stunned at the vitriol and name calling. They called her a slut and a whore and suggested that the youngest little boy wasn't even my brother's child. My mom called me every day to say some other awful thing. It was really incredible. I saw a side of her I'd never seen, 'cause she sure as hell never brought out the mama bear side for me. 

I did make an effort to talk them down, as it were. Not that it did any good, they had decided she was 'just like Jezebel' and they hated her.

It was about a week later that my mom decided that Jezebel had to give the clock back.

Yep, she called me up told me that 'she has no right to keep that clock, it belongs in the family' and that she was going to tell her to give it back.

I know she called her and left that as a message, but I don't know what the response was. They ended up getting back together not long after (after seeing a pastor as a counselor which is like hiring a barber to do open heart surgery ) and suddenly my parents had nothing but nice things to say about Jezebel.

It was 'all they had prayed for' and 'guess gawd has a plan after all' and 'we knew it would be okay, gawd had given us peace'.

It was really weird, that sudden reversal. All the venom they'd been spewing was magically turned into sweetness. Suddenly Jezebel was wonderful and everyone was so happy they were back together.

Mom was constantly saying, "Thank GOD and I mean that literally."

She said it so often, and with the same exact inflection that I can hear it even now.

Mom had Jezebel come speak at one of her Women's Aglow meetings, which I secretly refer to in my head as simpering Jesus rallies. 
There's a whole lot of religious crazy in the fam. 

My mom really wanted me to come over and visit  so I could hear Jezebel speak!

Yeah, that wasn't gonna happen.

I've never told Mom I am an atheist, it would serve no purpose and would hurt her feelings. She would worry over it daily. It's not about what kind of person she is, it's about what kind of person I am, and apparently I'm not the type to make an old lady feel bad over religion. Although she's made ME feel bad over it more than once, ha!

But my sister in law still has Grandma's clock.
 
She and my brother seem to be happy, and whatever route that takes is fine with me, I don't have to agree with it.

Another weird episode from the past.
Geez.

Making Connections

So I told you about spending my birthday money on a sweater for my mom. (Scroll down if you missed it, it's the next post).

And my brain finally made a connection that I've been searching for since June of 1976.
Took me a long time to get there, huh?

My parents occasionally decided we kids were going to 'earn' an allowance. This happened multiple times, and was always the same story.

It was going to be five dollars every month. For the three months or so they continued to pay the allowance for all the chores we did, they'd come back a day or so later and 'borrow' the money back from us.

Did they then pay us back?

So as you've probably gathered, I did not have an allowance or any way to get small amounts of cash as I was growing up. There weren't jobs for teens in our small town. Apart from the yearly birthday/Christmas money, I was broke all year.

Forget buying clothing, I couldn't even buy a candy bar on my way home from school.

In June of 1976, an acquaintance who'd graduated from high school three or four years earlier asked me to sing at her wedding. I accepted, and learned the song (These Are The Best Times from Walt Disney's Superdad) in a couple sessions with the pianist.

Attended the wedding on June 12th all by myself. 

The only other wedding I'd been to was my aunt Sue Ann's. I was 4 years old at the time and all I remember from that was a straight pin still in the waistband of the yellow satin dress they'd made for me as the flower girl. Damn thing poked me all afternoon and I kept telling my mom and she kept shushing me.

So when I arrived at the church to sing and an usher asked me which side, bride or groom, I had no idea what he was even asking. Funny.

Once he figured out who I was, he seated me in the second row at the end, near the  piano. Sensible.

So I sang my song. (link leads to a YouTube video) 
I still remember all the lyrics. 
The piano score was much nicer than the organ that's in the background on this version, but you get the idea.

After the wedding, the father of the bride was walking around handing envelopes to the pianist, the minister, the guy who had helped park cars. He walked to me and handed me an envelope, too.

I had no idea that I was going to be paid to sing. 
No one had told me.
There was a fifty dollar bill in that envelope.

That was the most money I'd ever held in my hand. 
It was a FORTUNE to me. 
I was stunned.

I was really excited because it meant I could have some new clothes to start school in the fall. If you've ever been a teenage girl, you can probably relate. Heck, if you've ever been a teenager you probably can. 

Later that week, as my mom drove to the grocery store with me, she asked me why I hadn't bought a birthday present for my dad. She told me that I had hurt his feelings when I was being 'selfish' by wanting to spend all the money on myself.

"Very selfish," she said. "I thought you knew better than that."

It was a weird thing, felt like it just came from nowhere. I couldn't figure out why he'd say that, he'd never mentioned us buying him presents before. Why would a parent even expect that?

But after writing the post the other day about spending my birthday money on my mom, I realized that my dad was jealous! He remembered that I'd done that only six months prior, and here I was with FIFTY dollars and it was his birthday and I didn't do anything for him! What an ungrateful brat, huh?

It was only 18 months later that I left home.

I haven't thought about the 'why didn't you spend your money on your father' story in a long time, but it's finally clear to me why that happened in the first place.

Huh.

Time Off/Mom's Off, Too. And where's Steve?

Friday was a 'teacher work day'. 
My district had no school.

After having two weeks off for Christmas etc, we worked a week, then a four day week, then we got a four day weekend, which will be followed by a four day week. I could get used to that!

It's been rrreallly windy out here in the mouth of the Columbia River Gorge. I've mentioned before that wind isn't my friend. 

I'm no scientist, but my theory, which makes sense to me, is that the static electricity generated by the relentless wind affects the electrical field in my body. We're really nothing but batteries, and it seems reasonable that the reason I hurt so much when it's windy is because of the whole electrical me problem.

I've been doing normal weekend things. Looking at Pinterest for still more ideas for my kids at work. Grocery shopping. Sleeping in. Freezing, because the wind makes it colder out there AND in here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So a little back story. About 15 years ago, my parents sent out their annual Christmas letter. There were several paragraphs about my brother Steve and his wife/their boys. Several more about Jim and his wife/kids.

Then she went on to talk about the things she and my dad did during the year and ended by wishing everyone a happy new year.

My family... husband, kids and all we'd done during the year just didn't happen, I guess.
Eric was pissed off. 
I honestly wasn't upset, I actually laughed about it.

I know it's awful. I do. But it struck me funny and I've never been able to muster the righteous anger my husband (and my biggest fan) has felt about it ever since.

It gets brought up on occasion, usually when there's been another slight from my mom. She really seems to care about me the most when she can show me to someone else, either verbally or in person. Like a possession. 

Showing me off was a way of life until I escaped. They had me up on the stage in church at age 3, singing.

They pointed out my musical talents, the prize I won for an essay in the 8th grade, assorted other things they could use to look like better parents, at least in their eyes. They weren't proud of me, they were proud of themselves for manufacturing me.

My parents were collectors of  what they perceived to be unusual people. 
For example it wasn't, "This is my friend Enid," it was, "This is Enid. She's my Mennonite friend!"

Another prideful 'look at the person I've collected!' moment...

"Sandra is our antique dealer. She's from Great Britain! She has the most delightful accent!" 

Sandra was the person who got the family heirloom wooden rocking chair that was brought to Oregon by my paternal great-grandfather's family over the Oregon Trail in a  covered wagon. It had been in the family for over a hundred years. Hand carved and beautiful. Dad sold it to the delightful accent person for twenty five bucks. Miss Delightful Accent probably made a lot of money on that deal. I told him that next time he felt the urge to sell a family heirloom, at least phone me for a competing bid. I told him I would have given him a hundred bucks for it. 

He did that 'heh heh' laugh he always did when minimizing my feelings and continued to sell things that had been in the family for generations. He reminded me that it was 'just a thing' and that it didn't really matter.

Guess he had gambling debts to pay off.

Not the original chair, that one was much more elaborate and old.

Okay so yeah, they were collectors, Mom more than Dad. She never told me about anyone she knew without telling me whatever was 'special' about them.

"Chris is the person who married Harry and they lived up Canyon Creek until the fire, they lost everything."

After her local chapter of Jesus Jumping Hens (aka Women's Aglow) had a guest speaker, "I met a new friend who lives in Portland! Her name is Bernice." Then she lowered her voice and said in a confidential tone, "Of course she's black as the ace of spades."

My parents were both racists, although I didn't realize it until I was out and on my own. 
By the time I recognized that the way they were talking was racism, it was an automatic thing for me to evaluate people based on who they were, not what they looked like, but of course I had escaped from religion, which tried to teach me that anyone different was wrong or bad. 

Mom was stunned when she saw some of my high school photos with several friends that were taken after I got away from her home. 
"That girl is a negro!" she said, pointing to my old friend Angie in a couple group photos.
"Um..."
"Well, couldn't you find white friends?"
Several of the kids in the pic were different colors.
I didn't think it was important.

I still didn't realize the word racist applied. 
I had a sheltered existence. 
At the time, there were NO people with brown skin in any shade in Grant County, Oregon.

I called my mom this afternoon.
Our current conversations are usually about 10 minutes during which she repeats the same three or four topics 10 times apiece. I don't mind, I understand she's having cognitive issues.

So her phone rang on the other end six times and went to voice mail. Since she's not mentally able to check her voice mail anymore, I just hung up, figuring I'd call later.

I went to the bathroom and came back to find that she had called me six times in those two minutes.

So I called her back.

"Oh hi," she said. "Did you just call me?" 
(Um, yeah, that's why MY NAME showed up on your phone??)

"Yes."

"Oh. I was hoping it was Steve."
(Great, you scrawny old bat. Thanks. I don't know why I bother. Really.)

Then she said she'd brought her lunch from the cafeteria and eaten in her room because, "Some of the people here are just crazy."

I asked her if she'd been going to any of the activities, and she said, "I need to go take my tray back to the kitchen. Talk to you tomorrow or the next day!"

And then she hung up.

Guess she really wanted to talk to Steve.

Huh.

Well, the move has happened. 

My brother and his wife did almost all the actual work of getting Mom packed up and moved out of her house and into assisted living. Matt went last weekend and helped with the process, but most of the work had already been done. My other brother, the one who lives in the same town Mom has spent the last 52 years in, did some of the hauling trash to the dump, too.

So Mom's in assisted living now. She sounded more coherent when I talked to her this week than she has in some time. She has made a friend already, and is participating in some activities offered to the residents of her new place.

I hope she is happy and comfortable there. I don't wish her discomfort or unhappiness. I hope she has a peaceful existence until she passes away. I have a feeling that she isn't going to be around much longer, although I am not basing that on anything concrete, just a feeling.

I know that she would hate the idea of lingering in a confused state.
Her mother had dementia and lived in a care facility for SIXTEEN YEARS. Her body was fine. Her brain? Nope.

One of the things my brother and his wife have done is deal with all the bills and stuff for Mom. I don't believe they're stealing or doing anything they shouldn't, by the way. I'm not the least concerned. The parents never had a lot of money, and there's not a lot of money left at the end of Mom's life, either. Once her house sells (if it does) Steve says he's putting most of the money in a high-yield account of some sort and then using the rest for her care. After she dies, he plans to split whatever's left three ways between the three of us "kids". 

I told him he could keep mine, but he said that he feels strongly that it's the right thing to do. 

Watch. It will be something like 250 bucks 20 years from now. Haha.

But while they were figuring out all the expenses and what Dad owed here and there, they discovered that he'd been using his credit cards for cash advances and gambling the money away. He had over 50 thousand dollars in gambling debt, mostly online poker.

Mom had no idea. She still doesn't, Steve said he saw no reason to tell her. I agree, what purpose would it serve?

He consulted an attorney when the credit card companies suddenly were asking for money, and he told Steve that because they were outside the amount of time in which they could legally demand payment from the estate, they had to just write the debt off.

It was definitely a surprise to find this out.

Fifty grand.
Wow.

A long long time ago...

Today is our 45th wedding anniversary.

I've been asked so many times what the 'secret' is, but there isn't a secret at all. 
It's mostly picking up the slack when the other person can't do whatever it is that needs doing and being each other's biggest fan and strongest supporter.

Another secret?  Realizing about 10 years in that by now, no one else would want either one of us. 
::snort::

Two kids who got married, neither one with a clue about what it really meant and no concept of the future.

Huh.

Time goes so fast.
Take advantage of the time you have with people you love.
I would marry him again.

"God's Looking Out for Me"?

I talked to my mom on the phone last night.
I didn't actually *want* to call her, but finally that sense of obligation got the better of me and I did.

She sounded okay-ish.

She's confused, which is understandable.

She's going to be 86 in a week. She just had a traumatic fall. She was whisked off in a helicopter to another state and had surgery. 

So she thought she'd been in the hospital for nine days. Told me she'd had surgery on Monday after she'd fallen on Friday. I didn't correct her, no point in it. But I didn't catch myself in time to skip telling her that yesterday was Friday when she said it was Sunday. She got a little upset about not knowing what day it was.

I told her that it wasn't surprising, she has no calendar, no frame of reference and that what day it is doesn't matter, her task right now is to rest and recuperate. 

"It's not like you have to get up and go to work, Mom. Just relax, watch TV, read a book, talk to people."

During the conversation, every time there was a lull, she'd say brightly, "So! How are you doing?? Did you work today?"

Then she'd pivot back to, "I don't bounce so well anymore."

Add, "I'm sure glad I had Life Alert!" and finish with, "God sure was looking out for me!"
I'm assuming she means because the fall didn't kill her. 

Um, okay. Here's what I think happened... Her god was helping some spoiled little Mormon girl look for the keys to her Jetta and looked away just long enough for Mom to have a terrible fall.

Whatever.

I have never told her that I don't believe in any gods, figuring that I can go on with my  unbelief without her being worried about it. I sure don't want to debate it and I won't even bother trying to explain.

She said that the hospital staff have been wonderful. The manager of the rehab facility where she will get some of her strength back is a friend of my youngest brother. He told Steve that they will definitely have space for her there and that she will be 'treated like a queen'.

So the plan is for her to heal a bit in hospital then go to rehab for however long it takes.

Then she thinks she's going to go back home.

I don't know. She hasn't been all there in quite some time and falling this week didn't do her brain any favors.

"God sure was looking out for me," indeed.

Life Alert

Sometimes my mom isn't very smart. 
I know, that's a hell of a thing to say, but she really isn't. 

We wanted her to move to assisted living for her own health/safety, but until my dad died, she had never been on her own. Never been able to make anything but the simplest decisions for herself.

My grandfather was authoritarian, my dad was a tyrant. So she tiptoed around and did whatever she was told to do her whole life, which is really no way to live. 

Now she goes and gets her nails done when she feels like it, goes to church and sees her friends, has hair appointments and visitors and goes to see other old friends. She's able to be a social butterfly, which is really her thing, all perky and cruise-director-y. 

It would drive me nuts being out and about all the time, but that's how she operates when she's allowed to. Which of course now that she's on her own, is great.

So she's been still living at home, although she's not alone all the time. My brother hired a caregiver who's really been wonderful. She goes up every day at least twice, cooks meals at her house and delivers them to Mom on the days that the senior center doesn't deliver, has driven Mom to medical appointments 90 miles away, takes her to community events and to the senior center for BINGO and to visit friends.
She's been included in family celebrations with the caregiver's family, too. 

Caregiver's name is Sheila, but Mom can't seem to consistently spell it. She'll type Shiela, Sheela, Shayla, Shiella... it's funny but I don't correct her, I know who she means.
When we talk amongst ourselves we call her Sloopy and Snoopy and Spiffy and Spinny and Spiky and Slutty. 

We know who we mean, sometimes ya gotta laugh.

Anyway, Mom really should not be living alone. We were concerned that she might fall and not be able to get help. This is what started my grandma's sudden decline. She fell and was on the floor for nine hours before someone found her there. It was a fluke that the person stopped by, he hadn't planned on stopping until the *next* day but happened to be driving by so he made a quick stop.

Grandma ended up with pneumonia after nine hours on the cold floor and she didn't make it.

So we nagged Mom until she got a Life Alert necklace. 

There are also a few buttons at almost-floor level in the areas of the house that she frequents. That's so if she falls and isn't wearing her necklace with the button to call for help, she can hopefully drag herself to the nearest button and push.

There have been a couple occasions where she has fallen and decided for herself that it's not serious enough to call for help, although we harp at her that, "That's what they're there for, Mom. Call for help if you fall."

She doesn't listen very well. She really is like a stubborn child and it's impossible to get her to act in her own self interest at times.

Well, today she had to push that button and call for help.

My phone rang as I was driving home from the office, it was the Life Alert operator letting me know that she'd been transported to the hospital. She has it set so they notify everyone in the immediate family.

I haven't talked to her, I've just gotten the story 2nd hand from conversations with my brothers. 

This afternoon, she stood up from her chair and tripped and fell. She hit her left eye socket on the edge of the table that's next to her chair and hit the floor. She broke her femur.

The hospital in their little town made sure she was stable. Apparently the machine they need to scan her head is not currently working, but they did do x rays.  

She was put into a helicopter and flown to the nearest large medical center, which happens to be Boise, Idaho. She'll be having surgery to repair her leg, not sure if they'll have to do anything with her face. She's going to be 86 in two weeks, so surgery isn't going to be healthy for her, but they can't just leave it, ya know?

So I really don't know much this evening. I'm sure I'll get more bits and pieces of information in the next day or so. 

I guess Skippy packed a bag for her and made sure she has her hearing aids, her glasses and her phone, so she should be able to text and talk. I'll probably catch up with her soon.

Meanwhile, I have to say it. 
She's not going to have to board the damn dog.
Dog should have been put down two years ago.

But.
We told her to get Life Alert and we were right.

Steve sent me a photo of her that Scrappy had taken. I won't share it, she really got beat to hell in the face. I feel sorry for her, but I'm glad she isn't lying on the floor and unable to get help.

Is Cruelty the Point?

Or is cruelty just a lovely by-product?
I think it was 16 or 17 years ago. Hang on while I check.
Okay. 

May 2008.

Steve got my parents a puppy. 
A fucking Jack Russell terrier for two old people.

I still have no idea why my brother did such a stupid thing.

In some ways, the dog was cared about. They took her to the vet. The vet immediately prescribed 'special' dog food because the poor dog had sensitive skin. So the parents bought ridiculously priced scientifically balanced food.

Yeah, no. The stuff the vet was peddling was a money maker, but completely unnecessary.
There are a lot of ways to feed a dog, including making your own dog food. If a person doesn't want to do that, there's a brand available in the grocery store refrigerator section that's supposed to be pretty good for them.

I did a little research on it, trying to help the folks save some money. But they didn't care about that, they preferred to tell people, "We buy special food for our dog!"

She was a smart dog. It took me less than two minutes to train her not to jump on me. And for the next 10 years or so she remembered not to jump on me. All I had to do was make the gesture at her and she'd sink to the floor, quivering and wriggling all over. Then I'd pat her head and tell her what a good girl she was, which caused her joy.

Other than shitting outside (mostly, well, sometimes) they didn't bother to teach her anything. She had poor manners, was bored. Not taken for walks. Not stimulated with play.

Overfed, overindulged.  
She had a sweet temperament, and would have been able to learn anything, but instead they taught her nothing.

No, wait. I take that back.

Excerpt from visiting Butthump, Oregon in 2017:

(it's worth reading, or maybe I just think it is but it made me laugh tonight)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When they sit down to eat, they take the small white plastic cup they use to scoop dog kibble and fill it about half full. It sits on the table between them. Whenever the dog grunts at them or stands up on her hind legs and scratches the shit out of them, they pour out six or eight little pieces, thump them off the table onto the floor and the dog chases them all over, inhaling consuming them in seconds.

Then she comes back and grunts at them again.

Repeat.

While I was observing this behavior with a shocked face, my mother turned to me and said, with complete seriousness, "I wish she wouldn't beg at the table!"

I said, "Well, you've trained her to ask for food at the table."

"No, I didn't. She just learned to do it on her own."

Picture me slamming my head on the table repeatedly here...

The dog sits on my dad's lap, 'washing' his hands.
While he just lets her do it.

I said, "Dad! For goodness sake, she licks her asshole!"

He laughed at that.
And continued to let Miss Ass-licker clean his hands with her tongue.
Guess.
When he went to the kitchen for a snack he very carefully...

 Washed his hands

Did not wash his hands

Probably should have washed his hands
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, so Dad died in 2023. Another three months and it will be two years.

When Mom came home from my brother's house (she left town to go have Thanksgiving dinner with my brother's family while my dad was dying in the hospital, and really, I don't feel too bad about that) without Dad, the dog looked and looked for him.

I saw the dog a month later when we were in town for Dad's funeral.

She was barely getting around, chubby and misshapen. Her legs were bent awkwardly, if she were a human, she'd have needed a walker to get around. Eyes were cloudy, and between the fact that Mom was too old to get to the door to let the dog out and the dog's lifelong habit of shitting by the front door as needed, well, I'm guessing you can figure out how that was going.

It wasn't long before Mom called me one evening to say that Daisy could not use her back legs at all. That she was lying on the floor, crying. This was on a Saturday. During the phone call, I could hear that poor dog. 

"Mom, you need to take her to the vet."

"Oh, well, they charge extra on Saturday."

"So? You're just going to let her suffer until Monday?"

"Oh," she said, vaguely, "I'm sure she'll be fine."

The dog was lying in her own shit, howling with pain, and my mom didn't want to get help for her.

She didn't either. Not until that Monday, even though I said I would pay the vet bill.
"If money is the issue, Mom, then we'll pay for it. Please take that poor dog to the vet."

And when she said she'd 'probably' do it on Monday, I was pissed. I told her she was needlessly cruel and that her poor dumb animal was in horrible pain and didn't understand what was happening to her.

She responded by telling me that she did not appreciate me telling her that.

The next day, when we talked on the phone she complained that the dog's crying had kept her awake all night and she was tired. I asked her if she thought maybe the dog was tired too, since she'd been awake and in pain all night long.

"It's cruel, Mom. I never knew you were so mean."

She asked me how the weather was.

She finally did take the dog in. To my surprise, the laser treatments and Gabapentin helped and she was able to walk again. The first series of treatments was over a thousand dollars.

After that, Mom was spending three to five hundred dollars per month to keep the dog going.

When I suggested that Daisy's quality of life was deteriorating and expressed sympathy/pity for the dog, my mom said, "Well the vet says if it were HER dog she would still be treating her, that it's not time to let her go just yet."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Amy (Matt's wife) was of the opinion that the vet was making enough money from my mom that euthanasia wasn't on the table. I'm sure she's right.
So poor old Daisy just got worse and worse.

The past couple months, all she's done is lie under the piano, occasionally eat, and go shit by the front door. Mom didn't even bother letting her out anymore.

I got a text from my brother this afternoon telling me that Mom's caregiver had taken the dog to be put to sleep this morning. I'll tell Mom that I'm sorry, but I'm not. It should have been done more than a year ago. She was blind, senile and had zero quality of life. Mom was holding on to her because she was Dad's dog. So no common sense from Mom and no compassion, either.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The more my childhood memories begin to surface, the more I realize that in her own way, she was as cruel and mean as my dad.

At least the vet isn't going to get any more money to keep the pain going.

Keeping busy-ish.

We went to Eastern Oregon last weekend (July 27-29) for a surprise birthday party for my mom.

Zipped out of town on Friday morning and came home Sunday afternoon.

Lots of fires in Oregon right now. Our usual route (through Service Creek) was blocked for a time by a fire that burned along the highway for about six miles. Up the rock escarpments and across high desert grasslands. They had reopened the highway about a half hour before we drove through.

It was rreeallly smoky, so much so that I need to replace the cabin air filter in my car, even though I had put it on recirc as we drove through.

It's a long drive. Took us almost six hours to get there.
We had to go slow in some places. We also stopped a couple times.
Food for Eric, little girl's room for me in Hood River, then a 2nd pee stop at Shelton County Park outside Fossil.

Great place to pee.
Photo was not taken during the smoke pee stop.
Isn't even my photo.

This is I-84 on our way home. Mosier, near The Dalles.
If you zoom in, you'll see the freeway goes right through the fire.
Which we did.

This is Cathedral Rock, John Day Fossil Beds national monument.
It was a clear day, the sky was that color from the smoke.

I've been making some tie dyed stuff. I made some pajama shirts for Mom, it was the only thing she asked for. She's been asking for awhile... it's just one of those labor-intensive things I don't do very often. I can always find something else to be doing.

Just so we're clear, the pictures are of some baby clothes I did at the same time for a friend who's about to have a little girl. They're not Mom's pajama shirts.

Mom and her mother in law had birthdays three days apart.
No one said anything when it was decided early on that they'd just share their birthdays.

They always had whatever cake Grandma wanted. And went to Grandma's house  or to a location of Grandma's choosing to celebrate 'their' birthday. It never occurred to any of us that Mom would have liked to have her own birthday. She wasn't very good at standing up for herself.

She planned parties for Dad every year in June.

She never said a word about her own birthday.

So she was surprised last weekend. She didn't know anything about it. My aunt and uncle (Mom's sister) drove up from California, although they didn't tell her why, just that it was time for the annual visit.

So we all went to the venue (local senior center, closed on Saturdays but opened for the family and 200 bucks) and set everything up. The guests were all in place when my aunt and uncle brought her in. At first she had no idea what was going on, we were blowing party noisemakers and yelling happy birthday. She said, "It's not my birthday yet." Which it wasn't, but a couple weeks early was the only time we could all do it.

Cake and pizza and assorted food and gifts.

She was touched by it and told Steve that she had not had a birthday party since she was a child.
So I guess the event was successful. I know it was important to Mom.

It took me a couple days to rest up afterward. Long drive, and I usually drive. I slept a lot on Monday.

And now I'm at the end of summer, or almost. Next week I start planning-at-home hours, meaning if I don't get shit cleaned up and things organized this week, I am going to be running behind the whole school year. And none of us want that.

What are you up to?
Hot enough for ya?

Pennaless.

I know that's not how you spell it.

But Dad said it that way often after my maternal grandfather passed away.

My grandfather and my Dad never liked each other. 

"He died pennaless, " Dad said with great relish. As often as possible.

It wasn't actually true, either. I'll get to that in a bit.

This is an  excerpt from a post about 9 years ago.

"His current do-my-best-to-piss-off-everyone-in-a-5-mile-radius schtick is Alzheimer's. He says something or is reminded of something by someone and pretends he has no idea what they're talking about. "Heh heh heh, that's the Alzheimer's kicking in. Heh Heh heh."

It's particularly cruel to my mother, who doesn't find dementia in elderly people the least bit humorous. Her mother, my grandmother, was confined in a care home for more than 16 years with dementia. Little bits of her kept slipping away until all that was left was an incredibly healthy exterior. It was awful, but my dad, who's been jealous of my grandparents one day and gloating about how 'they died pennaless*' the next thinks joking about dementia is the height of wit.

Yeah, wasn't funny then.

Isn't actually funny now, either, although there's a part of me that sees some karma. He thought it was so funny to say that shit to my mom, even though she asked him several times to stop. He thought it was hilarious to keep saying it over and over and over and over until everyone TOLD him to stop. Then he acted like we were being unreasonable and 'trying to control' him. Persecuting him, to be exact.

Yeah, asshole, your wife is in tears because you're laughing at the horrible thing that happened to her mother and you're the one being picked on.

So here's how finances went in our family.

Every month, my parents had a huge fight over where all the money went.

It went on late into the night. He threw a tantrum like a little kid. He stomped around. He slammed doors. He got this high pitched tone to his voice. And the more placating my mom did, the more angry he got. As if it was her fault we were broke every damn month.

There was never any extra.
Other teacher families had a nice car, a house and nice clothes.
Not our family, though

Why? Because every month, Dad took a huge percentage of his paycheck and deposited for his retirement. He took the maximum amount out, but he also had other savings he was contributing to. I don't think it's wrong to save for retirement if you can, but when your family is barely scraping by because of it, you're selfish.

He called US selfish, though. If we had the nerve to ask for anything 'extra'. Like a pair of gloves for winter. We wore socks on our hands. Sometimes we didn't get a winter coat until December even though we couldn't wear the one from the year before. He got mad at Mom if she tried to suggest new shoes or a coat.

"What's wrong with the one we bought last year?"

Mom would tell him we'd outgrown them. He made us go get our coats and try them on in front of him and prove they didn't fit.

I remember one occasion where my wrists and part of my forearm were sticking out from the sleeve and the coat stopped about waist-length and he said, "What's wrong with this coat? It looks fine to me!"

He had charge accounts all over the place, too. So every month those bills had to be paid. I know from experience how hard that is. People look at credit all wrong. "I can afford 50 bucks a month" and then the interest starts adding up and you can't pay your bills and you  have to charge more to keep getting by.

We were short every month. After groceries, rent, (my parents didn't own a home until 1979 and they actually didn't own that one, either...) charge account payments and not much else, there wasn't anything left.  Let's not forget the Sunday Jesus show, either. My parents made a big production of dropping a check into the offering plate every week.

We might have to drink powdered milk and wear socks with holes in them, but they were good Sunday Christians, by god.

Mom worked, too. She worked a lot harder than he did, for awhile drove a school bus, then worked as a police dispatcher, but also ran the house. Did all the laundry and the cleaning and cooking and grocery shopping and made sure we got to school and did our homework and all the things.

And every month, after their money big fight and my dad had left for work, my crying mother would call her parents and ask to 'borrow' money. She knew, and they knew, that it wasn't a loan.
They never said no, though.
They just sent a check.

When Jim needed braces, my grandparents paid for them.
When Steve needed braces, my grandparents paid for them.
When I needed braces, my dad decided I 'looked fine' and I didn't get them.
My lower teeth are crammed in and crooked and I had one hell of a time with the wisdom teeth... but whatever. He didn't care.

Every month, my grandparents sent my mom a check. Sometimes more than once a month.
Birthdays?  My grandparents sent a check to Mom for us until we got a little older, then the checks were sent to us directly.

Christmas, my mom told our grandparents what we would like and they bought it and sent it to us. The year of the arm-sticking-out coat, my grandparents bought me a nice coat for Christmas.

They sent checks. Other relatives did, too. My great grandfather sent my dad a check to go to college when I was in 3rd grade, too. He paid for all of it. Tuition, books, miscellaneous expenses.

My parents had a charge account at Hub City Foods in La Grande, Oregon. (A charge account at a grocery store???! Hey, it was a long time ago). Dad graduated and we moved, but they were paying off that grocery bill from 1971 to 1978. So that was another monthly 'hit'.

But nothing was more important to my dad than his retirement. We sure heard about it often enough.

Sometimes my parents went 'on a diet'. They'd stock up on special food for themselves and not allow us to have it. They went through weird food phases. Instant breakfast, milk and a banana for breakfast, all blended up. Not powdered milk which is what we were drinking, though. Nope, only the best for them. We were told, "NO! That food is for my DIET!" so many times over the years. There weren't enough bananas for us to have them, though. Only enough to last through the week for their blended morning drink.

They had weird phases. Ate only white food for awhile. Then only green food.

They bought AYDS candies and had those with black coffee to start their day.
(Here, eat this sugar. It will suppress your appetite. Really! Would we lie to you?)

The wheat germ and yogurt diet was cheap enough that we were allowed to have some yogurt now and then.

Granola made an appearance in the diet rotation, too.

A big jar of soy nuts for when they wanted something to munch.

Did they offer the green vegetables to us? No. They'd make a pressure cooker full of them for their own dinner and we got a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese or a can of Campbell's soup. To split between three kids.

They did weird food shit for years, too.
It was always something weird and faddish.

It wasn't important to Dad to make sure we had more than a couple things to wear, either.
This is copied from a post from 2011.

As a young teen, I had very little to wear. At a time in life where it was super important to me to fit in, to be like other people... I had two shirts and two pairs of jeans. Three pairs of underwear. Two bras.

There were some colossal arguments with my dad about clothing. This one is relatively mild.

My mom ordered me two dresses from the Sears sale catalog. Without consulting me. Without even mentioning it. The dresses arrived one day while I was at school, and I found them waiting for me on my bed when I came home.

WTF?? I didn't even WEAR dresses! Hadn't in years!

Please believe me when I say I would rather have gone to school with missing teeth, part of my ass hanging out, greasy hair... ANYTHING but wearing one of those ass-ugly plaid dresses. One was a peachy colored tiny plaid with little turquoise stripes and god-awful ruffles down the front. I was 15 years old for fuck's sake! The other one was brown plaid, in the same exact style. Both were too long, made from thin material that you could see through, and I was appalled when I saw them. Hung them in my closet with great shame.

And when school was about ready to start up in the fall, and I had NO new clothing... (usually never did... went to school in the same stuff all the time) and precious little old clothing, my mom said something to my dad about it. And he stomped angrily into my room and went through my closet. Took about 40 seconds. I really had nothing. And then he hit the fucking roof over those dresses. I was 'an ungrateful and selfish bitch' because I had not worn 'those perfectly good brand new dresses', and he'd 'be goddamned if he was going to waste more money on clothes.'

Those dresses had been on sale for $2.50.

The other kids made fun of me. Girls (and more than a few boys) laughed at me and suggested I was dirty because I wore the same clothes all the time. I overheard a conversation once between a couple boys who were horrified at the idea of asking me out. "She's gross. She wears the same clothes all the time. I'll bet she never takes a bath."

So I have some issues about clothes. Ha, it's surprising my issues with clothing aren't much, much bigger.

So I left home on the advice of a guy at the mental health center. He was absolutely right. I'm glad I did it. It was very hard, though.

I moved in with my grandparents, they put me to work in their greenhouse/flower shop and for the first time in my entire life, I was earning money.

Due to the complete lack of pretty much everything I needed, forget what I wanted, I was GIDDY with the possibilities of the huge amount of money I was making.

I made 2 dollars an hour working part time.

More Scammers

So if you'll recall, someone tried to scam my mom right after Dad died.

Told her there were 'government grants' and all she had to do was get him a small percentage. My brother foiled that one.

Mom still has some doubts, though. Because 'Bill' was a friend of my father and would never do anything harmful to her. She can't seem to grasp the idea that anyone online can say anything at all and that it doesn't have to be true. Soooo gullible.

It wasn't Bill, dammit!!

Recently Mabel ("She's 92 and she still lives at home and takes care of her husband!") sent Mom a photo of a table piled with stacks of cash and said that she was making so much money taking care of her husband that she couldn't even spend it all! 

Again, all Mom needed to do was send processing fees to Mabel!
Why, Mabel wouldn't even charge for her help, she was just happy to do something for my poor, sad mother.

Steve said, "Mom, do you know Mabel? Like in real life?"
"Not in person, but she's very nice, I met her on FB!"

"Mom. You're talking to another scammer. There are no grants. No tables piled with money."

My sister in law found my dad's sheet of passwords and fixed Mom's FB account. Got rid of all the Mabels and Bills and scammers. Locked it down so she can't get friend requests. No one can message her except the people who aren't blocked, now.

When my sister in law got into Mom's FB, there were 14 Bill Wilcoxes on her friend list. All with the same profile photo and words and location information. It wasn't difficult to block all the imposters.

Speaking of location information, Mom's actual physical address and telephone numbers were on her damn account!

So I'm sure she will be getting some scammer checks to 'help' her. Maybe Mabel will send her one. Which will be followed by the inevitable "Oops, I sent you too much can you wire some back to me?"

Steve has passed along that information to the bank, too. That there may be scammers sending her checks and for them to watch out for it.

That is one of the advantages of small town life, really.

Well, that's over.

We went to the burial service on Friday and the memorial thing on Saturday.

Mom asked my brother Steve, who has a seasonal business and writes on the side to do the eulogy, but about two weeks ago when we were talking he said, "I just can't do it. I'm utterly swamped right now and I can't do justice to it anyway. I'm too emotional."

If you know anything about narcissistic parents with more than one child, there is usually a 'golden child' in the sibling group. Steve is that child.
His relationship with our father was a good one most of the time.
He wasn't hurt the way I was.

But we talked it over and I agreed that he shouldn't do it.
I offered to write it instead.

It took a week of solid thought (that's how I write something important... lots of thinking first) and about 14 hours of writing and editing to get it the way I wanted, but I delivered the eulogy and did my best to speak truth and say nothing hurtful.

There was no point in saying anything hurtful, and of course a memorial isn't the time or place for shit like that anyway. Things are how they are, I knew years ago that an apology would never come and that we'd never repair our relationship. I was mostly at peace with that. I'd done what I could and it wasn't my fault anyway. I was a child when it all happened.

My adults didn't know how to be adults. Mom was an enabler and a doormat.
Dad's emotional maturity was that of a seven year old, all foot-stompy and tantrum-y and blame-y. Nothing was ever his fault, and was usually mine.
I was told that many times. Ah well. See the water flowing under the bridge?

I've never been a big public speaker.
I get nervous.

It's funny, though. I can get up and sing in front of a crowd and not have my voice waver and be steady and confident. I really don't have stage fright when singing, I think because I was performing from the age of about three until I gave it up about 15 years ago.

Ask me to get up in front of that same group of people and talk and I'll be a wreck.

It went well, though. I was nervous for about 3 minutes, then got into my groove and finished. People laughed in the right places and seemed very interested in what I had to say. My extended family weren't the only people in tears, so I guess I did okay.

I started by saying my dad's name and what he was when he was born. A son,  grandson, nephew, twin brother, cousin.

As I spoke the words,  I lit a candle and placed it on an overturned plastic bin that was hidden under a black tablecloth.

As I went through the various stages of his life, husband, father, teacher, grandfather, musician, I lit a candle for each thing he was.

(Not real candles. Battery operated. Didn't want to burn down the facility.)

Toward the end of the eulogy I said, "I called him when he was in the hospital in October. Some of our conversation was odd, he was confused about exactly what was going on.

But he said that he felt like it wasn't going to be much longer before he would see his brother again. That he was tired of being sick and that he was ready to see what was next.

I asked him if he was afraid.
He said no and added something about stars and darkness and not being fearful.
I asked him to say it again.

He repeated the words and said that it was from a poem about an old astronomer, and that I should look it up because he could not remember exactly how it went.

 He chuckled and said, "I am an old astronomer."

I found the line Dad was trying to say:

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;  I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night​.

That was the final thought he shared with me.
Dad left us on November 23rd."

I extinguished the candle that was placed above all the others on the bin, leaving the rest of them lit and arranged in a half circle below.

Then I said, "You're all here with our family today because your life was touched by Dad.
He probably taught you something, either as your school teacher or in some other way.
He was a born educator.
He may have been your friend. A colleague. A neighbor. Maybe he was your pastor for awhile.

These lights are symbols of some of the things he was.
Husband, father, grandfather. Uncle, friend, neighbor. Music man.
He's not physically here anymore, but our memories are the light he left for us.
And every time we remember a song he sang or a joke he told or a thing he taught us  that light still shines.
Take that with you when you leave today.
Remember him with love."

It was silent in the room, then everyone started applauding.
I didn't know they did that at memorial services.
They never have at any I went to.

Afterward, there were a lot of people who came and talked to me.
They told me it was the best eulogy they'd ever seen.

I was feeling both relieved and pretty good about it until Mom said, "I didn't know you knew how to write!"

After all the things I have sent to her over the years, quite a few from this blog. Hell yes I can write.
She was just being insulting on purpose.
Thanks, Mom.

She won't ever forgive me for what she sees as my betrayal of my father. She says she doesn't understand why I didn't come over and see him after he got so sick, either.

But she does.

I am inclined to just let that flow past, too. She's not in great shape physically and after the emotional beating she took over the last 64 years and the way it ramped up even more in the last six months or so to go along with the hard labor and diaper changes and vitriol, she's had enough.
I'm not going to make things worse for her.
What purpose would it serve?

On the brighter side, we saw a bobcat on our drive home. It was a relatively large specimen as far as bobcats go, and sleek and healthy looking. Beautiful markings. It paused on the hillside next to the highway long enough for us to get a really good look. Not long enough for me to get my phone out and snap a photo, though. Dammit.

It's good to be done with all the funeral and memorial stuff.

Great to be back home, too.
And no school until January 2nd.
I'll have time to do some planning in between meetings for this thing or that thing and mandatory in office hours on Fridays.

I hope to get a couple paintings done. I have a lunch date with Tami, too.
As usual, the house could use a little work. I am great at making a mess, not so good at keeping things cleaned up.

What can I tell you?

There's so much!

We've been working on funeral arrangements.
Mom is still not completely alone the way she will be after everything is over. She has people coming to her house and checking on her daily, we (the kids) are calling her every day as well.

Burial will be Friday , family only, no viewing, the actual memorial will be Saturday. Not everyone in our house is able to take the time off from work, but I'll be there.

I wrote the eulogy. Although I'm not horribly sad about his death, I am a little emotional, it comes out at odd times. I haven't shed a lot of tears, but I've thought about Dad every day.

I labored over the words for hours. Took me most of last weekend to get it written, but I think it will be something that brings happy memories for Mom.

I did not say negative things about my father or our relationship. I had been low contact with him for some time because spending time and energy to be berated, ranted at and all the other stuff... well, no. Of course the rift affected my relationship with Mom, too. She was a doormat by necessity (safer for her) and never a mama bear who'd get between her cubs and a mean animal. She couldn't even protect herself, so she definitely wasn't up to defending her children. More water under the proverbial bridge.

I'm mostly sorry that mental illness had so much stigma attached in his generation that admitting you needed help was never a thing that 'decent' people did. It was a sign of weakness, and appearing weak was one of the worst things imaginable.

So although I'm not broken up by the loss, I find myself grieving over what could have been. The dad who was put on an SSRI medication about 15 years ago to help with his blood pressure was a completely different man. He was engaging and kind and funny and did not try to make people sad. That was the father I would have had a good relationship with. Escaping from his control wasn't something he ever forgave me for, he blamed me for all of it.

But of course after being on the medication for a few months , "I feel so much better! I don't need it anymore." And that was the end of that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In kid news, I had a first this week.
A kid threw LEGO at me during a tantrum.

Remember Jonah? He works so hard all day long to be 'good' in school that when he gets to me at the end of the day, he's ready to melt down and ready to be grumpy with other kids, too. It isn't his fault. He's five. Kindergarten is hard for most of them, especially really smart guys like Jonah. He's stifled all day long every day. He's acting out because he can't help it, not because he's a mean kid or because he wants to be troublesome.

He needs guidance and patience, not anger from me.

So he got mad at some of the other kids yesterday for using 'too many' of the magna tiles. I went over to the rugs where they were playing and helped them divide the squares into equal piles, but apparently Jonah didn't like the whole equality thing, so he kicked one tile across the room.

I made sure they all understood that they got an equal stack, but that it was fine to combine your stack with a friend if you'd like to make a bigger structure. And that if you weren't willing to share, then please leave the area.

Then I went back to my table, I was still dealing with check in paperwork.

Jonah stomped away from the construction zone carpet with a handful of LEGO.
He was trying to be stealthy as he crawled under my table. He threw two or three of the little bricks at my pant leg, which I ignored. Since his opening gambit didn't work, he tried standing up under the table and pressing on either side of the divide in the middle. He thought he could fold the table up.

Haha, no. There's a latch. And he's you know, diminutive.

I ignored that, too.

He waited about 10 seconds, saw that I wasn't going to say or do anything and left. Went back to the magnets, grabbed his stack and started building as if nothing had happened.

It was hilarious.

I was feverishly trying to finish cutting out the pictures of the kids for the 'trapped in a snow globe' project that was supposed to be a gift for their parents.

In case you wondered (and which of us hasn't?) cutting out 26 kid pics with precision scissors for this project is A: not a project for young hands and B: tedious and fiddly and nit picky. It's another of the 'what was I thinking' projects, except the kids and the parents LOVE them. It becomes a keepsake that is brought out every year. And I'm happy to make that contribution to families.

Once I get past all the work, that is. And here I am, officially past it once again.

The picture I'm going to put in here of the project is about 10 years old. Don't think that breaks any privacy rules since I don't work there anymore and the kid is like 22 now.

Since I took Thursday and Friday off, I wanted to make sure they all got done. All that's left is for my assistant and whoever comes in to help him to help the kids gift wrap them with little plate stands included.

I left craft supplies and pre-punched circles and stuff for a 3d ornament holiday card, too. And of course the site is well-stocked, so the kids won't be bored. Ping pong and other indoor sports along with the games and art supplies and LEGO.

My assistant is capable and the kids will be fed and watered and kept safe. I am really a control freak, so it's hard for me to walk away for a few days, but I am allowed a personal life now and then, yes?

So I will still be blogging sporadically until I catch up with myself. I'm fine. I will be happy to see family members that I love. I will sleep badly in a bed in a motel. I will eat crappy restaurant food and be oh so happy to be back home on Sunday.

Meanwhile, I need to put some laundry in the dryer. And go to bed 'cause I have a long drive tomorrow and my car won't drive itself.

Dad

In the tiny town my parents live in, hospice care was recently taken over by the hospital.

So if you're in hospice care and a holiday is coming, they move you to the hospital over the holiday because they don't want to pay their hospice workers to come to your home during that time.

I could write a thousand words about the new hospital administrator, I've been hearing about all the fuckery he's gotten up to since arriving about a year ago. It's hard to get doctors in that town and quite a few of them have left because of working conditions under this guy.

So they let Mom know that Dad would still be getting care, but transported him to the hospital on Wednesday. He was in a more or less comatose state, they'd been giving him two different medications to help with the agitated dementia and pain medication for the physical pain he was in. He was not able to communicate or interact by then. He just... slept.

I believe keeping him comfortable or end of life care are the terms.

They offered to move a hospital bed into his room at the hospital for Mom. My brother and his wife invited her to their house for Thanksgiving, too. She called me at work on Tuesday afternoon to ask me to help her make a decision.

I told her to go to Steve's if she wanted, because there was not anything she could do to help Dad but that if she chose to stay in town, that she should stay at home rather than the hospital, as it would probably take her about 10 minutes to go to the hospital if needed.

"Why suffer through sleeping on a hospital bed the way you did when Dad was in Boise?"

She stayed with him  nearly a week there, did not have a change of clothing or toiletries.

Understandable to forget those things or not consider them in the frantic rush to get him out the door and into the air ambulance. But it took a toll on her physically to sleep on a hospital bed for a week.
She's not in great shape anyway.
So she was physically beat up when she finally got home after a week. She spent the next two weeks in her comfortable bed, was able to bathe and take care of herself, something she hasn't been able to do for a long time because she was taking care of all Dad's needs.

By the time he got out of the hospital, spent a little over a week in a rehab place and finally came home, she was feeling pretty good. Her voice sounded strong, she wasn't foggy and confused the way she had been, and she was better off in every way.

Then he came home and the really hard parts started. Because of the dementia, he was very agitated and combative at night, keeping her awake at all hours and yelling at her and berating her and screaming unintelligibly. While he still had motor function, he'd get pissed and throw things at her. Everything he could reach from the bed would fly at her if she crossed him. Fortunately his aim was terrible.

She was kept running back and forth getting him stuff or calling the ambulance to come get him off the floor. She was exhausted, physically depleted and in a great deal of pain. She's 84 years old and has a lot of her own health issues.

She called me one night in a panic because he was being so mean to her. Saying awful things and screaming himself into deep coughing fits and then being angry with her because 'she made him mad'.

As a family we agreed that if it were Mom in such dire straits and Dad was tasked with taking care of her, he wouldn't. He's have had her in a nursing home as soon as possible. He wouldn't have ignored her there or anything, he would have been there visiting her all the time, but there was no way in hell that he'd be taking care of changing diapers and all the other stuff she was doing for him.

I don't fault him for that, by the way. I would not want to provide full time care for an adult for a myriad of reasons, which is why care homes and traveling nurses and home health care are all things. Mom just felt that it was her duty to do what she was doing and would not have wanted it any other way. But it was too much for her and we were worried.

Steve and Jim stepped in, got some home health care going and dealt with getting POA and other things in order. They did call and keep me informed, and I assured and reassured them that A: I trusted them to do whatever was right and B: I wanted nothing.  If they needed to sell the house to pay for my parents' care, then sell the house. Sell everything. Whatever.

I was also hopeful that would keep us from future conflict over 'stuff'. I told Steve, who really took the lead in all of it, that I knew he would handle things and that if there was something I could do, I would.

So Mom decided to go to Steve's house. It's almost two hours away from where she lives, though.

Jim and his family left town, too. They rented a house on the Oregon coast and their son and his family were going to stay there with them.

So Dad was left in the hospital alone. And while everyone was still asleep at 7:30 on Thanksgiving morning, he died.

I find myself feeling sorry for that. I don't think he knew he was alone, he was on some pretty heavy medication and what was left of his intellect departed about 16 days ago.

It's a lonely end for someone all the same.

I have been sad about it mostly for Mom's sake. Spending 64 years with someone really is a full lifetime, and for all the mental health issues and co-dependency and bumps and potholes and volcanoes and meteor strikes, they did love each other.

Why I've been sort of away...

I find that when I am really stressed, I withdraw and don't communicate much. I'm not sure why, it doesn't really help and it doesn't make me feel better, but there it is.

I wrote awhile back about not wanting to go see Dad, who is rapidly declining.

I have a million reasons for it and I know that various members of my extended family are judging me and believing that my choice is wrong, but I have no control over what they think.

They have no idea about any of the relationship issues I've had with my father over the years. I'm not bothering to enlighten anyone, either. Not their business. They are free to think whatever they think.

Dad is now in hospice care. His 20 some pills a day are no more. He's on two medications so that he will be comfortable for what remains of his time on earth.

My son and his wife were over there last weekend, and I spoke to Matt at length this week. The things he told me made me realize I have made the right decision for my own mental health.

The person who was my father is gone. Dementia took him. All the things that made him occasionally decent are no more.

The ogre side of him, which has never been far from the surface, has taken over. He's always been mean, but because of the cognitive loss, he has no filter at all.

He berates and verbally abuses my mom, he always has, but now it's an art form. That is, if you can understand the words coming from him. Apparently most of what he says is now gibberish, not even actual words. In the past, once he made her cry he figured his daily task was over. But now, he makes her cry off and on all day long.

Despite the fact that he can't help it, I find that I resent him for that.
Not only is she required to tend to his physical needs (think infant here... diapers and feedings) but to sit and listen to his vitriol and anger even though he has few words. She calls the ambulance at least six times a week to come get him off the floor. He can't walk anymore, but he gets agitated in the night and gets out of bed. He usually makes it about 5 to 10 feet before he falls.

She doesn't notice him getting up because she's so exhausted after taking care of him all day that she sleeps through it. He lies on the floor screaming for her.

Based on the difficulty Matt and Amy had in waking her up last weekend when they arrived at the house, he probably is yelling at her for awhile before she wakes up. They arrived about 10 AM, Dad was screaming from the bedroom, "SALLY SALLY SALLY SALLY."

Matt was holding her hand, patting it and shouting, "Grandma!" at her. It didn't wake her up. He said it seemed like two hours but was probably about five minutes or so. She finally did awaken. Dad was lying in his own shit in their bed. They have a nurse who lives at the end of their road and she's been 'on call' for them, so Matt called her. She came to help, but Matt ended up washing the bedding.

I can't say I ever imagined my son having to wash grandpa shit out of sheets and blankets, but I can't deny being a little awestruck that he did it. I know I could not have done it. I'd throw them away. Gagging the entire time.

So he screams at her unintelligibly all day, he's incredibly angry at her for his situation (this isn't new, he has always blamed her for everything anyway) and he has no brain left.

It's truly awful, made worse because her lifetime of fear over things that made him angry is stopping her from putting him in a care facility. Because he 'won't like it'.

I am hoping that she listened to me and at least asked for some bed rails so that he can't just roll out of bed to toddle away. She rarely listens to anything I tell her, though. Dad's anger over my escape from his narcissism turned my mom against me, too. It's just a fucked up relationship. 

We are hoping that with hospice finally being involved, Mom can relax a little and just spend time with him that doesn't involve changing diapers or trying to get him off the floor.

A few weeks ago, my brothers went to see them (fortunately it was a lucid day.. turns out that was actually the last one of those) and Dad signed over power of attorney. Couple days later he was accusing us (the three kids) of forming a 'medical consortium' to steal his money. After that, he quit any kind of conversation, sadly.

Spoiler... there is no money. However, there's a ton of money going out every month that doesn't need to be, one example... Mom signed up for some kind of cosmetic 'club' over a year ago. She got a couple tubes of makeup but they've been billing her a monthly membership.

She's subscribed to Disney Plus on three different devices. That's three accounts for the same thing that are being paid monthly.

She sent money to a questionable charity. They apparently have several different names for the same "charity", so they sent fund raising letters to her from those "other" charities, too. And she sent money to them. Hundreds are deducted from her account every month. She's always been gullible. It hasn't improved with age.

Steve said that there's approximately a thousand a month being wasted on shit like that.

My sister in law (Jim's wife) has been saying for the last three years that they needed to be in assisted living. We all agreed, but getting the parents to agree? Nope.

Now of course there's no point. He won't be around much longer in any residence.

I used to believe in the christian god. I don't anymore, haven't for a really long time. But I want to believe there is some kind of peace for my dad on the other side. I'd like him to find the peace he wasn't able to find on earth.

Dad

He's not doing well. After the anesthesia and anesthesia and anesthesia few years back, he started to lose his cognitive function. He was really bad for awhile, but managed to claw his way mostly back to what passes for sane in his world. He was still prone to rants about really weird things, and fixated on stuff that made no sense, but at least was mentally competent to pay the bills and keep his medication straight.

Always been paranoid. He thinks the government is out to get him. That his phone is tapped. He's been thinking this way since he was a young man. I don't know what prompted it.

He has a lot of health issues. He's been prescribed a bunch of medications, all of which need to be taken on a schedule. Because his marbles fell out, he messed up his medications badly.

Had a couple big huge fights with Mom, she said, "Fine, you take your medicine however you take it."

Which caused more than one pulmonary embolism and LifeFlight and assorted other things.

Due to the prolonged lack of oxygen in the last couple months and his stubborn refusal to listen to Mom, he's completely toasted now.
So confused.
He doesn't even know where he is.

Mom insisted that I call him last week, saying brightly, "Oh he's doing so well! He would just love to hear from you!"

So I called his room. What followed was a surreal 45 minute conversation that I won't forget, although I'm sure he forgot it as soon as we hung up.

He launched into a strange and disjointed recitation about the 'robutts' who were watching him, the fact that he was being 'held incognito' by the government in an 'asylum with 7,000 other people' and some personal stuff that I won't say here. He was angry because he had no glasses (Mom forgot to send them with him in the confusion and urgency of getting him out the door into the ambulance) and no shoes. He hasn't worn shoes in 5 years, just slippers.

My mom thinks he's going to get better and come home. I'm going to be surprised if he even makes it through the next week or two.

Like almost everyone I know or have ever known, my relationship with my parents is complicated. I left home early on the advice of the counselor I was seeing.

That's a whole long story, too.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I had a sort of breakdown when my best friend moved away from our small community of assorted assholes. As a person who is not neurotypical (although I didn't know that then...) I didn't have a lot of friends. It upset my equilibrium, I had NO ONE after she left.

I was still mostly a child. The adults in my home didn't know how to be adults and everything was ugly and mean and angry and I didn't have anywhere I felt safe.

Hollie, my anchor, my friend... was gone.
With her went a huge piece of my heart.

Life at home wasn't great, Dad was not okay, not balanced. I may even write about all this shit eventually, but that morning I couldn't even get ready for school and was a pile of anguish.

In a tone saturated with sarcasm my mom said, "Well. Maybe you need to go see a counselor!"

She was surprised when I agreed. This started my weekly sessions with Bruce Purvine, who helped me more than he ever knew. I've tried to track him down to thank him, but haven't had any luck finding him. I found a counselor by that name in Seattle, but the person who answered my email assured me that he was not the same Bruce.

I don't know how long I saw Bruce, but it couldn't have been more than a few months before he said, "Hey, listen. There's nothing wrong with you. Your entire problem is your dad. He's sick. You need to get out of there. Do have have somewhere you can go?"

Which is how I ended up living with my maternal grandparents in Colorado and never living at home again.

It took many years and a whole lot of introspection. And continued counseling, only this time with the guy who's my biggest fan and strongest advocate.

Eric. The kid I married when I was still a kid myself.
I finally was able to see that Dad was a narcissist.
That he was damaged by his own narcissistic mother.

I felt bad. I wanted to fix things between us, and I tried for years. I wanted to talk about what happened. Nope. Mom and Dad didn't want to discuss it at all, saying that it was in the past. Well, yeah. That's kind of the point.

I wanted to fix things even though I'm aware I wasn't the one who broke the relationships. Never happened.

This is why over the summer, even though he was slipping noticeably every time we talked, I did not go see them. I deserve sanity and to put my own mental health first.

So he was in the hospital in Boise for two weeks, and now he's in a care home not too far from the Oregon border. Apparently they don't have a suitable care facility closer to my mom.

Really, she just doesn't want to put him in a local one because she's afraid of his anger and doesn't want to deal with it. Not that I blame her.

She doesn't realize that he's no longer the same person. She keeps saying she wants to consult him and find out what he thinks about moving here or there or doing this or that or she tries to explain what the doctor is saying.

I am trying not to get exasperated when we talk. This is horrible for her. The person she's been with for 64 years no longer exists and she can't admit that. She thinks he's coming home and that she will be able to care for him. But being in denial isn't helping any part of the situation. It's all just sad and crappy. It's not going to get better.

I don't blame her. I can't imagine how awful this is for both of them.

My empathic self feels pity for Dad.

Imagine being ill and weak and so confused that you don't know where you are. Being changed like a baby. Unable to walk. He's also added Sundowners to the mix and becomes angry and combative in the evenings and into the night.

Matt has a job that takes him all over the state. He was in John Day earlier in the week and saw my mom, then in the same little town as Dad's care home, so was able to drop off his glasses for him.

I talked with Matt last night, and he said that he didn't even recognize his grandfather. The voice didn't help, either, he now has a high pitched and quivering old man voice. My dad did recognize his grandson, but told him the same strange and paranoid things he said to me.

So I haven't felt much like writing here, although I am still reading everyone's blogs.

There are even work things I'd like to share.
Maybe I will get to that this week.