When the phone rings I let the answering machine pick up; well, I generally do, after screening the caller I.D. Invariably it is spam. Invariably it is my mother. If it is my mother, it is usually at an inopportune time. If it is my mother she usually leaves a message. The message is always URGENT. When I hear the message my physical reaction is usually to feel ill. I am working on this, to tone down the reaction, to disengage from the urgency, the fear, the entrapment.

During this past week the “good aide,” Candy, so named by my mother because of her inability to recall the name Nandkum, reported that my mother accused her of wetting the clothes in her drawers. Like last year, my mother began the tirade of berating the aide and telling her she didn’t deserve her Christmas bonus. The aide messages me. I am probably not supposed to communicate with her or at least not about this kind of stuff, but I let her vent. So, I get it full force from the aide, from my mother, and then I go into anxiety mode. This time I was able to write back to the aide: “sorry I can’t help you, I am at a medical appointment, do the best you can. The clothes feel wet because they are cold, her bureaus are by the window, near an outside wall.”

I spent hours last week trying to field calls about a new commode. Medicare people, Medicaid people, pharmacy, this one, that one, doctor’s office. Calls in and calls out. All this for a soon-to-be-102 year old woman to use the bathroom. I am hoping that is all resolved.

About that urgent call: I returned it that evening at 8:00 pm which is when she said I should call back, curious as she says she goes to bed at 7:30. But she was eager to talk. So eager that I had to pry myself out of the conversation at 9:15 PM.

When I got her on the phone, she began, well, “I don’t want to upset you,” to which I replied, “yes it is late and we have to go to sleep,” and so she went on, “it’s about the aide.” On she went. Without stop. She didn’t want to upset me but she found her audience. She didn’t want to upset me but what the hell?

And on, and on, she went, about the nasty, pushy, bossy aide, how she was staring at her, insisting she had to watch my mother, my mother insisting she didn’t need to be watched or bathed or dressed. (She can do everything herself). She even told the aide to leave and not return and good luck! This woman was supposed to stay with her until 7:00 pm, (with an hour break) so my mother couldn’t be too nasty, but knowing her, she got involved in conversations which caused mutual button-pushing. And of course I have to hear the whole “report”: This woman, Joy, has five children, she used to own a store in Guyana (which my mother refers to as an “island”), so she must have a lot of money and assistance for five kids, she was well dressed, it was the first time in the building and she didn’t want to leave for lunch, she used her bathroom against her wishes instead of going upstairs to the agency office (which has an outpost in the building)…

What the woman didn’t know prior to her visit was that:

• my mother only leaves the room to get her hair done and to see the doctor downstairs.
• she doesn’t bathe in the tub, she does the sponge-bath routine,
• she doesn’t go out or to the roof garden.

(and my mother has not been to her daughter’s house for a visit since the time she flew up from Florida in the early 90s.)

She just doesn’t.

“She wanted to know where my daughter lives, I said two blocks away.” This of course is not true but probably made my mother feel better. That the woman would think I could fly over in a minute and step in, save the day. And then she conveyed that the woman, Joy, asked her another question and she told her it was none of her business. My mother was always good at that, shutting down her borders, keeping the immigrants out, not letting on to too much, not giving too much away. I don’t think I have ever told someone about minding their own business, at least not in that way: This is one tough lady.

The conversation segued into familiar terra firma.

We cycled through every conversation we have ever had, again. This includes the retelling of the stories about her wonderful father, the rehashing about her miserable marriage but how she kept herself happy, how my father was so inadequate, how he left half of his Veteran’s insurance money to his sister, $5,000, a shock. (I mentioned that he probably had the policy during the war and forgot about it.) We revisited talk about her older sister, another topic, Annette, who was worldy and knew so much, so much more than she did, who guided her schooling and then to a career as a secretary for lawyers and eventually at Community Services Society. And yes, she planned the luncheons for the mayor and their staff when they visited the office. She recalled her boss there; I looked her up and she is long since gone. Janet Saner.

But here’s one thing that gets me over and over: When I get messages from the aide about the issues, the commentary, the conversation, I want to hide. I am embarrassed. I am appalled. The talk of the elderly is filterless, often reflective of ideations at which a child would cringe. The elderly hold nothing back. They lash out with anger and rage. And yet, so often, when I speak directly to my mother, despite the repetitive themes, there are actually long periods where one could converse. A conversation reflects thought, sharing, processing; giving and receiving.

My mother always asks how everything “is.” and I  always say, “oh, everything is fine,” though that’s a lie. There are family health issues, of several members, but what is the point of telling her? There is enough anxiety all around. She says, “I know what you are going through, you don’t have to tell me.” She thinks she does but of course she doesn’t, or maybe she does on some level, in some ways I feel I live a parallel life to hers. There is worry, frustration, disappointment. There is endless caregiving. I have on many levels, given myself away, put myself last. I am trying very hard to cut myself some slack and switch that up. To remedy the years of that kind of selfless behavior.

I am a very good listener, to everyone around me, but I have not been as kind or as good a listener to myself—the person in charge. If I could go back in time and call myself on that old black phone, that phone that reads, ORegon-3-9833, the phone from all the way back to my beginning when listening was prime to learning language, I’d tell myself many stories, I’d fill myself up with bedtime stories, nice bedtime stories.

I’d reinforce over and over, I love you. It’s all going to be OK.

This series starts here:
Part 1: And The Band Played On … a mother’s life, a daughter’s journey

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