My mother’s beloved dad and mom

This morning I looked above the stairs; before I descended I looked at the portraits of my grandparents and said, “Help me.”

I didn’t want to say, “come and get her, your daughter, the one left of four, the survivor who outlived everyone.”

I just said, “Help me.”

They didn’t budge or blink as I began my day remembering the evening before, the end of a long day of chores, and housework and cooking and laundry in my pandemic universe. As evening fell and sat down to eat, the phone rang. Dinnertime. Unusual.

It was my mother. Candy, aide #1, “was out.”

“She leaves me alone all day! I am alone here!”

“She probably is having her dinner. Or a break, she is allowed.”

“She is mean to me!” “Oh, here she is, my girl is back!”
Sotto vocce: “I need to talk to you, this is important,” she declares.
“Mom, I just sat down to eat my dinner.”
“This is important!”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait til tomorrow!
“I have to go now.” I hung up. (It is better that I engage on my terms lest she take over)

Texts with the aide:

Hi susie she sleep all night but she wake up at 4 am didn’t sleep back again until 9 am she ask me to put on the TV around 5:30. I change her 6pm she said she tell you I went out and didn’t change her. The doctor did not come up today she is acting up all day.

She had dry rice for lunch she told me to put some rice in the soup and give her then  after she said to take out the rice from the soup and give her the soup. All day she yelling.

She told me I just came in with a man.

She said she pay me and I have to listen to her.

She give me a hard time to take her medication she just take it.

-I hope it calms her down, I offered, exhausted beyond my previous phase of exhaustion.

I hope so.

I just change her as soon as i finish she said i pee again.

I had to call the office I was scare because she was trying to get up I was trying to stop her
she scratch me said I have her phone. I show her the phone was on her bed.

This morning:

Good morning. She is calm the nurse just call me Mom feels I was talking on her phone she told me not to use her phone she said phones are cheap I must go buy one.

(My mother was talking about her home phone. There are 2 cordless phones in the house, so they are easier to answer.)

She asked me if I ever had a woman.

(OK, my mother has no more filter and is officially not my mother. She is more and more inappropriate.)

After buying the pillows and bumpers (which she felt was such a good idea) she doesn’t want the bumpers.

So, my mother went to sleep around 9:30 she wake up and was in her purse looking for her mirror and eye pencil.
She was doing her eyes with the pencil. (!)

My mother, was trying to put makeup on in the middle of the night.
Why?
For whom?
Time has vanished along with the world.

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

The previous post is here

The next post is coming