The Gothic Gates of Green-Wood Cemetery

Statue of Minerva, in line with and waving
to the Statue of Liberty in the harbor

It is Easter weekend and I took a short break: a day in Brooklyn on a tour at the famous Green-Wood Cemetery where everyone imaginable and unimaginable is buried. This is a huge place founded in 1838, a National Historic Landmark of 478 acres filled with paths, ponds, fountains, hills, valleys and the most marvelous statuary. It currently is the home of 560,000 permanent residents, including Leonard Bernstein, Boss Tweed, Charles Ebbets, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Horace Greeley, Civil War generals, baseball legends, politicians, artists, entertainers and inventors. It is filled with history, birds and a great place for tours and dramatic presentations.

There was a trolley tour on the founders of baseball who are buried  in the cemetery. It was a perfect day to be out and in the air and as strange as it may sound to hang out in a cemetery, this is one of the most fascinating New York City landmarks. You can read about Green-Wood here.

Then, on to a little shopping at a cool little market, Eagle Provisions, in the Polish section of Brooklyn. And then a Mexican dinner at Rachel’s Taqueria.

On the weekends I try to run away from my head. I was thinking as I was standing at a corner waiting to cross the street, that it doesn’t matter where you go, your head always goes with you. Ain’t that profound? It’s the truth. I don’t know how under-cover people stay under-cover, or people in a witness protection program manage, you are who you are and where you are wherever you are there’s that old head. There is no escape.

I replayed yesterday and tried to sort out my anxieties. The poor cat(s) issue never seems to end. Poor Princess Blue is still not at the vet. On top of it the vet receptionist told me it wasn’t a good weekend to bring in my cat for diabetes regulation because, “no one is there on Sunday.” How can no one be caring for animals over the weekend? Aren’t there technicians who come in to feed and care for those sad caged guys? I had a break from guilt about stuffing or attempting to stuff my cat in the carrier again but don’t think it isn’t weighing heavy on the back of my mind. And don’t think my finger isn’t still purple from the last attempt.

When I called my mother yesterday, there was a substitute aide covering for Cynthia who was at Good Friday services. My mother was instructing her how she should answer the phone. Soon after there was a knock at the door and guess who? The gentleman who I laid the guilt trip on the previous day, the big boss, the guy downstairs, the macher, the director, popped in to see what was cooking after my phone-fit about administrative attitude, the crappy sink, the rodents in the wall. I could hear his loud, jolly voice, “how are we doing?” At which point my mother decided to dump me for Steve. I told her I’d call her later, and when I did she told me she had told Steve she was glad he came up so she could flirt with him.  That’s my ma, ninety-five and she hasn’t lost her sense of humor. Well, not totally. Now, what’s he going to do about the sink and the rodents?

My mother added: “he was nice, very nice. Everyone is nice, no one means to be not nice.” That is an interesting comment because that kind of sums up how I always have felt about people while she was the mistrusting one. Maybe she is going through some Karmic lessons?

“Don’t call me when I am eating,” she reminded me a few hundred times, or at least that is how it felt. The problem is I never know when she is eating, it all depends on the time the order is put in and picked up under these nutty assisted living dining room rules.

I figured this was as good a time as any to lay some financial stuff on her:

“Ma, I need you to understand that when you got out of the hospital you not only had around the clock hospice nurses but I had hired round the clock private aides to learn what to do and to be accessible. As soon as I saw you were a little better I reduced out twenty-four hour aides to a live-in to save money. It would have been almost ten-thousand dollars a month to keep three shifts for ’round the clock care.”

I sensed I was getting through but there was a bigger message:

“Cynthia is living-in. She doesn’t get a break, She has to bring her own food and make her own meals and take care of you. She can’t get out to shop for stuff you need or she needs. So if she didn’t hear you in the middle of the night to help you get to the bathroom it was likely because she was dead tired and asleep. She needs to sleep, she is entitled to so please cut her some slack. She is working above and beyond doing stuff I can’t do.”

“OK, don’t repeat yourself, save your breath…” she heard enough. Something had hit home and it was making her uncomfortable. She has no idea how uncomfortable she made me when she called Cynthia a “liar!” while I was on the phone the day before. (Cynthia’s response: “I have been doing this job many years, I know the elderly, it happens.”)

So, I thought something had been resolved. Then the mail came. I was waiting to hear about reimbursement for the care I am employing, but the letter from the insurance company said that the only recognized agency was VITAS. (Hospice). I am in a tail spin. What does that mean? That I have to wait until Monday to straighten this out. The confusion is that Vitas is covered by Medicare but my mother has been paying for the long term care for years, aren’t they going to cover the twenty-four hour care? It IS a registered home health agency. That is the anxiety du jour: will we get some kind of reimbursement? WE NEED IT! WE PAID FOR IT!”

It’s the loose ends. The stuff that appears just when I think things are calming down and getting in order. The calls, the mail. It made me realize: this started out as my mother’s journey with health.

It has turned out to be my journey in life.

The very moving Merello/Volta monument depicts a woman in her wedding dress
on the stairs of a church

This series is linked: see “continued here.” Also, below the line there will be links for the previous post and the next.

The series starts here

 continued here