Mother is aging

When I started this blog, I talked about Wife. But we are separated now. Then I started talking about Father, but he's dead. And I've talked about my kids and my girlfriends. But maybe I should say a couple words about Mother.

[By the way, I realize that the parallelism in that first paragraph looks ominous, almost as if my writing about someone is a way to get him or her out of my life. But if you look closer that's not true: Marie and Debbie are very much part of my life still, and I write about them a lot. And I wish my mother a long and happy life yet.]

When I started this blog, Mother was just about the age Debbie is today, maybe a few months younger. Today she is in her eighties. She has been living on her own since Father died, which was seven years ago.

On the whole she's healthy, but she now walks with a permanent stoop. I have not asked what causes it. She still works part-time, but it is work she can do from home. She keeps doing it because she enjoys the work, and because she has clients who don't want to work with anybody else. But she tells me that she is getting slower at it, and can't work for as long. So she needs to trim down her client list, one way or another.

Last year, when I was weighing whether to move to Sticksville to save my job, I asked if I could move in with her (if necessary) and she said yes of course. Since then, I have asked her a couple of times if she would prefer to have someone living with her. And the answer seems to be a very qualified yes. She says she still misses my dad something awful. She has trouble driving at night, or even during the day if it's anywhere far. It would be great to have someone else that could reach things on tall shelves, and she worries about the risk of falling.

But I said it was a qualified yes. She strenuously wants to avoid the risk of being a burden to anyone. And she doesn't want Brother or me to have to look after her if she gets sick. She looked after Father when he got sick, and she said it was more work than she ever had any idea it could be. She doesn't want to inflict that level of work on us. So she has mused idly about selling her house and moving into a care facility.

For my part, I have asked her please not to make any arrangements without first talking it over with Brother and me. At the rate property is appreciating these days, I'd be reluctant to see her part with the house even though I don't really want to own a house again. Maybe Brother and SIL would like to live there. Then I answered her fears of being a burden once she gets frail by reminding her that I spent thirty years looking after Wife's fragile health, and I really don't expect her to be any more demanding than that!

In any event, nobody has made any decisions yet. Brother and SIL still live, ... well, ... call it 30-40 minutes away depending on traffic. I live between two and three hours away, with the same qualifier. (Most of the time it's a lot closer to two, but there are days ...!) But I visit more often than I used to. At this point I probably visit her a couple of times a month, more or less, and stay for 2-3 days each time. Some visits we just sit and talk. Other times I'll join her to go grocery shopping (or do it for her). 

She has season tickets to the Philharmonic, and has had them ever since Father was alive when they used to go together. After my father died, she'd regularly ask me if I wanted to join her ... or sometimes she'd buy an extra ticket and go with Brother and SIL. A year or two ago, joining her for a concert meant that I would drive into town and meet her at the concert hall. These days I drive down the day before "so we can visit," and then we drive in together. This means that I drive and she rides. The traffic gets fierce when you get that close to downtown, and she doesn't want to face it any more.

Last weekend, Brother and I met at her house and worked our way through a number of old boxes of stuff that had been sitting in Father's study since he died. We saved out the few things that were worth saving (including, for example, photos and anything written by him) but pitching the vast majority that nobody could imagine wanting to keep. We'll do it again in a while.

So ... no big decisions, no drastic changes. But we are keeping an eye on her and doing more for her. Just a little bit, but I think every little bit counts. I hope so.