Saturday Stories #3
(My note, I’m writing some fiction, although this could be real, it is made up - the characters, the setting is all from my imagination.)
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Story #3A - By Anne Briggs
I want to think if we turned our heads and didMrother, Jared, was in Richardson, Texas - a three-hour drive from Georgetown.
She insisted she would be fine. She had her friends and her church in Enid and had lived there for 62 years since dad had taken a job as a pharmacist at Tinsen Drugs and Emporium in Enid. My sister, who is three years older than I, then me, and then my brother who was three years younger than I had thought to be closer would let us check up on her more. It was a seven-hour drive from Georgetown to Enid - and while we would drive there for some of the holidays, it was getting harder to drive as my girls were in high school and even on Christmas break, their coaches had practice as well as expected they would be working out on their own. It was the same for Jared’s family as it was hard for him to get away as the manager of a Best Buy store in the north Dallas suburb of Plano.
For the first couple of years, Linda was able to take some of her school vacations in Enid. She would drive to Grapevine, Texas where her daughter Kristi lived and spend a couple of days with her and her husband Matt, and then finish off the drive to Enid. Linda would try to be there on a Sunday, so she could sit in church with Mom and stay for Sunday School (and the coffee and donuts).
Linda knew most of the ladies in Mom’s Sunday School group - she was friends with some of their children and it was frequently a little reunion of her own to make the trip. She would then stay Monday and Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning was Mom’s longtime bridge group. Many of Mom’s friends that had played bridge had dropped out - some had moved, two had died, and others just said it was too hard to get to bridge.
It was in the summer after Dad’s death, that Linda thought maybe there were some slight problems with Mom. Mom seemed not to know the words to some of the hymns at church (and she had been in the choir for several years). On Tuesday, Mom had trouble with bridge. Once, she failed to follow suit - and later discovered her mistake. She didn’t seem to follow the game well.
Linda wondered if Mom’s vision was okay. In casual conversation, Mom said that her eyes had been checked recently and they were okay. Linda tried to probe if Mom was getting a little forgetful or having some mental problems. Mom assured her that she was fine - just getting older.
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I, Anne, tried to call Mom every Sunday afternoon (making sure I was late enough in the day, after church, lunch and her afternoon nap). Our discussions were mostly one-sided as I talked about girls and their activities and what Mark (my husband) and I were working on. Her life was pretty simple - church, bridge, laundry, house cleaning, Bible study, and coffee with Beth and Amy (her two closest friends), and just mundane things. Her primary care physician had retired and she had a new doctor. She was missing her old doctor and didn’t like her new doctor much. She would complain “He is always pushing and prodding me - checking my cholesterol, blood pressure, and trying to see if I’m senile”. She would laugh at that last comment.
Enid is about 50,000 people and pretty steady in terms of change. There weren’t new streets or subdivisions. It was a good place for her, we thought..
About three years ago, when Linda visited during her summer break, a neighbor saw her car and came over to talk with her and Mom. Linda didn’t think much of the visit until the neighbor insisted that Linda come over to her house to see a quilt that she was working on.
Once Linda and the neighbor were away from the house, the neighbor confided “I think your mother’s mental state is deteriorating. A couple of times, the neighbor found Mom out walking like she was lost. The neighbor had said ‘yes’ to be the neighborhood captain for a charity drive and called on Mom for a donation and Mom acted like she didn’t recognize her. Linda asked her to keep an eye on Mom.
Linda had gone to the bridge-group with Mom who messed up playing a two-heart bid as somehow in the middle of the game, she thought spaces were trump. Linda stayed an extra day for the Bible Study and coffee with Beth and Amy. Mom had trouble finding Romans in her Bible. But, Beth also had trouble finding Ephesians.
On the way back from Enid, on the long stretches of fairly empty highways, Linda called me using the hands-free option in her car.
Linda said “I think Mom is slipping mentally” and described some of the issues that Mom was having. Once she got home, Linda called Mom’s doctor to see if he could help out. Unfortunately, the doctor said he couldn’t release any information because of HIPPA rules. But, he also commented that he hadn’t seen Linda’s mother for about two years.
The summer past and fall began. One day, Mom’s neighbor called Linda and indicated the Mom was roaming the streets and the neighbor stopped her and asked if she needed a ride home. Mom said “yes” but then went ahead and introduced herself and asked her neighbor for her name. They were neighbors, maybe not real close, but they had talked over the years.
Linda called me and asked ‘what should we do’. I turned the tables on her and asked: “You are the school psychologist, don’t you know what to do or who to ask about what to do with parents who seem to be moving into dementia.”
Linda answered “My professional opinion is that Mom needs help - maybe a housekeeper or a visiting nurse to check up on her occasionally. My opinion as her daughter is to move her to your house so she is with somebody she knows and cares about”.
My answer was quick “Why me?”
Linda’s answer was as quick. “It is October, I’m still working with a full schedule. Your daughter Dyana is off to college and Bethany is a senior. You have an empty bedroom and probably two empty bedrooms when Bethany graduates.” Linda then added, “And you know Mom doesn’t like dogs, and I’m not going to get rid of Oscar.” Oscar was Linda’s Chihuahua.
At first, reluctantly, I agreed to go. But, as I thought about it longer, I realized I was being selfish. My mother, who had graced me with so much over the years, needed my help - and I was being a disobedient child not to help her in her situation. She loved me so much to go to all those PTA meetings, the softball games where I sat on the bench, even to the piano concerts where I sounded so bad. She loved me - and now in her twilight years needed some of that love back.
I called Mom to ask if I could come to visit. I was a little shook when I had to explain that I was Anne, her daughter. She seemed to recover fairly quickly with “Oh yes.” and she asked about how my husband, Mark, and our girls were doing. We talked pleasantly for a few minutes and then I said: “I’d like to come and visit for a weekend”. Her answer was cordial as always “Of course, honey, do come and visit. I’ll make up the bed for you”.
I made the arrangements at home. Bethany would visit Dyana at Texas A&M for the weekend. It was a prospective student weekend and it worked out well. There was a little discussion as to whether Mark would drive her or she could drive herself, and she won that battle. (Sometimes teenage girls can be so complicated!!) I took Friday, Monday, and Tuesday off from my work as assistant registration and voting clerk for Williamson County, and headed north on I-35.
As I drove to Gainesville Texas, I had my satellite radio going on hits from the 70s and I sang along. But, as I crossed over the Texas-Oklahoma line (at the Red River) I turned off the radio. I started to think of my mother and growing up in my family. How many meals had she made? How many nights had she stayed up waiting for her children to come from events? How many times did she pray for us?
I thought of my own relationship with Dyana and Bethany. I loved my girls, and I knew my mother had loved us - Linda, Jared, and myself.
I remembered my pregnancies and how I had a love-hate relationship with being pregnant and feeling like a bloated whale - and how that feeling disappeared when the nurses put my child in my arms. And, here I was grousing about visiting my aging mother. While I didn’t remember my mother nursing me, I knew she did - just like I had nursed my girls. I remember the diaper changes that I did and knew my mother had done the same for me. Life is like a cycle - we are small and grow up and become old. Mom was doing that now, and I was going to be next. Would my girls visit me when I got old and stubborn? Or would they find excuses to stay away?
The statement “I am becoming my mother stuck in my mind”. What legacy might I leave?
It was both a joyous reunion and an anxious weekend with my mother. I tried to watch her coping mechanisms. I heard her call me Linda a few times instead of Anne. I let her drive me to the grocery store on Saturday as we walked down the aisles together. She selected more frozen dinners (that we used to call TV-Dinners) as they were quick and easy to prepare. Instead of a homemade cake, she had a cake from the bakery. I thought of her blue ribbons from the Garfield County Fair that she had won for her cakes and goodies. I knew she had been in Jumbo Foods a million times over the years, but she seemed to have to think where things were. Coming home she missed the stop sign at Elm and Grand Avenue - fortunately the other traffic at the four-way stop waiting for us as we barreled through the intersection.
On Sunday, we went to the First United Methodist Church in Enid - the church where I had been baptized and raised. It seemed smaller to me - maybe because I was bigger. She sang the hymns in her beautiful soprano voice - although with a few misses on the words. She introduced me as her daughter Linda once before correcting herself. On the way to her ladies' Sunday School class, Mrs. Wilson, the pastor’s wife and the teacher of her Sunday School class called me over. “Your mother is getting fairly forgetful. I’m worried about her,” she said. As my sister Linda had said, Mom had trouble finding the right place in her Bible for the lesson.
She no longer went to the bridge-group on Tuesday. She said “It was becoming just too hard for her. I asked if she had seen her doctor and she reiterated that she hadn’t because she didn’t like him.
I slipped out and talked to the neighbor, Mrs. Sample, on Monday morning. Mom was doing laundry and I said I wanted to say hi to a friend. Mrs. Sample gave me a cup of coffee and we sat at her kitchen table and talked for about an hour. There were more instances of memory problems. I knew in my heart that it was hard for Mom to live on her own and alone.
After the coffee with Mrs. Sample, I gave my sister Linda a quick call. “She is slipping mentally” was about all I could say as my sister had a student in her office. I promised to call her back that evening.
When I returned Mom had forgotten to put the wet clothes in the dryer. I helped her and watched as we finished moving the clothes from the washer to the dryer. We had been talking about Jared, my brother and as we finished moving the clothes, she forgot to turn the dryer on. She laughed and said she was getting forgetful.
Oh how much I loved her, and my heart was breaking for her as I realized more and more that we had to love her in her old age and find ways to care for her.
After lunch on Tuesday at the Youngblood grill, I dropped her off at her house and headed back to the interstate. I texted Linda, Mark, and Jared and asked Linda to set up a conference call about 6 p.m. as I would be through Oklahoma City and could pay attention to the phone call.
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To be continued next week
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Is your mother still alive? Have you visited or called her lately?
Are there others that you should visit and love?
Karen
