Put On A Happy Face

ARRGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! My mother is driving me crazy!!! What else is new? I thought we had this move to Florida all sewn up. But deep down I thought it was all too easy, and it was. My mother seems to have decided she couldn't bear to live with my sister because she thinks she would be used by my niece and nephew as a free babysitter. This came about after she'd invited both of them to visit her at the same time with their lively little girls. If you're not used to having young children around, four of them under the age of 7 at the same time is a bit much.

How much my niece and nephew have used her as a babysitter is up for debate. I emailed my sister to give her the heads-up on what's happening. She emailed back to say she'd warned my mother about having the girls all at the same time, and that apparently my mother had only been left with one of them once. Also, my mother has apparently been talking to her twin sister, who doesn't want my mother to move closer to her own children. No, my aunt wants my mother to live with HER children. I don't know why.

But this is my mother. She is such a Gemini (and I don't mean to offend Geminis. I love Geminis. My son is a Gemini). But they change their minds so often. She has, through the years, gotten us all riled up about whatever and then backs down when we try to get her to take action. It's very frustrating. Presumably, she's done this with her sister as well. Last year when my mother was visiting my sister, she had not quite a heart attack, but the beginnings of congestive heart failure. She was extremely swollen and bloated and couldn't breathe properly. My sister got her to a dr. who took her off the statins she'd been prescribed off-license for her tremor. The statins weren't for cholesterol; she doesn't have high cholesterol. They caused the wheezing and breathing problems. She had to stay longer than planned. Her sister phoned my nephew and said if they didn't let my mother go, she was going to get the sheriff to come and set her free. Yes, really. Now, what sort of conversation prompted that response?

So she's gotten all of us upset on her behalf and trying to come up with a plan of action to improve her living conditions. And she doesn't want it. I'm tempted to just leave her to it. The bottom line is she moved away from us all those years ago. She had the mental breakdown and got addicted to the sterazine which made her a zombie. She moved closer to her sister. She wants to be near her sister more than she wants to be near us. She puts barriers up to prevent us from getting too close. We are not perfect children, but we aren't awful children either. When she put out the call for help, we responded. I think it's very generous of my sister to want to open her home to my mother. However, two of my (grown) nephews and one of their children live with my sister. It's not a perfect situation. My nephew's little girl has problems because her mom (from whom my nephew is divorced) took drugs and drank while she was pregnant with her.

While I'm out there, I will try once more to get my mom to see a lawyer, assess her financial situation, do what I can. And then I will try no more, and they can take her out of that house in a box if that's what she wants. I am weary of all this. I hope my children never feel the frustration, anger, disappointment, betrayal, and rejection that my parents have caused me (because my dad is whole other kettle of fish).