And here's the latest news on my mother. I got this email from my sister last night saying my niece is in the hospital with unexplained vomiting, my aunt wants an urgent private meeting with my mother before I get there on Saturday, and my mother is left in charge of the four little girls.
So I call my mother. My niece had been vomiting uncontrollably for a few days and finally had to go to the hospital. They don't know what's wrong with her. My sister thinks it's a cyst on her ovary. Sounds more like food poisoning to me. I had something similar in India. Last week they went to a bbq where there was barbecued pork, which my niece claims she's allergic to so she took her kids to KFC (and we all know how healthy that is). See, my sister runs an alternative health business and employs my niece (as well as my brother and a nephew). So everything with them is about food allergies, etc. (And I'm not telling her I'm taking HRT). Also, my niece spoke to her husband, who supposedly is disabled by a back injury and takes a lot of pain meds. Somehow he managed to take his mother, sister, and nephew to Disney World and helped give the nephew a bath when he won't do that for his own girls. So I wonder if there isn't a hysterical element to this vomiting.
Meanwhile, my nephew has been running around doing odd jobs for my stepfather's daughter and doing the shopping. Which leaves the octogenarians in charge of the little girls. Whoever wrote little girls are made of sugar and spice hadn't met this group. My mother borrowed a playpen and plonked the 13-month-old in it and leaves her there despite her shouting. Meanwhile, the three others are running in and out, digging holes in the yard, climbing trees and falling out of them, torturing the dog. Here's the age range: 13 months, 3 years, 5 years, and 7 years. I had to laugh at the thought of all that chaos and my mother and her husband in their old people chairs that lift them up to standing position. Can you imagine? My mother decides she has to run after the girls, but first let's get out of this chair. The little girls apparently aren't allowed soft drinks at home but have been drinking them nonstop at my mother's (because that's all my mother drinks). So they're probably all hyped up on whatever is in those drinks. My niece has to go back home tomorrow and my nephew has to drive her to Denver, an 8-hour journey, spend the night, then go back the next day. And we arrive on Saturday.
Now onto the urgent meeting. Many years ago my mother sold her share in her parents' house to her sister, for a song, I might add. My uncle insisted on a codicil saying if my aunt ever wanted to sell the property, my mother would get first refusal and would be allowed to live there till her death should she need a place to go. My aunt wants to sell the house to her grandson, but he wants the codicil removed. My aunt wants my mother to sign off on the codicil in exchange for $5,000, and wants her to do it before I get there because she's afraid I'll talk my mother out of it. Neither my mother nor I want her to live in that house. However, I'm not sure what it's worth. My nephew has had my mother give him power of attorney so he has to be present if she signs anything. That power of attorney then transfers to me when I get there. I want my mother to see a lawyer specializing in property law before she signs anything.
And this brings me back to the question of my mother moving. She feels living in my sister's house with all the comings and goings of the various residents (I could write post after post about that) would be too stressful. She'd rather live in some sort of assisted living place. So we have to ascertain if she can afford that. Also, she told me that apparently if she outlives my stepfather, she's due to get some $30,000 in CDs (certificates of deposit). That's IF she outlives him. Also, the CDs might not actually be worth $30,000. Is $30,000 worth living the life she's living?
Showing posts with label my mother. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my mother. Show all posts
Wednesday, 1 August 2007
Tuesday, 31 July 2007
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).
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).
Thursday, 19 July 2007
Leaving Wyoming
I just got back from my son's Year Six Leavers Assembly. You know the sort. They all do skits and sing songs and thank everyone. I cried last year at my daughter's, but this year I was dry-eyed. Until I looked at the notice board and saw pictures of my son in Reception. Oh, he was a gorgeous little chappie. Still is. Back then he had these lovely chipmunk cheeks which he's inherited from me, though hubby's family like to claim his looks. I'll never have him like that again, and I feel somewhat melancholy about it. Still, he has grammar school to look forward to, and I think that will be the making of him. I think he will come out from under his bushel and shine the way I always knew he could. At least I hope he will.
But the farewell to primary school isn't quite so wrenching for me as the farewell to Wyoming will be this summer. That is where my mother lives. That is the state we visited every summer when I was growing up to see the grandparents. My mother moved back there in 1977. I've gone back most years ever since. My mother's parents moved there from Missouri when they were young adults, my grandmother to be a teacher, my grandfather to escape his abusive brother. My grandfather went on to be a cowboy for a few years. Yep, a real, live cowboy, though not nearly as romantic as in the movies. They met when they were in their 30s. He was ready to settle down and have a family. She was thankful to meet a man who wanted to settle down with her. They took a train to a town called Thermopolis, built over natural hot springs, and married there. They then lived on a homestead for a few years till the loneliness and the rattle snakes got to my grandmother. My grandpa, as I called him, then built a house that my mother and her twin sister were born in . The house is still in the family, occupied by one of my cousins and his wife and son.
I wrote earlier about my mother needing to move out of my stepfather's house. She is 82 and growing more infirm. He is 85, deaf, incontinent, prone to accidents of all sorts. I finally heard back from my sister, who is ready to have my mother move in with her. I broached the subject with my mother. She is ready to move in with my sister. We just need to tell my stepfather and his daughters and consult a lawyer, I think. Not necessarily for a divorce, but just to tie up any loose ends. Then my nephews will come with a U-Haul truck and take her back to Florida.
So this will probably be the last time I visit Wyoming for a very long time. I will savour the view of the mountains when we take our annual hike to clear our jet-lagged heads. I will dip my toes in the icy cold water of the mountain spring we visit. I will remember my brother, my cousins and I, as reckless teen-agers, drinking beer all the way down the mountain, and me having to stop at each and every rest stop. I will drive past Grandma and Grandpa's house and remember their vegetable patch, Grandma's flowers, the soft grass that I loved to walk barefoot in. It looks different now because my aunt built a house on part of the land. I will shut that out and remember playing croquet on that soft grass, the smell of Grandpa's garage where he kept all his old license plates, the green shed my brother and cousin called the sleephouse because that's where they slept when we visited. Where are those license plates now? Probably claimed by some relation. I think the sleephouse was taken down some years ago.
I will walk down the streets of my mother's town, as I do every year with my husband, peering at the vegetables and flowers that people somehow coax to life from a sometimes less-than-willing environment. We will point out to our children the house one occupant painted red, white, and blue the summer after 9/11. We will visit the hot springs of Thermopolis where my children will go down the various water slides and jump off the high diving board, as I did as a child. Perhaps we will coax them into the teepees for some photographs. I will try to get to Montana, which I try to do every year yet fail for one reason or another. Maybe one last visit to Yellowstone (though I hope not as I have yet to stay in the Old Faithful Inn, one of my goals in life). So much to fit in, so little time.
Leaving primary school is bittersweet. Leaving Wyoming will be much, much sadder.
But the farewell to primary school isn't quite so wrenching for me as the farewell to Wyoming will be this summer. That is where my mother lives. That is the state we visited every summer when I was growing up to see the grandparents. My mother moved back there in 1977. I've gone back most years ever since. My mother's parents moved there from Missouri when they were young adults, my grandmother to be a teacher, my grandfather to escape his abusive brother. My grandfather went on to be a cowboy for a few years. Yep, a real, live cowboy, though not nearly as romantic as in the movies. They met when they were in their 30s. He was ready to settle down and have a family. She was thankful to meet a man who wanted to settle down with her. They took a train to a town called Thermopolis, built over natural hot springs, and married there. They then lived on a homestead for a few years till the loneliness and the rattle snakes got to my grandmother. My grandpa, as I called him, then built a house that my mother and her twin sister were born in . The house is still in the family, occupied by one of my cousins and his wife and son.
I wrote earlier about my mother needing to move out of my stepfather's house. She is 82 and growing more infirm. He is 85, deaf, incontinent, prone to accidents of all sorts. I finally heard back from my sister, who is ready to have my mother move in with her. I broached the subject with my mother. She is ready to move in with my sister. We just need to tell my stepfather and his daughters and consult a lawyer, I think. Not necessarily for a divorce, but just to tie up any loose ends. Then my nephews will come with a U-Haul truck and take her back to Florida.
So this will probably be the last time I visit Wyoming for a very long time. I will savour the view of the mountains when we take our annual hike to clear our jet-lagged heads. I will dip my toes in the icy cold water of the mountain spring we visit. I will remember my brother, my cousins and I, as reckless teen-agers, drinking beer all the way down the mountain, and me having to stop at each and every rest stop. I will drive past Grandma and Grandpa's house and remember their vegetable patch, Grandma's flowers, the soft grass that I loved to walk barefoot in. It looks different now because my aunt built a house on part of the land. I will shut that out and remember playing croquet on that soft grass, the smell of Grandpa's garage where he kept all his old license plates, the green shed my brother and cousin called the sleephouse because that's where they slept when we visited. Where are those license plates now? Probably claimed by some relation. I think the sleephouse was taken down some years ago.
I will walk down the streets of my mother's town, as I do every year with my husband, peering at the vegetables and flowers that people somehow coax to life from a sometimes less-than-willing environment. We will point out to our children the house one occupant painted red, white, and blue the summer after 9/11. We will visit the hot springs of Thermopolis where my children will go down the various water slides and jump off the high diving board, as I did as a child. Perhaps we will coax them into the teepees for some photographs. I will try to get to Montana, which I try to do every year yet fail for one reason or another. Maybe one last visit to Yellowstone (though I hope not as I have yet to stay in the Old Faithful Inn, one of my goals in life). So much to fit in, so little time.
Leaving primary school is bittersweet. Leaving Wyoming will be much, much sadder.
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