A Bit of a Disagreement

The matriarch has told me she doesn't want to go back to the spa.  She feels she can take care of her own nails.  I asked her if the back massage was too much--it was, but they are cutting her nails too short.  At the risk of her anger, I told her they trimmed her nails shorter at my request.  In what was an awful and embarrassing discussion, I had to tell the matriarch that she didn't keep her nails clean enough; food, especially the residue of the constant chips and cheesies, stuck in her nails.  Keeping them shorter would prevent all that.  She got angry.  So, now she doesn't want to go to the spa.  I have had to tell her she will have to use the nail brush, every day.  The anger got worse.  These are awful discussions.  I don't think old people intentionally stop keeping themselves clean; they just don't like being told that their inability to see often prevents an adequate job being done.  The matriarch told me she could wash her nails in the shower--I responded she had a shower once a week and her hands needed to be kept clean daily.  She raised her voice at me and I just felt awful.  I wish my husband had had this discussion with her instead of me.  It must be truly awful to know one cannot see one's own body, to have to live with the memory of a self that is no longer there.