Alone

The matriarch knows her nieces call me to see how she is doing and wonders why they don't call her. I am not a blood relative; I am a family newcomer, relatively speaking; I hardly know them. I think her feelings have been hurt by their silence. And, there is not a thing I can do--I have asked them to call her, I have said she would love to chat. They don't phone. To be fair to my mother-in-law, she doesn't call them either but still...It becomes worse when they do call me and my husband tells his mother and she waits for a call. I have told him not to tell the matriarch her nieces have called but they do so infrequently that I think he forgets or he thinks he is making her day.

It must be terribly hard on the matriarch to be so old and fragile and know what she is missing, to feel the absences. I feel so sorry for her today. Last night, she was unable to eat her dinner; she asked me to make her a salad. My husband long ago suggested I no longer make fresh salads because his mother cannot chew them; so, we have been eating them in secret. My family and I love fresh food but we do not eat it around the matriarch. My mother-in-law asked for a lettuce salad with cucumbers, onions, and grated carrot. The woman has no teeth. I diced it all really, really small and thought she could manage it. I think the matriarch did, too. But she couldn't. And, she got angry and my husband and I got sad. It was terrible to watch her struggle and, then, finally, give up and say she could not eat. I gave her some mashed potatoes with jus from the meat to act as a gravy but she was not happy. The matriarch said she imagined she could not longer eat salads anymore.

Then, she began to pick on the house's lack of air conditioning and my parents' choice not to have central air in their house and how her room was hot. All I could think was I would have to make her soupy meals from now on, for real, and no longer ask the matriarch what she would like. She doesn't like the stairs and wishes her nieces would phone and the sun is too bright in her room in the morning. The woman can no longer make choices about her meals because she is going to have to survive on stews, soups and cereals with an egg, now and again. The matriarch hates eggs. She doesn't want the children to get a dog or a boat and wonders why we don't go on a holiday; she has pointedly told my husband that "we" never go away. I don't even take the children camping anymore.

She is so angry and reminisces about how great her life was in her old house and how she wishes she could go back to her old life. I know she is furious at being so old and still alive. I imagine all kinds of things but have told her we are going to pick raspberries today and will bring her fresh ones for her lunch. The matriarch has gone back to bed mumbling about the sunny weather and I think maybe I should begin to purchase "Ensure" or some other liquid nutrient to make sure she gets enough iron. The matriarch stopped eating meat last month; her June birthday meal caused her some discomfort and the fish this week didn't go down properly. I wish she didn't know these things were happening.