She's Usually With Me

It's a given my husband and I have no privacy, our family has no holidays away, everything we do, we must do here and with the matriarch.

She comes with me when I volunteer to help with soccer: delivering pictures, doing errands for the club, taking my children to practice. The matriarch can no longer see the games but will often sit in the car to wait for the children. She enjoys the drive.

She will listen to the children practice piano or guitar--sometimes, she will even sit in the family room and actually be in the room.

She prefers to be with me when I shop but cannot walk for the duration of the trip and I hate to leave her sitting in the car while I do the weekly groceries. So, usually, I do two trips. The first is to take the matriarch to get her potato chips and never ending want of bananas, the second is to do my shopping.

She usually accompanies me on short trips to the library, the video store and the book store. We love Chapters and the matriarch is as familiar to the staff there as we are--which is saying something.

She has been known to help with the costumes for dance recitals and she has listened to my husband and me bicker about politics. I don't think she likes Stephen Harper.

She cannot always eat my children's cooking, especially when they make steak, but she gets that dessert down her, sometimes with the help of additional sugar.

She has been to dance recitals, gymnastic performances, piano recitals, soccer games and 1 basketball game; she could not handle the cold when the children were skiing and only tried once and she couldn't see them on the lake when they took sailing lessons. But she did make an effort.

Sometimes, I gripe (okay, I complain a lot); but, there are times when the matriarch does make an effort. And, it amazes me at 99, she sometimes still does make the effort. But, sometimes, it drives me crazy to no end to always have her here, always around, always present. There is never a break and it can be like having a toddler again, that person always clinging, always there, always needy and me never exactly sure what the matriarch wants. But, at moments like this right now, when the house is quiet and everyone asleep, I think I wouldn't have it any other way.