Death, Chili Sauce and Rotting Fruit

Recently, a person gave the opinion to me that very old people should not be using the health care system to stay alive; for example, they should not be on blood thinners or other medication to make their lives last longer. Obviously, they aren't; the medical system keeps you in good health, it's aim is not immortality. But, seniors are, rightly, entitled to have a quality of life for the duration; blood thinners prevent stroke in my mother-in-law's case. That means, she could survive a stroke if she wasn't on them; it's a quality of life of issue not quantity. I know I judge the matriarch all the time. There is this constant battle in my head: is she bugging me on purpose or is she just being old? But, as much as I let loose on this blog, the reality is I wouldn't change her right to choose her way to live for all the tea in China; I wish it didn't cause me so much hassle, but it is her life to live the way she wants. Under no case, do I believe or would I ever believe in someone's or some institution's right to determine when another individual has lived long enough. It's a slippery slope that could extend to the handicapped, the chronically in pain, the chronically ill, the mentally ill and the mentally challenged. It doesn't take much in a world governed by financial concerns rather than moral ones.

Anyhow, enough of that.

My mother has offered to have the matriarch over to make Chili Sauce. Seeing as my husband has to return to full hours at work, and his company has been extremely generous with reduced hours for a long time, it makes life a whole lot easier. And, there is the bonus blessing of not having the stuff here; my poor mother does not know what she is in for with the matriarch. My mother offered today to have the matriarch over to make Chili sauce--to make it at some point, soon. The matriarch got me to pull down all her pots necessary to make the sauce and they are in her room; I have got one case of jars ready, including washed, for the matriarch to bring to my mother's. The bowls are ready although I don't know why the matriarch wants to bring them--my mother lives in a house, has her own stuff, has raised a family, too. But I digress. The matriarch wanted to go tomorrow; I explained my mother had plans plus she had to buy the ingredients. The matriarch wanted to go with her to help buy what is necessary....

And, then the tragedy of the day happened.

I looked at the matriarch's bowl of fruit in her room; it is always full of peaches and plums. But when I looked at it, today, I realized underneath the ripening fruit was mold. The matriarch likes to keep her room warm; with the blood thinners, she tends to feel the cold and is no longer opening her windows. And, so, the fruit is going bad. Unfortunately, that wasn't the problem. When I told the matriarch and went to take the bowl away, the fruit had to go and the bowl to be washed, she went to stop me. The poor woman thought the fruit was still ripening and told me she wanted to keep it. I told her it was bad and had to go, but, again, she stopped me and told me she was letting it go to get softer. She can't chew it when it is so hard. I began to cry because I suspect she has been eating rotten fruit--with all the bloody sugar to cover the odd taste. I told her you can't eat this fruit, it is rotting and took the bowl away. Yes, I had to pull it out of her hands. But, then the matriarch said to me, "I can't see when the fruit is bad."

I don't know if this is what happens when blindness suddenly hits; I don't know if the matriarch can't see. She refused to eat most of her dinner because she wasn't feeling well and I think she is so upset. We knew the blindness was coming; it was one of the reasons the doctor encouraged the matriarch to give up her house. But she has refused to say she can no longer see and I don't know if I am supposed to pretend everything is okay, following her direction, or make a big deal and take her to the doctor's. The opthamologist had already warned me this could happen--last year. Why is it people anticipate the likelihood of the matriarch dying before the eventuality of blindness? She obviously isn't dead and, now, cannot see when the fruit is rotting beneath her hands. I feel so sorry for her. I feel so terribly sorry for her.