A Small Conflict

We went to the doctor's today--for the 'flu shot at my mother-in-law's insistence. It was pleasant enough, the nurse was very nice, the waiting room was full but pleasant, we were in and out in no time and the matriarch was miserable.

"You aren't sick," I told her. "There was no actual doctor's appointment."

The matriarch forgets that one of the benefits of living here is me; I am not a nurse nor caregiver in the paid sense, but I am someone who sees her daily and will take her to the clinic if she gets sick. "Sick" being the operative word--fever, only. What else can the doctors or the magicians in the hospital do? Unless there is actually something making the matriarch uncomfortable, there is nothing they will do. Last time the matriarch got physically ill, caused by dehydration and leading the doctor to encourage her to move in here, the matriarch had an anxiety attack which she, not the clinicians or anyone else, linked to anasthesia. At the matriarch's request, she will not have anathesia again; my husband and I debated the issue with her at the time but the result was this nothingness--as in, there is nothing to be done for the matriarch should she become ill again. At the time, she was healthy with almost tri-monthly appointments with the doctor. All this visiting and almost socializing has ended. The matriarch is regulated on the blood thinners, I give her her medication, she goes for her blood tests--what else is there to do? What else can be done? Amazing as my almost 100 year old mother-in-law is, she is at the point where medical science will not extend her life--at her own request. Thus, the doctor need only see her at annual check-ups unless she becomes ill with fever--which being here shouldn't be that often. And, the woman is healthy. But, more to the point, she is 99 and death should not be that unexpected.

Lately, I have read books by Father Henri Nouwen and Viktor Frankl; they discuss the meaning of life and the anxieties caused by the sense of impending death. I found both books moving; but, I was, in a sense, lost in Father Nouwen's idea of the aged having a self-awareness about their own mortality. He makes the point a caregiver must be able to accept their own mortality in order to accept the death of an elder, to be able to live with that impending doom. I can understand that; for private reasons, I have lived with my own sense of mortality for a long time. Maybe that is why I am fixated on the matriarch's death? It is not that I want her to die; I want her to understand that we all die. I can sympathize with that. I have a greater difficulty with her ignorance. My husband points out I cannot make his mother be introspective; she does not care about life when she is not here; she does care about strawberries and sugar. Speaking of which, the matriarch recently complained to my husband that he does not put enough sugar on her strawberries.

"How much do you put on?"

"A quarter cup a night. Did you think I was joking?"

But, in the car, on the way home from the clinic, I could see my mother-in-law's fury. Maybe I am extrapolating too much but I think she was expecting the big fuss over a 99 year old woman...I am sorry to say she is too healthy for that. With everything the way it is in the medical world, there is no time to admire the healthy aged; I am not even sure it should be expected. But the matriarch is no longer the star of attention. I wonder at the meaning of her life sometimes; if the matriarch will eventually clue in that there is a world outside her room in which she can still participate. Father Nouwen talks so much about compassion and sharing a spiritual poverty but he does not say how to sympathize with the individual who wants it all and offers nothing in return. How much responsibility and compassion are the elderly entitled when they choose to make their own situations? Remember, my mother-in-law is not ill, she is unhappy or, maybe, I give her too much credit and she is happy to do nothing in her room. I don't know. I get depressed not knowing what to do.

The one thing I do know is that I am more cerebral and social than my mother-in-law and I believe I have an intimacy with my children that I have worked hard to cultivate. I hope to God that will prevent me from sitting alone in my room with a whole world outside. I feel for my husband; he does not know what to do or if to do anything and he constantly plans these Saturday lunches for his mother. He tried to stop them recently and the matriarch asked him on her most recent drive with him when they were going again. He hates fish and chips. Can this be the meaning of the matriarch's life--Saturday lunches with my husband and strawberries and sugar with me?