Life's Great Mysteries

If I am the only one to do the grocery shopping and even the children know what I buy, why am I throwing out the sixth empty can of Poppycock?

The Legacy Project

Here is a link some might find interesting with respect to communication between the generations:

The Legacy Project

I heard Ms Bosak on the radio in a discussion of how she cared for her dying parents within her home; she did it ably with the help of her husband and brother. But she also details encountering the end of life spectrum, the supports available, that really aren't there. Unlike, Ms Bosak's parents, the matriarch is old, that's it, so there is minimal assistance available; my mother-in-law needs no help in the washroom or taking a shower or going for a walk--yes, I know she is almost blind, a constant debate in this house, but she refuses to admit it. The reality of it is based on my observations alone and an opthamologist who will not, at my request, tell my mother-in-law she is blind. At least, one good thing to say about the man. I don't know if it is a good thing itself--it drives me crazy but it seems to give her some sort of independence. On a side note, one does not get assistance for company; I cannot get government aid to pay someone to take the matriarch out for lunch.

There is a lot of discussion about the coming tidal wave of geriatric seniors, those born in the baby boom after World War II. David Foote wrote about it years ago; Ted Fishman in "Shock of Grey" discusses how we are living in it currently. I think a really good book would be one which discusses how to deal with seniors who won't admit they are old. Should they admit they are old? Does the idea of being old really seem so bad? Should it be? I have no idea how to deal with the matriarch beyond keeping up this pretense that she could live independently; it's the doctor making her live here not her frailties as an old woman. I have actually heard my mother-in-law talk derogatorily about other old people because they are old. I think the hardest thing is to admit one needs help but help does always mean forfeiting independence. I also am seriously beginning to consider the role of community in the care of the old and the very young. Sometimes, I really wish my husband and children could get a break but my mother-in-law has lost her ties. She seems never to have been a nice person--isn't that awful to write? What I am trying to say is that what goes around, comes around...But then, I look at my husband and think she did do something right. He is a truly wonderful man.

It is all so confusing.

My husband will hate these words but I do wonder about the role of retirement; my father is almost 70 and he can work most young men under the table; my husband, at 60, cannot wait to retire (because he does want to retire, contrary to what I am writing) and return to school. It is not as though they see their senior years as waiting to die. But then I look at my mother-in-law and her constant, never-ending need to be entertained and I wonder is this what life is all about??? Then, of course, there is always the corollary of what is my life if I spend it taking care of, and complaining about, seniors who are waiting to die or trying not to live. In the end, it really does seem so mixed up. We are not defined by our ages but sometimes, we are limited by them and, other times, we are not limited by what we think but how we can physically act. And, there are no definitions that are finite. I guess it is a confusing post.

The matriarch is going out for lunch with my parents today; she is going to have a quarter chicken dinner, white meat, and hot chocolate. But, no dessert. It was my husband's birthday yesterday and my child has made him a cake and my mother-in-law wants some of it.

Words on Christmas Leftovers

All the matriarch wanted for Christmas was food. She specifically asked the children for home baked goods, actually peanut butter cookies; my parents, candy; and my husband and me, chips and Werthers Caramels, the long ones. Do you ever think the food topic will go away? The matriarch is 99 and all she does is eat. All the time. I am amazed. Constantly and Consistently amazed.

This afternoon, the children and I ate leftover appetizers for lunch. There was pate, all kinds of cheeses, olives and crackers. The matriarch originally wanted a soft boiled egg--well, I mean she ate that first. Then, with her squinty eyes, she asked me what we were having and if she could have some. So, she tried the Stilton, the Wiltshire (yes, I know we like smelly cheeses), some strange cheddar bought at the St. Lawrence Market and then settled on the old favourite, orange cheddar and some crackers, and toast, and an olive which she didn't like. And, she spat out none of it. I don't know how she chewed it but she swallowed it all and broke no wind. Consistently, constantly amazed.

When I told my husband of the day, he said I am changing her, making his mother into the kind of mother-in-law I would really like. I asked if he was being sarcastic. But it is better when she is involved and shows a little imagination.

Salt

The matriarch has started putting salt on her chips, her Lays' Classic Potato Chips. I know it is because she cannot taste the salt, I do. And, I find it hard to argue with her when she says she is old enough to know what she is doing and what's it going to do? Kill her?

I don't think so, but still....

My husband thinks it's funny. What are you supposed to do? Her blood tests still come back normal...maybe she is immortal or indestructible...I have read there are lots of centarians around; I wonder if they eat like my mother-in-law?

8 Plates...or Hell is a Chinese Buffet Restaurant

It's not the Keg.

My husband leans down to his mother and responds, We didn't come here for you. It's my child's birthday. It's where they wanted to go.

Well, it's still not the Keg.

Reservations have been made and we arrive on time to discover the parking lot has not been plowed of snow. So, my husband must drop us off at the front door.

Can I stay with you, Daddy? And, Grandma turns to look at her grandchild.

If they're going, I want to go, too.

No, neither of you can come because the parking lot is not plowed and grandma can't see to walk.

I can, too.

Both of you get out of the car. I don't think my husband is intentionally being rude, but he sure sounds that way.

My husband looks at me; he may be annoyed but, at least, he is escaping for five minutes to go park the car in the spot farthest away from the restaurant. A moment of calm in a sea of turmoil for him. Deserter.

We go in and the waitress takes us to our table and we order drinks while waiting for my husband to return.

I like Chinese fried rice. And, ribs, I do love their ribs. And, I want a hot cup of tea.

The waitress nods at my mother-in-law and leaves to bring the tea immediately---the matriarch doesn't touch it until the end of the meal, at which point, she tells me it is too cold to drink and she prefers a hot cup of tea. The Keg always brings a hot cup of tea at the end of the meal.

I want to say but you asked for a hot cup of tea as soon as we got here, but bite my lip and draw blood instead.

So, where's this fried rice?

My husband returns and it is decided he gets the children and I get his mother as we approach the buffet. There is a secret signal that passes between us that I interpret to mean that after everyone else is served, we can do the buffet together and pretend to be on a date. When I eventually return to the table and see his plate and the food, I realize he has no sense of secret communication between married couples and, obviously, understands a different language to me.

I lead my mother-in-law into the buffet and show her the different tables with their varieties of food.

That's not fried rice.

The matriarch is convinced Chinese fried rice has no vegetables in it. The restaurant also has bean sprouts sprinkled throughout the rice and I figure to someone practically blind, they cannot be appealing.

Okay, there is steamed rice. I point it out and put some on a plate.

I don't want that. That's not fried rice.

Plate number 1.

My husband comes over and suggests his mother might fancy some mashed potatoes and roast beef; then, stupidly, fills the plate.

Plate number 2.

My children are eating pizza. At a Chinese food restaurant. The quest for fried rice continues.

How about you try this one with the vegetables in it and we look for your ribs.

They make beautiful ribs, here. I know. I have been here before. I do like their ribs.

The choice is between bar-b-que ribs and sweet'n'sour ribs.

I don't like them.

God, please shoot me and put me out of my misery.

I thought you had them before. You said you had had them before.

I have never been here before. I was at a different place that had better fried rice.

Plate number 3 makes it to the table. Then, before my mother-in-law sits down, she informs me she would like a salad, a lettuce and tomato salad.

Not to be too pointed about it, I indicate to my mother-in-law she can't chew lettuce; that's one of the reasons I don't make salad. She can't chew tomatoes for that matter, either.

I can, too. When I lived on my own, I used to make salad all the time.

This is not an argument I can win because, while my mother-in-law did buy lettuce when she lived on her own, I used to go into her refrigerator and throw the rotting stuff out. She hasn't been able to chew lettuce for years, a lot of years, but, in a weird way, she doesn't know it.

Plate number 4 makes it to the table, too.

I'd also like a slice of bread.

The matriarch eats nothing without a slice of bread and butter; she prefers French, sliced bread and she peels off the crusts because she knows she can't chew them.

Plate number 5 is also at the table.

There is also a side plate for the table setting which the matriarch prefers to use when she chooses to spit out her food. My husband sits besides his mother and I sit in front of her because I got there too late and I am throwing dagger eyes at him. It is only fair that neither my middle child nor the birthday one have to watch their grandmother during a dinner out. Though, I do wonder why it always has to be me to sit facing the matriarch.

It's a bit crowded at the table and the waitress removes both my side plate and my husband's and looks a little bit worriedly at the matriarch and the amount of food before her. Little does she know, nothing stops my mother-in-law, certainly not the inconvenience of not having teeth.

I get up to get my own food and my children are onto their third helpings of pizza and I wonder why we even came to a Chinese food restaurant. We could have ordered a pizza at home, instead.

It is not pleasant when I return to the table. Apparently, everything on my mother-in-law's plate is too tough for her to chew. Not that that has stopped her from trying everything and spitting it out. As far as I am concerned, the whole mess with her salad is inexcusably rude and my husband is just embarrassed. Mind, he is pragmatic and puts the whole mess on his plate with a napkin over it so there are benefits to absence.

Grandma, do you want some dessert?

My oldest child is trying to distract grandma from the realities of her unappreciated meal and cold tea.

Yes, I'd like some dessert. My mother-in-law looks at me and I realize I have lost my appetite, anyhow, and get up again to escort her to the dessert table.

Do they have coconut cream pie? The matriarch is looking over the desserts, squinting to see if she can recognize anything, anything at all.

They have ice cream.

No, I like coconut cream pie. Obviously, they don't have coconut cream pie and the matriarch doesn't like banana cream pie so she settles on a slice of Black Forest Cake.

We settle back at the table with plate number 7 and the matriarch tries the Black Forest Cake and decides she doesn't like it; fortunately, she doesn't spit it out because the side plate and my husband's dishes have been removed from the table and, really, there would have been nowhere for her on which to put the spitum. I just want to go home.

My husband gets up to get his dessert and brings back some sort of custard square and the matriarch eyes it longingly. His dessert is forfeited to her and he gives up eating, too. Plate number 8 is before the matriarch and she gobbles up the custard square before the children even know she has a dessert.

At home, we have planned to have ice cream cake for the birthday child. My parents are expected early evening and we want to have a family celebration. I have no idea what the matriarch is going to do. So, we leave the restaurant and the matriarch sits in the front seat of the van beside my husband; I have pointedly told him I will not drive and the matriarch tells him how much better the Keg would have been had we gone there. My birthday child leans over to me asks why Grandma didn't like the food...

Something Interesting I read

A quote from George Grant:

"If tyranny is to come in North America, it will come cozily and on cat's feet. It will come with the denial of the rights of the unborn and of the aged, the denial of the rights of the mentally retarded, the insane, and the economically less-privileged. In fact, it will come with the denial of rights to all those who cannot defend themselves. It will come in the name of the cost-benefit analysis of human life."

Adventures of the Damned Cat

The story begins with a splinter I had somehow got in my hand.

While my husband was upstairs reading to the children (Elizabeth Goudge's "The Secret of MoonAcre"), I was downstairs in the basement looking for a pin to poke the splinter out. The matriarch is not too crazy about Goudge's work, but she was listening anyhow and it was late. By the time, two of the children and I get home from ballet and eat, because, next to my mother-in-law, my children are also eating me out of house and home, change, watch television ("Unaccompanied Minors"), my husband tell his mother only strawberries are defrosted and available to eat but he has taken the raspberries out of the freezer and done her eye drops, it was after 11. I heard some sounds in the basement: mice, I thought.

My husband came downstairs and said his mother is looking for raspberries and that one of the children needs a pair of track pants to be washed for gymnastics for tomorrow.

"I am trying to get this splinter out, can you see it? And, do you hear that sound? Where is the cat? I think we have mice."

"I hear nothing. Where is the magnifying glass?"

Huge rustling sounds come from upstairs, banging almost. Both my husband and I look up at the basement ceiling.

"What the heck is the cat doing upstairs?" My husband goes upstairs to the kitchen because the kitchen is right above the family room-cum-library in the basement. Now, the basement is sort of a funny structure; it is u-shaped, the stairs in the centre of of the U and the rooms behind it. Our new bathroom is right beside the stairs, across from it the laundry room, then the family room; they all have finished ceilings. Our bedroom is on the other side, along with an open space that has no ceiling, but our room, but for a double entry door, is finished with a ceiling, too. Beside our unfinished door but before the stairs is a shelving unit, squished in to hold fabric boxes, ski boots and helmets, and cases. It is an unattractive unit, a 6 foot black thing that should be in the garage.

"The cat is not upstairs."

Then the meowing starts.

"Oh God, I think the cat is stuck beneath the floor boards."

I am weak in the knees. I don't want the cat to die in the floorboards and there be a smell; I am such a positive thinker. My husband is more pro-active and goes out to the garage to get a ladder. I start calling the cat. Obviously, we are making a lot of noise.

My oldest child comes down to the basement and wants to know what is going on. The meowing comes again.

"Where is the cat?"

My husband returns with the ladder and my middle child comes downstairs and says,
"Grandma wants to know what you are doing and, if you are up anyhow, are her raspberries defrosted?"

"Go back to bed. Your Dad and I will figure this out."

The meowing comes again.

"Is the cat stuck?"

The two children start calling the cat. To me, it sounds like the cat is stuck between the floor joists over the family room and I go to my bedroom wall, the one against the family room wall and try to listen to the meowing of the cat. My husband is up on the ladder by the 6 foot shelf with a flashlight calling the cat. To be honest, my husband has never been a cat person but he is completely dominated by the children and now we have the cat, there is no way he is going to let it expire stuck between the floor boards.

He tells my middle child to get the hammer because if the cat is stuck, he can punch a hole in the wall or ceiling. I don't want the cat to die either, but I am looking at my finished bedroom wall, my finished ceiling, my new bathroom and thinking, this is not going to be good.

"Should I get Grandma her raspberries?"

"I see the cat!" My oldest is over by the laundry room and furnace area, laundry room has a finished ceiling, furnace area doesn't. He's up above the furnace in floor joists, mewling his heart out. There is nothing for him to jump down on and he turns to go back into between the floor boards.

"Grab the cat!" My husband commands as he struggles to collapse the ladder by the shelf and bring it over to the furnace area. We have 8 foot ceilings in the basement and my 2 children and I look at each other with our hands up, calling the cat. Something tells me the activity is pointless; then a voice from the top of the basement stairs, calls:

"Everything okay? I was wondering if you're all still up if my raspberries are defrosted."

One of the children runs upstairs to help their Grandma get her raspberries. They are not yet defrosted but go into a bowl with a ton of sugar anyhow. My husband gets the ladder over to where the cat is peering down at us and pulls the cat, hissing and scratching, out from the ceiling. The animal is one ticked creature and tears my husband's pants as he, the cat is male, struggles to get down to me. Claws in and everything is all right with the world.

"I am going to have block access to the unfinished ceiling."

Mu husband pulls a part the 6 foot shelf and goes out into the garage to get a huge piece of cardboard with which to create a temporary wall to block access to the cat jumping into the area between the floor joists. Even though it is cardboard, he nails it in. More banging and it is now 1 o'clock in the morning.

My youngest gets up.

"What are you doing?" Siblings reveal the saga of the stuck cat. "I think he's done that before."

My husband stops the hammering and looks at his child.

"Mom, Grandma wants to know if you can make her some toast."

"Okay, everyone to bed." I take the cat upstairs to their bedrooms, tuck them back in and tell them Dad and I are going to sleep with the basement door closed and not worry about anything till the morning. My mother-in-law is made her toast and I settle her back in her room with sugared raspberries, slice of toast and cup of tea. Because I figure if you are going to have a snack at 2 o'clock in the morning, one might as well as have tea to go with it.

My husband figures he is going to have to have a completely finish the basement because we can't be letting the cat wander around between the floor joists. I can see him costing out the price of drywall and swearing under his breath as his holidays plans are eaten away by things he does not want to do.

"How is your splinter?"

I look at the palm of my hand and, in the confusion, the splinter seems to have disappeared. He checks it out with the magnifying glass and then looks at me,

"I think I am going to have something to eat."

Despite Evidence to the Contrary...

The matriarch hates living here. That's a given. She has this idea that if she lived on her own, I would take her out more because I would drive over to her house in order to, particularly, take her out. She has this idea that if she lived on her own, people would visit her more. The matriarch thinks if she still had her independence, she could go shopping all the time and do as she wants. Of course, I would still be her driver. It would be so much easier on me.

I think not.

It has been a dreadful month and I suspect I am suffering from depression. But life goes on and the matriarch has told the children she no longer wants them to come to her room to say good-night; they can do it in the kitchen at dinner time. I really don't know if all old people are as selfish as the matriarch, I don't think so, but I do wonder about how one becomes this selfish. My husband, sadly, sees no difference in his mother from when he was a boy. I wonder about this conflict I have inside about hating institutional care and all its ramifications with really getting tired of catering to the matriarch all the time. Then, just when I think I can do it no longer, someone else's casual cruelty outrages me and I get the strength from my fury. The matriarch's sister-in-law phoned to tell her she would come for a visit and take her for lunch so long as it doesn't snow. It's November in Canada but for climate change, we would be covered in the stuff already. Why would the woman even call? The matriarch told me about the phone call upstairs in her room; she said her sister-in-law was coming to take her for lunch. And, I sat there, for a minute debating the issue with myself, then I said "Why would she call in November if she doesn't like driving in the snow?"

It's these almost inocuous plans that make me think maybe the matriarch is in purgatory; she has to learn about selfishness somehow. It's not happening and she just keeps on living in blissful ignorance. Or maybe I am ranting. But the poor woman is upstairs planning on where they will go when the sister-in-law comes; I suspect Swiss Chalet because we're not getting there much currently. It's the disappointment that is hard to handle. Once a week goes by and the woman hasn't phoned and the snow begins to fall, the matriarch will realize lunch out with the in-laws is not going to happen. Then, she will be disappointed and we, the five of us, will not be good enough for her and I will go through this whole awful feeling again. Christmas should distract her: dinner out at my parents,' dinner out for my child's birthday, dinner out for my husband's birthday and parties where she can pretend to be the belle of the ball.

I don't think I ever want to grow old and I will always try not to be selfish. I hope.