Struggling

I am struggling.

I am the oldest child. I am also the oldest daughter. I am a 'responsible ' person meaning that when I take on something, I take on the responsibilities that go with it. That included my marriage, my children.

I am not a good housekeeper, not because I am lazy, but because I hate it. I spent time with my kids, doing what THEY needed over the years, worrying about them, trying hard to be a good parent.

In some ways, I failed. I cannot be two people.
In other ways, the ways that count, I did the best that I could do. I have good adult kids. I am now watching one going through much of the same that we went through since she was just six years old.

I taught my kids that Life is Precious from conception to natural death (NOT starving/dehydrating someone others deem to be not worthy of life). I taught my kids that euthanasia in all of its forms is wrong. I taught my kids that promises MEAN something.

I chose to raise my children alone when no fault forced and unilateral divorce slammed into the family, and tried to teach them the difference between loving a person, while surviving in a more healthy way by learning about an acute, chronic, progressive, patient, cunning, and eventually fatal family disease of alcoholism.

I have been a friend of Lois W's (Bill W's wife) for 24 years. As a Catholic woman whose core values includes the belief that marriage is indissoluble, I have lived my vows regardless of what society has 'taught' us to believe. And I have been mocked and/or 'pitied' by some over the years because of it. I have many fellow Christian and non-Christian friends, however, who share my beliefs and also live that same value.

As my last child entered adulthood, and left home to fly on his own, I found that I rather enjoyed the 'empty nest', because it was the first time in my life that I was NOT 'responsible' for any one but myself. I found that I had 'wings'.

I flew.

I traveled to the Dominican Republic twice a year to visit a friend and to help young girls get dental care for several years. Alone. I found a man with a mission in the DR who had the equipment needed, and he would come to help by doing the dental work while I did the hygiene (sealants, fluorides, prophys if time, and so on).

I loved it. Then I lost my job.

Suddenly, all my vim and vigor was gone. I could NOT do it alone any longer. I just could not do it alone. I called my Mom and asked her if I could move to her home, and she said yes.

When this happened, I felt a little sadness, but also some peace. My mother has been a widow since 1987. She lived alone, too. I truly thought that it was perhaps God's way of making sure she would be ok as time went on. I had noticed that Mom was becoming MUCH more forgetful; I noticed it much more, especially when living with her, when she could no longer hide it from me.

Over the time I was living eith her, there was eventually a 'whispering' amongst siblings about 'taking advantage of Mom', and other things. As always, gossip comes back to the one being gossiped about. I 'felt' and 'heard' the rumblings... the 'buzzing' in the background, and it hurt. Mom had also helped to contribute to some that was being said, but did not always remember exactly the way things were.

She was growing more fragile, but did not like to admit it, so when I did her laundry with mine, eventually, she began to sneak down the stairs to do hers on her own when I was working the night shift. She angrily told me I was making her feel useless when I did it, and that I was taking away things she liked to do when I did dishes. I backed off and allowed her the dishes, but continued to do the laundry telling her that I didn't want her to go down the basement steps. (She is 82 years old!)

When it (the family gossip machine) finally got to be too much, I left. I have not been able to return to the DR for many reasons, including financial, since then. I can live with that, but miss the girls, and also very much miss visiting my friend.

But now, over the time since I have been here in my apartment, Mom has gone downhill. About six months ago or so, sibings had finally noticed the forgetfulness and took her to an MD for a check-up. The MD was told that this memory loss had been going on for the past year and a half. I told the MD it had been going on for at LEAST three years, possibly more. (Mom was very good at hiding it, and still is to a point).

Mom spent considerable time in the hospital this past summer on IV antibiotics, missing my son's wedding because of something that they had found on xrays when checking out her complaint of increasing back pain. During that time, I tried to find a way that we, as her children, could communicate with each other, and I started our own yahoo family group.

One sibling did not join, but managed to undermine the attempt, and that family yahoo group has sat unused for months as a result. A nice journal I bought for all of us to write in at each of our visits so that Mom could read and remember that someone had been there is ... gone.

No one wanted to use it. Some felt it would be more painful for Mom to read that we were there and not be able to remember... but one said it was to be used later to 'prove' who had been there most often, etc...and the journal was removed by ...who knows? 'No one' knows.

But a couple of us realize how far Mom's downhill slide has gotten, and KNOW that she cannot continue to live alone with out help. With ten kids (two of which do not live close by) and over 30 grandchildren, there should be no time that she ever has to be alone, nor anything that she should ever have to ask to have done. (Lawn care, laundry, washing windows, meals)...

But there have been many times that the only one who has been there for her has been her daughter in law, though EACH of the eight who live nearby had committed to taking at least a day. I chose Friday, because my job takes me an hour of one way driving. I have had rare days off, and get over to Mom's on other days when I can... we began to notice that some came when they had said they would without fail... but others did not. And most do not seem to realize how much help Mom really needs. Denial?

Her brother died not so long ago. At his funeral, I saw my Mom looking lost, fragile, old, dependent. Though told how ill he was many times by HER siblings, she did not remember. She was hurt that 'no one cared enough to tell me'. She thought that she had found out by seeing a typewritten paper on her kitchen table with what was going to be in the paper as his obituary, not realizing that her sisters had brought it over and left it for her after they had told her of his death.

She does NOT want an apartment. She does NOT want assisted living. She does NOT want a nursing home. She may be forgetful, but she is still competent to be her own decision maker. For now, at least.

So why am I struggling?

The past couple of months, Mom has been telling me how lonely she is. The past several weeks, she has often told me that I did not have to go 'all that way home'... she forgot that I no longer live 2 1/2 hours away in Merrill, or 35 min away in Oshkosh... AND that I had even lived with her for awhile before getting my own apartment in March, 2004, less than a mile away from her.

For awhile, that was all she said... "you don't have to go all the way home... you can spend the night here". I could remind her that I didn't live all that far away and she would let it go... but then it began to change -- just a little bit.

When I told her that I HAD lived with her for awhile, she asked why I had left.

What do you say?

I told her the truth. She asked me why I had never told her. I told her I had... then I asked her what difference it would have made (she never remembered that I had...) . She said that she "would have told everyone to knock it off".

But then, three weeks ago, she changed it all. THIS she remembers. She is lonely. She hates being alone. She hates eating alone. She hates cooking alone. She hates not having any one come.

I am alone.

"You don't have to live alone. You could move in here. There is plenty of room. It would be MUCH less expensive for you. You could save your money for when you need it." I told her I couldn't. Then I told her I would think about it. Then I told her I 'd pray about it. I kept telling her I couldn't.

And then yesterday, she cried. Not sobbing. Just tears. "I am just so lonely....I wish you would move in here.... I really wish you would move in here...."

Last night when I got home from her house, this beautiful video came in an email.
It IS beautiful. It is my mother's belief. It has always been MY belief.

I am struggling. I do not know what to do. I CANNOT be sole caregiver, because I have been sole caretaker for years.... I never envisioned raising children alone, living alone, caring for parents alone. I did what I had to do, because I am the responsible one, and because I loved my kids. That included working two 32 hour jobs for a couple of years, or going to school full time while working full time. From 1990 until early 2003, I had either school/job, or two jobs... My oldest children's teachers told them that I actually had four (mother, father, student, nurse).

I did what I had to do, because though I AM responsible, I loved my kids...

I love my Mom....

I am struggling...


Please pray for me. Pray for my Mom. Pray for her other children, too.