Randy and I were lucky to have parents married to each other for their entire adult lives. Three of the four of them are now gone. Only my mom, who will be 90 in June, remains. We both have good memories of our childhood.
We were well taken care of by parents who loved us and each other, who didn’t have personal mental health or substance abuse problems, who supported us adequately if not lavishly, and who gifted us with a total of 11 siblings between us with whom we still have good relationships and with whom we enjoy being family. As I mentioned in my last short post, linked here, I miss my dad a lot. Still, even as an adult pushing 70 years old, there are things I want to share, celebrate, commiserate with, and mull over with my parents. I am so grateful I am still able to do that with my mother any time I want. She’s a wise woman whose insight and commentary I value to this day. I’ve mentioned that often in posts I write.
We were lucky to have all of our parents well into our adult years. Randy’s dad was the first to go in 1996. When his health began to fail Randy’s mom was unequipped to handle the changing circumstances and myriad decisions that needed to be made. We were in our mid-40s at the time. Randy had just retired from the Air Force and we’d moved back to Wisconsin. It was a timely move and, in retrospect, we feel blessed that we had the opportunity to spend the last three years of his Dad’s life so close to him. Before he died he asked me to make sure that we took care of Randy’s mom. It’s a promise we kept until she passed away in 2017.
Randy and I moved to Missouri in October 1998 and Randy’s mom moved down there as well in early 1999. She didn’t live with us, but bought a manufactured home and parked it in a beautiful, peaceful, forested mobile home park near us. My mother-in-law was one of the sweetest women I’ve ever known, but she wasn’t very world-wise. For the more than 20 years she was alive after her husband died, Randy and I functioned in a sort of child/parent role reversal in her life. She was happy to allow us to do that.
My dad had all his mental faculties until he broke his hip 3 months before he eventually died. Thankfully, mom was able to make decisions about all of their affairs as they needed to be made. My mom, though gifted with incredible wisdom, has no interest in administrative type things. She makes her own decisions but relies on my brother and me to help with the mechanics of carrying out her wishes. We’re happy to do that for her. This arrangement will make it easier to wrap up her estate when it’s her time to depart this earthly plane.
An interesting thing has been happening with my mom the last few months and I’m not quite sure what to do with and/or about it.
Mom’s always been a very social creature. She knows, or everyone knows her, in the town where she lives. Everyone loves her sunny and upbeat personality. After she retired from her nearly 40 years waitressing in one of the nicer supper club type restaurants, she got a job bussing tables at Culver’s just because she missed the contact with people. Last year was the first year she didn’t golf in a league, she made commitments to several card clubs, had dates with several groups of friends with which she did different activities, and is diligent about keeping up with her children, grand-children, and great grand-children. One of the most prolific ways she shows how much she loves people is by feeding them. I’m not positive it’s because she loves to cook, but I am positive that food is mom’s love language. She actually enjoys keeping house and the activities of cleaning, organizing, decorating, making a home. There’s no clutter or old people stuff at mom’s house. She keeps it bright, cheery, up-to-date and uncluttered.
Mom watches TV but doesn’t have any other hobbies she enjoys at home. She lives on the shores of Lake Michigan where the winters are brutal and now that she’s older, she’s often housebound for weeks at a time. Aging is wearing on her, both physically and mentally.
Mom’s never been one to complain about much, but lately she’s unsettled, bored and dissatisfied with life. She often brings up the subject of a time in the future when she fears she will not be able to stay in her apartment by herself. I think she’s mostly lonely and suffering from that lack of human contact that has fed her spirit for so many years.
In our last phone conversation, she again expressed her fear of a time coming when she’ll no longer be able to live alone. Many of her friends and social contacts are gone now. The weather keeps her indoors more than it used to, even in the summer. Knowing her as well as I do, I hear such conflict, and even anguish, expressed in her thoughts. She knows she needs a change to make her daily life tolerable and more interesting, but what that change might look like is baffling and scary.
I ask her if she thinks it’s time to consider moving into a senior living facility where she’d have her own space, but also have the common areas for socializing, meals with others, activities planned for residents both on and off site, interaction with people whenever she wants it in the place she’s living. She’d never be truly alone, but I believe that would give her a level of comfort she now lacks. She says she doesn’t know what to do and doesn’t want to think about it.
The cause of death on my dad’s death certificate said “Failure to Thrive.” It shocked me. I didn’t know that kind of thing exists, but I see a bit of that happening with mom. To the best of my ability, I don’t want that to happen to mom too.
I need to figure out a way to help my mom discover for herself the path she’ll enjoy walking (figuratively), and how to live the rest of her life in a comfortable and purposeful environment. It’s a balancing act, just as I’m sure my parents felt when they were trying to help me discover my own path without forcing their will on me. It’s hard to watch mom in her current unhappiness, but I know I can’t tell her what to do any more than she was able to tell me what to do.
Interesting child/parent role reversal, no?
P.S. We’re doing well with IF, and I feel a lot better. No weight loss of any consequence yet. My body is adjusting. I am patient and will just keep doing what I know is working.
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