families

Reya, over at According to the Cosmology of Reya, has been posting about family and group souls and and the drama of our family plays, our gatherings for holidays and life cycle events. My mother passed away some years ago and with her passing went the drama that always surrounded her, that she carried around with her like a prize.

I've been thinking about my mother a lot lately, something I don't ordinarily do. I didn't like my mother much and towards the end, I'm not sure I even loved her. Even now, there's mostly emptiness when I think about her. I cried when she died though, something that I don't think my brother ever did. My sister had already shed her tears when she took it upon herself as the oldest to 'handle' Mother's dying, making all the decisions and arrangements (with our input) as the spokesperson for us kids.

The three of us were there. We had gathered because her death was imminent. She had been living at an adult family home near my brother and the damage from her TIAs had finally shut down her ability to swallow. She had already lost her ability to speak. My brother had to cut short an overseas business trip and my sister and I had to fly in. She knew we were coming and waited for us.

We stayed by her bedside until evening intending to go back the next day and spend more time with her but she died in the early morning before we could return. We went over to the home where she had been in hospice care, my two siblings dry eyed while I cried at the kitchen table, her body still in the bedroom waiting for the funeral home to come fetch her.

My mother's end was messy. She was a selfish, self centered and demanding woman who needed to be the center of attention. While my father was alive he cared for her and pandered to her and when he stroked out one night she reacted as if she had been released from prison. I don't think I ever saw her cry over his passing. Us kids had scattered. Well, my brother early on and finally settled in Washington state and my sister and her grown kids eventually all ended up in Arizona. That left me and even I was an hour away as our parents had moved to the family beach house, isolated on the end of Galveston Island.

We had no idea how damaged she was even then from the TIAs. She seemed lucid and in control and she stubbornly refused to move into town where it would be easy for me to look after her. We didn't find out until several years later that she was already suffering from dementia and depression.

As her health started failing and her dementia progressed, still it did not occur to me or to my sister just how bad things were. We did what we could, my sister long distance and me by driving down once or twice a week. She just seemed like the same person she had always been if a bit more distilled, never vague or forgetful. When she started falling I finally gave her an ultimatum and I wasn't nice about it. She could move to town near me or she could move to Washington state to live with my brother. His contribution to her care was telling her she could come live with him but he really had no idea how bad things were even though I would send him updates. I think he thought I was just being over dramatic. She only stayed in his house for 6 weeks because by then she really needed 24 hour care, could not be left alone.

I should have done a lot of things differently. I should have been more caring instead of just dutiful. I should have been more insistent that she move to town instead of insisting, if she was determined to live alone, she have a paid helper to check on her every day. I should have been more forceful when she fired the helper instead of letting her continue to live alone even when I found out she was living on cookies and frosted flakes cereal. Instead, my sister arranged for meals on wheels. I should have started accompanying her into her doctor's appointments sooner instead of just at the end before she moved to be with my brother. I would have learned much earlier that she was suffering from dementia and depression and refusing any and all medical care and advice. I should have remembered first and foremost what an actress my mother was and that I was her main audience.

Maybe I'm thinking about my mother more now because I have turned the age she was when she proclaimed herself old and then proceeded to become old. Maybe I'm thinking about her more now because my BIL is one step away from being a complete invalid with only my sister to care for him while she works two part time jobs and tries to keep home and hearth together while waiting for his appointment with the doctor Dec. 13. We fear it's already too late for the surgery and wonder what's next with no insurance and two years too shy for Medicare. Maybe I'm thinking about her more now because I am afraid that I have created my own future via my own uncaring inaction towards her. If my being in this family dynamic was a karmic test, then I fear I failed the section on compassion miserably. Maybe it would have been different if my own life hadn't been falling apart at the same time.

I suppose that getting her up to Washington state and in the care of my brother was the best thing I could do for her. What she would have fought with me tooth and nail over, she readily acquiesced to him. And her last years were spent with excellent caregivers in a warm and compassionate family home with three other residents because Washington state cares about their elders, unlike Texas. Had she remained here, she would have ended up in a stinking frightful nursing home because the nicer facilities here do not accept medicare.

I didn't know that at the time though. All I knew then was that I was getting rid of her and glad of it.