September reflections

September’s weather never disappoints here, as temperatures level out in the low seventies. The sky is clear, and often a welcome breeze keeps the sun’s strong rays from stinging my skin. If I allowed myself, I’d be in the yard like I am on most days from Spring through Summer. I’d settle in one of the chairs out back in the shade and read one of the books I recently purchased instead of delving into my shelves of books waiting to be read. But I know better.

I’d sit with the open book forgotten on my lap and find myself admiring Monarchs fluttering between the brilliant orange Tithonia blossoms, or gazing into the distance where clouds often gather over the hills to the north of us. Squirrels unaware of my presence would be another distraction as are the many birds that swoop in and away from the feeders suspended from the Dogwood tree next to the house. I’m often unfocused these days, my attention span not what it used to be.

I was digging up Dandelions earlier today after returning from a visit to my mother’s that went south almost immediately. I arrived after her big midday meal to take her shopping. She likes to push the basket and look at everything exclaiming that it’s been years since she shopped. But she was in a foul mood, complaining that her life sucks and that she hates living where she is. I try to tell her that she’s done many things in her life that were fun and adventurous but she shut me down. I let her go on while looking for her hairbrush so I could run it through the back of her hair. A comb had to suffice because the brush was nowhere to be found. “People steal my things. They come in and take them all the time.” She was getting geared up and made the same complaint about being able to take care of herself that we often hear. That we should’ve left her where she used to live. “I can wipe my own ass!” she sneers, now clearly very angry. “Who said I can’t take care of myself?” I remind her that two doctors have made that determination, and mention that myself, my brother and sister also believe this is true. We have observed it to be true.

I squash the remnants of the pleasant feeling I’ve had about visiting her since the last time, earlier this week. I tell her we don’t have to shop, that I can sit and have this discussion with her again, but the F-bombs begin. I tell her I’m leaving and she follows me to the front door of the facility. While I wait to be let out surrounded by a couple of staff, and residents who usually try to leave with me, I hear her yelling, “You’re a fucking asshole!”

It makes me remember an old friend who used to teach at a juvenile detention facility. She said she was called that so often, she thought it might have been printed on the name tag pinned on her shirt. I remember laughing with her over this. Today, I wasn’t laughing as I drove away minus my mother. It doesn’t matter, because she won’t remember the incident. She won’t remember I was there.

When I think of all that has happened this year, it has often felt like much too much: the unexpected flight to Florida with my sister to collect my mother after being told she could no longer take care of herself; the tumultuous five months that she lived with us; her husband’s unexpected death; the legal work to become her guardian and conservator; the search for an appropriate placement for her in assisted living. Her ongoing adjustment to those new circumstances have only barely begun to feel less acute, until they don’t as exhibited by my experience today.

My husband’s parents, each with their own difficulties, have also been in focus. A little more than a year ago, we learned as we did with my mother, that they could no longer live independently. Unfortunately, the amount of care his father needed had associated costs we were terrified we wouldn’t be able to supplement beyond what their fixed income provided. They had no savings, no home to sell. My husband grappled with the VA for a year before financial relief was granted and even that wasn’t quite enough.

Then there was his father’s cancer treatment. It involved organizing a sequence of phone calls each day to remind his mother, who has a significant short term memory deficit, to get his father ready for his appointments, five days a week for seven weeks. It involved finding out who was available to drive him there and back and sometimes, the teenagers in the family were designated. Getting a 95-year-old man with no lower body strength from a wheelchair into a car and out again is not an easy feat for anyone, let alone a young grandson.

Sadly, my father-in-law passed away the first of this month. Now, the focus is on my mother-in-law and her grief, her questionable ability to live a life minus the man she was married to for sixty-five years. It’s humbling to observe from afar, listening to my husband when he speaks to her by phone. I hope she surprises us and musters what is left of the woman I grew to love and felt was a good friend for many years.

Earlier this year, when my own mother was living with us, I avoided wondering how long it would take for her placement in an assisted living facility to be settled. Waiting lists were long and living day to day was a difficult reality. I assumed that if she had still been with us at this point, we’d be in need of an escape. It wasn’t an active thought, but collected air miles tend to persuade — especially when there is an expiration date involved and an email lands in my inbox announcing a sale.

I booked a flight to England with little thought. My sister instantly volunteered to come because someone would’ve had to stay with our mother. And if she hadn’t have volunteered, my husband told me he’d have sent me off somewhere by myself to collect my wits and that he would take care of my mother. It was a selfless gesture that I am glad we never saw to fruition. Who knows how that experience might have gone between them?

Now, the trip we’ll take at the end of this month will have an added focus — one that will allow my husband and I time to reflect on our own lives and of what lies ahead for us. We’ll no doubt think of my father-in-law and how excited he was to be able to travel to England with us years ago. How, if he had been able, would have traveled there again.

My mother will soon be 87, and my husband’s mother, 90. Both are in cognitive decline. Neither has another significant health concern. There is no escape from their current reality. There is no solution for either of them to avoid what lies ahead. The weight of their aging has had a profound effect on us.

I’m looking forward to time spent reflecting, time spent living with as much gratitude as I can muster on any given day, time spent planning for whatever lies ahead. As Robert Frost has written, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.”

I hope the miles are like those we’ve hiked in England. Gentle and memorable.