Category Archives: family

deadly beauty

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The ice storm hit us Thursday night, knocking out electrical power for a while. I didn’t realize how bad the storm had been further north until I set out for Massachusetts this morning with the car radio reporting on the tens of thousands of New Yorkers still without power.
I drove across the swaths that the ice storms devastated, paralyzing the trees along the way with thick crystalline bonds. I wished that I hadn’t packed my camera (somewhere in the back of my car that was loaded to the roof with boxes and bags of my life’s accumulations, including my desktop, printer, and monitor and more cables than I could possibly have use for).
The landscapes I passed looked like stage sets for the Snow Queen or a scene from some alien planet. When I finally stopped at a rest stop, it was closed (no power). The other rest-stoppers were as unwilling as I to use the outdoor port-a-potties in the 15 degree weather. But many of them went back to their cars for their cameras to capture the bushes outside McDonald’s, their thickly iced branches arched over like so many alien tentacles. The sun was out and the ice looked lit from within. I had no idea under which layer my camera was buried, so I passed up the chance for some amazing photos.
The news on the radio reported that some people will be without power until Monday. Several towns had curfews to keep people from driving over icy roads at night
It’s a little chilly here at my daughter’s, even though the heat is on. We have to figure out how to get more heat into my part of the house. I love it cold when I’m sleeping, but at the moment, I’ve got cold feet blogging.
I am worried about my (92 year old) mom — not because of the cold (and my brother has a generator in case of power failure). I’m worried because the dementia is getting a lot worse, and she cries and wails almost all of the time. My brother doesn’t want to sedate her, which seems to be the only thing to do at this point, as far as I and the doctor are concerned. I can’t tell how much pain she’s in, but when she moans, “oh..oh…oh….oh..” and seems to be in great distress, I can’t help wanting to give her something more than Tylenol to relieve whatever it is, to ease her brain as well as her body.
But my brother won’t let me, believing that there is no drug that will make her feel better but not knock her out. There might well not be. But I’d rather knock her out, take the pain and anxiety and fear from her face, give her some peaceful sleep, a respite from the demons of decay.
I can’t stand to have to stand by and watch her suffer. And that’s one of the reasons that I’m here and not there.
Our doctor ordered a nurse to come in once a week and see how’s she’s doing. My brother is objecting, for reasons that are only relevant to him and his demons.
Well, it ain’t over til it’s over, and I might have to get her out of there. But if I do, I will have to put her in a nursing home, and I don’t think that she would survive very long there.
A former colleague — one known for his series of extra-marital affairs — once told me that he could live with guilt.
I don’t live with guilt that easily.

cold comfort

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It’s the first snowfall here in Massachusetts. If I were at the address that I am leaving, I never would have gotten out to enjoy the day. My daughter’s nuclear family went outside to play in the snow (and clear off my car). I just hung out, took some photos, and generally was delighted to be, finally, in the midst of laughter and play.
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I will be driving back to my mom’s/brother’s tomorrow. It’s supposed to be a nicer day — for a drive, that is.
At least I didn’t fall down and break my hip, like fellow elderblogger Darlene of Darlene’s Hodgepodge. It might be cold here, but at least I’m comfortable, unlike Darlene who lives in warmer Arizona but is still in rehab. Mend soon, Darlene.
I feel as though I’m on vacation in my new space. I’m not totally moved in yet, and there will be a lot of organizing once I get everything here. But, for now, it’s slow, relaxed days and evenings — which is good in some ways and not so good in others.
It leaves me time to think. About my life and what kind of person I’ve been.
The truth is, in the past, I was neither a good daughter nor a caring sister. I was not a particularly good spouse or mother, either. I had my own ambitions and my own dreams, and I always managed to fit them in, even at the expense of others. I guess that watching my daughter with my grandson reminds me of all the things I never did for my kids as they were growing up.
Maybe these feelings are prompted, now, by my guilt over leaving my mother in my brother’s care, of forcing my brother into the position of having to figure out how to give/get her the care she needs or face legal consequences. If assume her guardianship, I will have to put her in a nursing home, and that will break all of our hearts.
Cold comfort.
Until I hear my grandson giggle or wake up from a restful night’s sleep. I can live with the cold.

I’ve given out, given up, given in

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In a way, it’s a relief. I don’t have to go through all the complex strategizing to get him to compromise — only, each time, to come up against a stone wall. Actually, it’s more like being dumped into a vat full of jello. Either way, I get nowhere.
I’m out of energy and stamina. I give up. He can take care of our mother any way he wants.
He has arranged with a female musician friend of his to come and stay with our mother. Every once in a while. No set schedule. I’ve met her. She’s nice enough, and, as far as I can tell, my mother likes her.
I wanted him to hire someone from an agency who is trained to deal with dementia patients. That is, who knows what kind of patience is necessary to deal with someone who pretty much lives in her own personal reality, which sometimes overlaps with a more objective reality — but even then, with her own emotional twist. But he wouldn’t agree to that.
So, I give up, and I’m intellectually and emotionally distancing myself from the situation. I will come in once a month to visit my mom. I hope that we both can take the emotional stress. It’s almost better if she completely forgets who I am.
I’m hoping to be completely out of here and out of primary caregiving by the end of the year. It seems like forever.

what I am thankful for

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This thanksgiving, I am thankful for
a daughter and son-in-law and grandson who welcome me to live with them
that same daughter, who is cooking Thanksgiving dinner for about a dozen people on her birthday.
a son who can fix my mini-notebook that I crashed because SUSE sucks
the drugs that keep me functioning
my women friends who keep me functioning
the Internet that keeps my brain functioning
the fact that I can still function

it was only a matter of time

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My mom fell down. I wasn’t here. I was at my daughter’s, when my mother tripped and fell. My brother was with her; he said she lost her balance (which she does occasionally) and fell in his kitchen. She has a big bruise on her bad shoulder. And, she says, everything hurts.
When I got back here the day after she fell, against my brother’s wishes, I called an ambulance take her to the hospital. She couldn’t walk unless we held her up, and she was in a great deal of pain. My brother wanted to take her to a walk-in medical office that has an X-ray machine; we’ve taken her there before. But I didn’t want to take the chance. Suppose she had broken something.
The hospital X-rays showed no broken bones. A CAT scan of her head showed no pathology. It did show “volume loss,” however. (Like that’s a surprise??!!) The attending doctor wanted to keep her at least overnight because she was in danger of falling again. He wanted to hydrate her and give her a sedative (since she was agitated) and some tests, including blood. If she had stayed overnight, she would be been eligible for Medicare in-home help. My brother insisted on taking her home. So, we did.
She slept soundly that night and way into the day. Then she ate and went back to sleep.
And it has all gone downhill since then. She woke up at 3 a.m. this morning, incoherent except for crying that she wanted to go home and that everything hurt. I gave her an arthritis strength Tylenol, which seems to work well on her pain, and eventually, she went back to sleep. She repeated that scenario at 8:30 a.m. She gets up to eat something, and then goes back to sleep. While she’s up, she’s barely communicative.
The attending physician in the hospital gave me a script that says my mom needs one-on-one care 24/7 because there is a great probability that she will fall again unless someone has an eye on her constantly. .A nurse is coming tomorrow from the county’s Adult Protective Services to evaluate her condition and her living situation. That is part of my strategy to put as much pressure on him as I can to hire someone to come in and help with her care while I’m going through my move — and, of course, after.
But it is only a matter of time.

so, that’s how it is

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I’m standing by the kitchen window, looking out at the trees and the pure blue sky, drinking hot chocolate and eating challah smeared with Smart Balance. My daughter’s voice drifts in from the living room, where she is reading a book to my grandson, who is sprawled on the couch nursing a fever and a cold. The book is one I bought her when she was a child — “Grandma and Machek,” about a Polish grandmother who tells her granchildren the story of her living in Poland as a little girl and how her friend Machek (who became their grandfather) outwitted a wolf. They are doing a home school unit on making a family tree, and we have just finished looking at two fading photograpsh of my 1940s extended family — one that includes more than 50 people. I showed him the ones who came over through Ellis Island. He is interested in every detail.
Such is my life without care(giving).
But in a few minutes, I will be leaving to go back to the turmoil of the other part of my family, where my mom, who is in her nightgown day and night, needs better care than she is getting when I’m not there.
I visited a nursing home yesterday that’s located 1.3 miles from my daughter’s house and has a secure dementia unit with an enclosed outdoor courtyard. The bedrooms are big and sunny, with room for personal furniture etc. Unless my brother hires someone to come in and help with my mom during both this transition of my leaving and my actual departure, I will fight him for her guardianship and power of attorney. She deserves better than she gets from him; and I just can’t give any more. I could see myself volunteering at the nursing home a couple of mornings a week and visiting her several days a week, at least until she gets acclimated.
My brother wants her, but doesn’t know how to give her the kind, patient, consistent care that she needs. I just want to see her get good care. And I need to take care of myself for a change.
And that’s how it is, as I go from this place of peace to that place of war. It never had to be this way, but that’s how it is.

stuff and responsibility

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Today was supposed to be my official move day, but I’m bogged down by stuff and responsibility.
So, instead, the move has become a slow one as I sort and pack and dispose of. At the moment, my car out in the driveway is packed with household stuff that I will take to the Salvation Army tomorrow. And then, next week, I will pack the car with another load that I will drive out to my new space at my daughter’s.
Actually the slow move is working out OK because I just can’t shake my responsibilities to my mother, especially since she has suddenly become very weak and wants to sleep a lot. And so I spend a week here taking care of her and then drive out with my packed car to spend several days setting up my space and playing with my grandson. The drive out is like a mini-vacation in and of itself — I have several hours all to myself to think and surf between NPR and country western music stations. Sometimes, I even sing out loud, moving my shoulders to the steady beat while cruise control takes over.
Stuff and responsibility. I’m carrying a lot of baggage.

a father’s words
a daughter’s pictures

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After the death of her father, Melissa Volker discovered some uncanny similarities between her photos and the poems in a collected, unpublished work of his.

As a tribute and a tether, she brings them together here — a poignant sharing meaningful to parents, children, those who have lost, those who love.

Word and pictures. Together a common vision.

The above is the description of my daughter’s book, which she is publishing online through Blurb.com.
The title of this book of her dad’s poetry and her photos is the title he gave his collections of poems: “Seeworld: visions from the wonderground,” and you can get a preview of it here.
The poems are as much for children as for adults. They are filled with unique images that reflect the simple wonders of nature. The photographs visually capture that simplicity and that wonder, adding to the delight of the poems themselves.
“Seeworld” would make a great holiday gift for any family that treasures the special relationship that a daughter can have with her father.
(Of course, this proud mama just can’t resist plugging the publication.)

a father’s words, a…
By W.A. Frankonis an…

Is he black?

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My 92 year old mother is up late since I am watching the election returns. Obama has won and is about to speak.
“Look, Mom,”I say. “That’s the new president of our country.”
I’m never sure she hears me and/or understands. But this time she looks hard at the television screen, taking in the crowds, the shouting, the man.
“Is he black?” she asks.
“Yes,” I answer, explaining (now that she seems to be paying attention) that his mother was white and his father was black, and he is now the president of the United States.
She continues to look intently at the television screen as Obama begins his acceptance speech.
“Can you make it louder?” she asks and moves to a chair nearer the tv, where she sits and listens and watches until he’s done.
I’m not sure what it all meant to her, but I sure know what it all means to me. We have a truly democratic leader as president.
On my daughter’s blog, she reflects on her feelings about the election and tells of how this election has been a unique “teachable moment” for my grandson:

This morning I explained to my son why this is so historical. Why it’s a big deal that an African American could be President. To do so, I had to introduce slavery as part of our history (mind you, he’s only 6 and in first grade)…he askes SO many questions. “Why did men take them from their homes?” “What do you mean, can you explain more about how they were treated badly?”

And as I explained the best I could in appropriate terms for a 6 year old, but also without sugar-coating the truth, I saw tears fought back in his eyes. Our SIX YEAR OLD felt the injustice those men and women must have felt. Our child felt the horror and sadness of it. “Just because of the color of their skin?!”

He was aghast and stymied. Disgusted and outraged.

The only way I could make him feel better was to assure him that in the end, other men felt the way he just did. Which led to teaching him a bit about the civil war, Abe Lincoln and Harriet Tubman. It helped a bit, but there was no totally shaking him from the sadness he felt to learn how human beings had been treated.

I told him I was proud that he cared. Proud that it mattered to him. And that in the end, that is why it was historical today.

Don’t tell me kids can’t get it. And don’t tell me a kid can’t help direct his learning. Homeschooling rocks!

And my son b!X parties in Portland, missing his Dad, who would have been overcome with joy at the reality of President Obama.
Yes, mom. He’s black and he’s our president.