My grandmother, sick and greatly weakened, could go downhill at any time. My mother has moved in to provide around the clock care for her, which is where the story begins. But first, the cast.
Grandma: Coming up on 97, she’s been the picture of health with only a few problems over the last few years. A sweet great-grandmother hides the oblivious, completely clueless personality, her retreat into a world of books and semi-abandonment of the raising of the younger of her six children to my mother.
This near-death experience has brought out her inner child, at least the two-year-old. Completely selfish with no understanding of anyone else’s needs or limitations, she refuses reason or limitations, focusing all on every pain or discomfort.
The Uncle: aka The Golden Child. The first-born and the sole son of a traditional Mormon patriarchal family, GC could do and has never done any wrong. He walks on water, just ask his mother, or him. A now-retired professor, his career only reinforced his belief that he is always the smartest person in the room. In a family where love was strictly rationed, he was the only recipient of unconditional acceptance.
My Mom. Sharing commonality with her sisters, she married badly. Really badly. A crazy man who molested his daughters, beat his wife and children and tried to destroy our wills, perhaps the best the can be said about my father is that he is now dead and can no longer propagate his evil in the world. Battered and beaten, with both her family and church refusing to help, my mother turned inside, into depression and attempts at suicide. Completely unable to set the barest of limits, Mom has one of three sons who has shunned her, of one her daughters who sucks her life-force and our younger son who will be the death of her yet.
Daughter Two, aka Aunt Pit Bull. Her contribution to the family collection of loser uncles was a bitter man whose self-proclaimed sole reason for any failure, was her weight. Even after an illness left her to thin for breasts, she was still too fat, and this was the reason he wasn’t more successful at work or church.
With running feuds with two of her sisters, once she latches onto something, she won’t let go; hence the nickname granted by one of these sisters.
Daughter Three, Aunt Jolly Giant. A big woman who discovered in high school that food could actually taste good, she never looked back. Married for better or for worse, she wisely named her first son Rich as her menial labor husband ensured she would remain poorer. She now waits for her next birthday to qualify for Medicare so she can get her back surgery to reduce the horrible pain she’s lived with for several years.
Daughter Four, Aunt Sickly. Fated to live a life of pain and hardship, she’s jumped whole heartedly into the role, enough so that the less charitable would say that she invents what doesn’t come naturally.
The good news is that god speaks to her constantly and leads her daily, but bad news is that he’s got a terrible batting average. A less faithful would have concluded that a god that bad should be kept away from Las Vegas, and certainly does not fit within her religion’s concept of omnipotence, but Aunt Sickly follows the spirit, consequences be damned.
Daughter Five, Aunt Butterfly. The youngest always have different rules, and Aunt Butterfly fully exploited hers. She’s the only one working because her loser husband has lost all the jobs he’s ever had, and is now too sick to work.
War and Peace is shorter than what would require for an adequate description of this fucked up family, where bad deeds are damned for decades. We’ll just jump right to the story.
Grandma had a sever reaction to a medication which throws her into the hospital. Mom is in Georgia, visiting my one sane sibling, rushed back. She should be in a hospice, but hates these things, so everyone agrees to help take care of her, with principle care falling on my mother, the retired nurse.
Naturally, within days this falls apart, and everyone bails. GB lives out of town, Aunt Jolly Giant and can’t travel. However a good share of the 33 cousins, plus spouses live in or near Salt Lake. Grandma is getting up four or five times a night to go to the bathroom, requiring assistance. Sure, she’s had a terrible shock, but suddenly turned into a tyrant. My mom, who have never set a limit in her live, becomes her slave.
My mom starts to lose it, as she’s 72 and can’t provide the 24 hour care by herself, with only a little help from others. I’m on the phone all the time with Pit Bull trying to find solutions. Butterfly claims that she can only come two hours every other Sunday. Sickly says maybe an hour a week, if she can handle it. I’m suggesting professional care, part time for four hours a day, to give my mom rest, and running into resistance, mostly from Sickly because (my speculation here) she doesn’t want to any possible inheritance spent.
I tell everyone that my mother needs to get four hours of break everyday, and if it’s not professional then someone other than my mother should be in charge of the schedule. Good idea, says everyone, and they all point fingers at someone else to be in charge. Pit Pull can barely have conversations with Sisters Four and Five and no one will approach GB.
Yes, I’m fully aware that my mother needs to set limits on her own, but she’s coming unglued and completely stressed out. If she hasn’t learned to set limits in 72 years, I’m not going to get her to try now.
Finally the breaking point is a visit by His Highness. BG comes in town to “help out.” He’ll do outside stuff and his wife will help take care of grandma for a week, Except she doesn’t. Worse, they stay at Grandma’s, and become two more people my mom needs to feed and clean up after. BG does work outside and his wife sits around and expects Mom to entertain her as well. Everyone’s been told that the wife will help, so no one comes around.
I’m the “go to” guy in the family, the dutiful son who’s bailed Mom out again and again. Yes, it’s enabling, but that’s another issue.
I call around again and yup, but the sisters are too busy stilling fighting slights which happened 15 years ago to cooperate. Butterfly wants to hire someone and doesn’t want to help out herself. She can’t increase her help, ‘cuz she’s got all these commitments. Sure, my mom dropped all her commitments, but that’s beside the point. In this family, it’s each dog for herself.
Sickly starts an attack the moment I call. Not even before I have a chance to say what I’m calling about. “I’m doing everything I can.” Since her only child passed away, she has no kids to help, which she reminds me a half dozen times in the call. It should all be her sisters who do everything.
Finally get a hold of GB who tells me that it was my mother who wanted to do it and that the family should be able to do things. Refuses to acknowledge the worthlessness of his wife, and won’t discuss hired help.
I haven’t liked GB, arrogant people bother me, and the reverent tones his name calls for irate the hell out of me. I’ve had enough and in the heat of the moment finally tell him that he’s a self-righteous son of a bitch.
That upset him, but it looks like it got things moving. They hired someone for a couple of weeks until grandma got feeling much better. Pit bull let her mother know that if she wore my mom out, then it was off to the rest home. She was to accept Meals-on-Wheels and was to learn to use the toilet by herself.
As I discussed with a friend afterwards, it was the right message, but could have been said with 5% of the force.
The family is fucked up, and several things really bug me. These aunts who were saying they could only help an hour a week, were still going to church for three hours and attending a Mormon Institute class for two hours a week. They couldn’t help spell my mother off, but they still go to church, because they’re “good” Mormons. Hypocritical as all fucking hell, but “good” Mormons.
Same as Jolly Giant who called me to repentance because I used a bad word. It’s OK to bitch bitterly about imagined slights from 15 years ago, and hang?? your family to dry, just never swear.
The only decent one in the bunch is Pit. The rest can all fucking kiss my ass.
