Image via WikipediaThe Cadillac of Walkers: My mother has had severe arthritis in one knee, for years. Walking is very painful for her. She should have had a knee replacement, long ago; now, her impaired lung functioning (and overall condition) won't permit it. Once, after she finally agreed to try using a cane, I bought her one. In a fury, she threw it out onto her back deck, where it remains to this day. She didn't remember saying she wanted to try one, and she hated the one I bought her. Later, noticing how well she walked in the grocery store, pushing a cart, I bought her one of those really sporty walkers, the one with the hand brakes, and a built-in seat, for when you want to take a break and sit down. I took it over to her house, where it sat, ignored, for several days. Finally, she said, "Get that thing the hell out of here." So, for the last year or so, it has sat in my basement. Waiting, I guess.A couple of days ago I went over to the nursing home and was surprised to see a walker in her room. I asked her where it came from, and she smiled proudly and said: "I stole it!" Sure enough, the staff told me that she had gone into her suite-mate's room and stolen the walker. Fortunately, it was not much of an issue, because the other old woman is now totally incapable of using it. But I figured this might be the time to haul out the walker that had languished in the basement. I took it over there today, and (amazing!) she was thrilled. I told her that it was the "Cadillac of walkers," which pleased her tremendously. Certainly, it's nicer than the one that she stole. We walked outside together, with the walker, and sat in the sun for a while. She patted its handle and announced that she was naming it "Barney" (that was the name of one of the horses she had when she was a kid).
And then she looked worried, and asked where she was going to have dinner, that night.
Today was not so bad, as these days go, with my mother. Pretty good, actually. I have spent a good bit of time lately, talking with friends, fellow baby-boomers, who have gone through similar journeys with one or more parents. Sometimes they have siblings, and that helps; sometimes, they have siblings, and that doesn't help, at all.
Here's an excerpt from a nice article that Jane Gross wrote about all this:
"TWO weeks ago, he was in the parking lot of the assisted living community where my mother lives. Last week, in the lobby. Next in the elevator.
"He is a forlorn man, in his late 50's I'd guess, and he seems to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. His mother, past 90, moved in recently. She is miserable, he confides, always cranky, berating him for not visiting more often...
"We are our own society, the middle-aged children of parents who are older and more dependent than they ever intended to be, and we sniff one another out. Sometimes I'll reschedule an interview, explaining that I am taking my mother to the doctor, and the person on the other end of the phone, a total stranger, will start talking as if a dam had broken.
"In one such conversation, a publicist described searching for someone who would go weekly to her mother's room in a nursing home and do her nails. The staff there was lovely, she told me. But it was an institution, after all. Nobody quite understood why a fresh manicure could mean so much to an old woman. She said she and her mother had never been close. It amazed her that she cared so much now, had spent hours searching for a manicurist when she ought to be working. Every day brought a similar surprise, she said, a muddle of love, fear and fury."
Yes. "A muddle of love, fear and fury." But being with my mother today was pretty good, as these things go.
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