Peg. If this were a new thing, I would put it down to Emotional State Brought On By Daddy's Death and feel more sorry for her but she's just, well, like this, period, and always has been, it's just gotten worse as she's gotten older. She'll harp on something and won't let go, rewriting it all over and over in her mind until she's convinced a grave injustice has occured. Today for example she's still going on about how all the trees have grown along Rte 8 on the way to Fairfield (I mean, how fucking dare they!) and how nothing looks familiar and how the Merritt Parkway "isn't even on the map anymore". I assured her it was, that it was possibly called Connecticut Rte 15. She disputed this. My problem is I should really just say "Really? How terrible! My!" and move on to other subjects but…I manage only the segue onto another subject but there's no guarantee I won't open a can of worms there too.
"Hey!" I told her I'd written to Hospice, thanking them all, in particular Ellyn the nurse and Brooke and Erica the wonderful Home Health Aides.
"I HATE THEM!" she says, spitting venom.
"Hate them? Who? Ellyn?"
"No no, she was lovely. Just lovely. So were the girls. I hate Hospice. I hate what they did to Daddy and will never forgive them! NEVER!"
"What are you talking about, they were magnificent!"
"They sent women to bathe Daddy--WOMEN!"
And then I see red. Because, well, because Hospice were so wonderful on every level, angels, faultless, and we were dead lucky to have had them on board; and because women have looked after men since time immemorial, nurses, nannies, traditionally even did the "laying out" of the dead; and because the Aides, Brooke and Erica were always so respectful and careful to preserve his modesty and anyhow Daddy didn't care; and because my mother is acting like some 19th century Victorian prude. All of which makes me want to inform her that she is out of her mind but if I do that she'll yell at me that she certainly isn't, that I'm the one who's crazy, and then she'll hang up on me.
And, because I don't want to be responsible for causing my 97 year old mother any more pain or emotional distress at this particular time--I held myself back.
Until she said Hospice had cost us $35,000. At which point I corrected her, explained how Hospice worked, at length, for the five hundredth time, that it has not cost us anything, that they are free, that she had her wires crossed, at which point she shouted that she certainly didn't, that I was the one who did--and hung up on me.
It's going to fun over there this summer. I can tell already.
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