Everything is Relative(s)

When I worked in a nursing home, I often lamented at the standard of care for a certain percentage of the population there.  It was a state(ish) funded program and if the Oldster-in-Question didn't have direct and consistent family involvement, he or she often got shuffled to the bottom of the list, so to speak.  Last one out of bed and dressed, last one to have their needs tended to, in other words.  For example, if the staff knew that Edwin's wife came in every day by 9:00am, he was the first one out of bed and made presentable.  I'm not bashing the staff.  It's hard work and they are grossly under-qualified and underpaid, in my opinion. 

One day, a psychiatrist I worked with overheard me talking about my feelings.  He was from Russia (or, perhaps, the USSR) and heartily disagreed with me.  'Thees place,' he said, 'ees not bad for the old people.  They are eating, they are having a place to sleep, they are having clothes and shelter.  Eet is not a bad place to be when being old.'  He said that in his home country, he had seen much, much worse, regarding the treatment of the very old and poor.  This, by comparison, he reasoned, was a place that was safe and warm--food and shelter provided for free.  He implied that anything else was a luxury.

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Not long after I'd taken the position there, I'd come to know a group of residents who were on my case load.  Many of them had tokens and mementos displayed in their rooms.  Cards from adult children, crayon drawings from great-(or even great-great) grandchildren.  There were residents who had regular visits from loved ones.  And then, there were those who seemingly had no one.

One such man, I'll call him John, struck me as particularly lonely.  He was a widower for many years.  He'd had children and grandchildren.  No one came to visit him.  There were no cards or flowers or drawings.  He was physically compromised but mentally alert most of the time.  He spoke to me of his family, about his distress over their absence.  I was filled with concern for him and not a small amount of anger at his family for their abandonment.  Working in an environment that forever smells of piss, in varying levels of *freshness* can increase your general irritability, you know.

One day, I was discussing John with a member of the nursing staff there and vented a little of my vicarious indignation at his children for not visiting. 

It went like this:

The Nurse: 'Oh,' said the half-smiling nurse, to the starry-eyed-see-the-best-in-everyone optimist, 'You might not want to feel TOO bad for him.'

Me: 'Why's that?' I asked.

Nurse: 'Well, for starters, he was a raging, abusive drunk who used to beat his wife and kids when they were small.'

Me: '...'

Nurse: 'And so, they don't visit him.'

Looking back, it's hard to imagine that I was so shocked by that information.  Of course he'd had a long life before ending up there.  Wasn't I mad at the kids he'd sired long before he'd been admitted?  But, the thing is, I WAS shocked.  Somehow, picturing this frail, broken guy as a raging, wife-and-kid-beating alcoholic, opened up another compartment in my brain.  I imagined the wife and kids terrified of him, imagined his carelessness and his lack of awareness of the passage of valuable relationship-building time.  And here he was, old and frail and lonely and complaining that his kids deserted him.  He wasn't even contrite.  The information had come from the chart on his intake.  It seemed that he wasn't wishing they'd forgive him his transgressions, he was wishing that they'd forget them.

And although I still cared for him and the person he was now, a person who was in physical and emotional pain, I was no longer angry at his kids for not visiting.  In fact, I wouldn't ever again begrudge a child his distance. 

Especially if I didn't know the back-story.

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My daughter was born on my Grandfather's birthday.  This would have tickled my mother to death (you know, if she was still alive.)  Her father, my grandfather, always held a significant (read: large and intractable) part of her heart.  Although he was never what you'd call *easy to get along with* (which is putting it v e r y mildly,) my mother felt tied to him.  Obligated.  (Get this: my Grandmother was the definition of easy to love, no kidding.)

My earliest recollections of my Grandfather were of the discomfort I felt in his presence.  A bombastic figure, he was not easy to be around.  He yelled a lot, not at me (with very few exceptions) but at my Grandmother.  She would roll her eyes or make a face at him from the other room but the ongoing dynamic made me cringe even before I was consciously aware that it was fucackt.  (Not wanting to give a total wrong impression, let me say this: he is also very charming and generous and smart and witty and is often the case with people of a similar profile, very sensitive. In other words, he IS lovable, there are just, you know, some hurtles.)

He had given up drinking when I was very small, before I was conscious of it, anyway, but I imagine that the dry version of him was only shades different.  His views are set and they are as diametrically opposed from mine as is possible to get. 

When my Grandmother started to forget things, it seemed an extension of the more self-effacing kind of humor that she employed in her life.  By the time it was obvious that there was something wrong, she was pretty compromised.  My Grandfather was determined to care for her for as long as he could. 

My mother had purchased a book about living with someone with Alzheimer's, I found it on her bookshelf after she died.  I am certain it was intended for her father and so, I gave it to him.  He was tearful in his gratitude.  He read it and talked to me about how helpful it was.  He had come to depend on my mother and her ever-presence and he felt the loss of her like no one else.  (His one son in another state and this other son, disowned (for good reason.))

When my Grandmother passed, I went home.  He was happy to see us and this normally witty, joke-telling, bear of a man seemed, for the second time in a short span, greatly diminished.  Mentally, he is still sharp as a whip.  But emotionally, there was cracking evident.  The strain of caring for my Gram had taken all of his time and without her, he felt at loose ends.  Jangly.  'Too much time to think, Hon,' is the way he put it.

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When I told my grandfather that I was being induced on the 5th of June he asked me to wait.  'Wait until the 6th, why don't you?'  We laughed and I told him that I had no interest in being in labor for over 24 hours.  But two days later, in between pushes, I'd kept my eye on the clock as it crept toward Midnight.  The Little Sister marveled at this afterward, thinking that I had been keeping track of time.  'No,' I laughed, 'I was looking to see how close we were getting to Grampa's birthday.'

I called him to tell him that we were all coming home this Thanksgiving and he told me this: 'You've just made me the happiest man alive.  My heart is singing.'

Sometimes I think that if my mom knew how infrequently I talk to my Grandfather now, that she might be disapproving.  I know that she would certainly take to the older, softened version of him.  It was in her nature to find the best in everyone.  Sometimes I can't help but to think how different his life (and mine) would be if my mother was still alive.  If I think too long on it, it can create a little pang of guilt.

But I try my best not to begrudge myself some distance, knowing the back-story as I do.

Comments

[mom, again]

my husband's dad was a miserable excuse: his mom eventually kicked him out.

He died a few years ago. Laid down drunk in the high street in the middle of the afternoon and got run over by a bus. His sons let him be buried as a pauper, neither had any interest in claiming his remains given the sort of dad he'd been.

We were in the U.S. at the time. My husband's reaction was to say that it was disappointing. With a dad like that you hope, all your life, that he will get his act together and you can have some kind of relationship. Someday. And the most he could say about his dad's death was that it was disappointing to know there would never be a someday.

(My mum-in-law raised two amazing men. Since moving to the UK, I've learned his dad than my husband felt the need to tell me before. I must say, with him as an example, the credit for what wonderful dads both her sons are must go entirely to her.)

[Clink]

Thank you for writing that.

[Manic Mommy]

I stopped speaking to my father shortly after HRH was born. I was the only holdout among his children - and even my mother - who did not go up to see him before he died. I still don't regret it nearly two years later. I know the backstory, too.

Wonderful, wonderful post TNG. Enjoy your holiday and be kind to yourself.

[mimi]

Lot to think about here. Who we are, how we relate to one another, what time can do and what it can't. Hm.

[Emily]

A beautiful post TNG. I need to muse on it for a while to take it all in. Beautifully written though.

[J from Ireland]

What talent you have. Such a thought provoking post. Brilliant just brilliant.

[Somedayme2]

This made me think of my aunt that has been gone for a year now...she told me about how my gram treated my mom as she grew up, I understand why I had to come into her life, I saved her. Had my mom not gotten out of that house, she would not be here today(the only way for her to do so was get pregnant, and married). Which is so hard to deal with on several levels. The number one being that I take care of that "monster" and she is the best Great Gram in the world to my sons. My mom tells me she has forgiven her and that I shouldn't even know those things. But I do know.
The second item is my father...the impregnator. He told me my mom was just sex and he got caught. I could go on for hours about him. He will have to rely on my half sister (we both have him as a dad, different moms) because he will rot in the most disgusting place on earth I can find if I am left in charge of his care. They both know this, but he doesn't understand why.

[the brother out-law]

That's a really amazing story and I appreciate the insight. And to think that I thought I already knew the back story by virtue of geographical proximity and knowing all of the characters. Thanks for sharing. No, REALLY, thank you.

[Amanda]

Wow. I could've written astarte's comment as well, only I'm not mature enough to be involved in making sure my mother gets care. She's on her own at this point. And you know, we joked when I got pregnant with #2 that he was Plan B in case we messed up the first kid, but it wasn't entirely a joke. Not after my mom messed up her only.

[attiton]

It's interesting that you bring this up today in such a thoughtful way. My parents are divorced, and are both incredibly independent 70-odd-year-old people. Inevitably, this will end. But, as I just told my mother this weekend--if, in the end, they intend on coming to live with ME, they will be *sharing a room* and LIKING it. They can construct bed-sheet walls between the pair of twin beds that I will be buying for them. They can have "no-speaking-to-me" zones where they can pretend they don't see each other. I don't care. They'll be under MY roof, and they'll like it.

[mothergoosemouse]

All sorts of swirling thoughts, but mostly pertaining to the relationships I want to foster with my own children. I want the back-stories to be good ones.

Thanks, TNG. This is something I plan to mull over for a while.

[Sam]

Dude. This is deep shit, yo. I'm going to be one of those horrid kids that neglects my mother in a nursing home. I would have done anything for my father before he died, but my mom can suck it. Also? I am watching a Dr. Phil rerun and he is talking to this guy in the audience. Behind the guy and to his left is a woman with the most HUGE tits in a horrid blue shirt. It is not pretty. You can 't see her face, just the BOOBIES OF TERROR. Someone needs to teach her to dress herself. Guess what?! The Big Bang Theory is on now. WOOT!!

[Amanda]

There will be plenty who will judge, if you do yourself just one act of kindness, let it be not to judge yourself. I don't.

:)

[astarte]

My mother, too, expects that I forget everything that she did to me during the 18 years I was trapped with her. I fully plan on not being terribly involved in her older adult care, and have told her that she will not be living with us. I don't know if she knew I was serious, but I was. She will be lucky if I help her at all. I know that I will get the evil eye about this from her friends and her partner, if he is still alive at such time, because they do not know what she was like to live with. Her nurses will hate me, too, I suppose. She put on a very good act for all those years. You could say, though, that she literally choked the love out of me. Repeatedly. I do have to say that I have come a little further down the road on this issue: I used to fantasize about abandoning her completely after one lone visit where I would spell out to her exactly why I was never coming back. Before that, as a child, I wished for the day to come when I could do to her what she had been doing to me. These days, I am willing to help make sure she is cared for, and I obviously not longer fantasize about the eye-for-an-eye stuff, but I doubt I will ever reach a point where I will either move back near her home to care for her, or move her down here.

[Mary]

My dad went to visit his mother EVERY day that she was in assisted living, then a nursing home. She was NEVER satisfied with the amount of time he spent with her. He's a better person than I am. If I had been treated as poorly as he was by her... she could have rotted before I went in once. I don't say this lightly. In the "forgive and forget" category, she also treated her daughters-in-law (my mom and aunt) like they weren't good enough for her to spit on. They ended up with complete power-of-attorney before she died, since my uncle was already dead, and my dad not able to handle the paperwork. They made sure her last years were as pleasant as they possibly could. Again, better people than me.

[lora]

as I get older, I am learning more and more about the kind of people my grandparents were. It's weird, I've always had the image that they were perfect, like Ozzie and Harriet or something. June and Ward, maybe. But, that's not the case.

My grandma is the only one left, all her children and grandchildren have left our hometown, and she is left up there at SR all by herself. I hope that she has a good team of caregivers and they aren't noticing that cranky whining-ness the same way that I never noticed it when I was young.

Thanks for this post.

[Creative Kerfuffle]

wow. just wow. it is sometimes hard to think of the back stories, good or bad, and how different people impact our lives. this is a great, thought provoking post.

[Swistle]

This is publishable. I read it twice, and slow.