More Used to Be Mom

Used to Be and Her Eighth Great Grandchild



 The family reunion this past weekend in our old town which celebrated its 100 birthday was too much for UTBM. Too many forgotten faces. Too many names she couldn't recall. Too many people reminding her  she wasn't on top of her game. Too many activities that disrupted her schedule. She would hurry us along to see So and So only to arrive and want to leave seconds later.

Used to Be Mother has always enjoyed holding babies but for this picture, we had to brow beat her. She kept insisting he wanted us. Did she feel afraid she would drop him? She says all the time how lonely she is and how much she wishes she could see all her grandchildren but when she had this opportunity, she didn't have anything to say to them. Couldn't follow their conversations. Couldn't figure out their jokes. And so she sat silently in the corner taking it all in and yet clearly not enjoying herself. And maybe that's why she turned really nasty.

She came out to the kitchen dressed up in her pj's (thank goodness it wasn't that nightie she usually wears) without her teeth and without any warning flicked my nose as if to say "Go Jump in a Lake" (she wouldn't ever say the zeitgeist FU). The next morning as we drove in the car, she cranked up the volume on my radio to its max. "I like my music loud" she announced.

As we waited for my sister who was in the pharmacy, she had a nasty comment about everyone coming out. The heavily busted and overweight received her worst comments peppered with language I have never heard my mother say or at least not in THAT context.

She refused to eat a salad with red lettuce and shredded carrot and started in on all of us how we don't want her to live with us. She was agitated, upset and wanted to fight about everything.

When I asked what was bugging her she said "My teeth hurt".

Today she fell again. Cut her face, knee and hands, bent up her glasses and scratched her lense. The eye clinic said she would need new glasses, but she wasn't having any of that. "I paid $600 for these glasses two years ago. They are still new." and then "Why can't you just clean that mark off?" Her tone was full of disgust at the clerk's incompetence.

She's descended further into that good night. And rage it is. Pretty much about every thing and to every one.

Drooping flowers.