If the Caretaker Needs a Caretaker then Who Does the Caretaking

My Mother-in-Law with us at Mom's 90th Birthday Party

Those of you who know me personally may be wondering why I haven't yet addressed the elephant in the room - or more specifically, the downstairs master bedroom.  My Mother-in-Law lives with us and has now for the past four and a half years.  I've avoided it frankly because I wasn't sure I have the right to talk in detail about her for one thing. Why that never stopped me when I very first started blogging as I was caring for my mom all the way back in 2008 and first authored Woman at a Crossroads, which at its inception was about taking care of her, I can't really say. It was a lonely, hard time and it helped me cope to write about it so maybe it was worth the invasion of her privacy. Whatever it was, sharing stories about Mom never gave me pause. Maybe because she was my mom and not someone else's so I felt I owned a part of the story. Which I did, and I do here as well really so probably, despite my noblest intentions some of it will seep out over time.  But, whatever, for now here we are, and for the three people who live in this house, the roles of caretakers and caretakee (just made that word up) are the overriding factor of our lives every single day, so it's almost impossible to write about aging and not address it.  So here's what I'll do: I will address the overarching issue of caring for our aging parents when we're beginning to deal with our own health and welfare as we ourselves age.

When my dad died I was 31 with two small children, one still in diapers. I lived on the other side of the country from them. So, I was young and dumb (but old enough not to think I was young and dumb), and absorbed with my job, my kids and myself. I think back on it, and the signs were there that my dad had been struggling with his health for a while, but it was like Red Leader's shot at the Death Star: it just impacted on my surface. When Mother finally had to call and tell my husband to tell me Dad had cancer, it was very advanced (yes, she really did leave a message that my husband had to tell me that night as we celebrated our anniversary). And by the time she couldn't wait any longer to call me home, he only had days left. While I was left in shock at how fast it seemed and how little time I had to process the fact I was losing my father, I'll have to be honest that I had the thought, "Well that one was easy."

Before you judge me, what I meant by that is that I grew up realizing my parents were potentially going to reach the point where they needed my care while my children were still young. I spent way too much of my childhood wondering how I would manage it.  Mother was where those fears came to fruition. My kids were teenagers, which was not an easy time for them or me. Again, if you know me, you know some of this. But in summary, I was trying to cope and learn how to be a good caregiver for teenagers in crisis and Mom had a whole laundry list of serious ailments she was very stubbornly contending with: diabetes, Parkinson's, catastrophic heart failure, and the Apex Predator: Alzheimer's being the leaders on the list. It was a hard few years, with the last couple being a full-on nightmare. I ate what I could when I could.  Maybe I slept some, but I don't really remember.  I lost my job at one point. I lived my life in doctors' waiting rooms or in hospital ER's. I kept an ER-ready bag in my car. But, on the flip side I was young enough to put my body through that and manage to keep going, albeit gaining a lot of weight during that period that it took until the pandemic to really work off. I also started biting my nails out of stress. I managed to cure that before the pandemic, but it didn't go away overnight. If I was in my 60's and going through her last few years, I'm not sure how I'd have held up.

In theory, you think that by the time your folks are old enough and frail enough to need full-time care that your kids will be out of the house, your career will be winding down and you will still have the time and energy to deal with what they need. If you're lucky, you'll have siblings that will share the burden.  If you're truly blessed, you'll have the money to afford great care for your loved ones. But what I think too, is that too many of us are faced with is a far darker reality.  I see it living here: families are close knit in the 'Burgh. Our living situation is far from unique. Many, many other families live just down the street from one another if they don't live in the same house. My next door neighbor when I first moved into this house was an elderly woman whom we rarely saw but knew she was quite older. Her son lives across the street and down two doors from me. She's gone on now, and her grandson and his new family live in her house now and you'll see everyone walking back and forth to one another's houses a lot. Both the son and grandson are firefighters serving at the same firehouse. Family and tradition. It framed this city's personality and still holds it in place. Some of it is steel belt culture, but some of that culture is because Pittsburghers are by and large working class folks, so the children know they'll have to step in because they can't afford a phalanx of nurses or a fancy care facility. But while they all accept the responsibility, it doesn't make it easy. And what I've had to wonder a few times in the last few years is who takes care of the caregiver if something happens to them?  Which I realize is now a lot more of a possibility than it was 15 years ago when Mom went through her final years.

I asked my husband once if he'd thought about what to do for his mom if something happened to him. I got the stink eye and no response. But it's not an unreasonable question. He travels a fair amount for work; things happen.  And things happen like heart attacks, cancer, COVID, you name it.  It's a pessimistic thought, but isn't it also a practical one to have and plan for? (And, yes, let's be real: part of the reason to ask it is because I was implying the Plan B for her care is not going to be me by myself - I think he was aware of that and that's what drew the stink eye, not that I might have been implying he's heart attack bait.) Those were thoughts I didn't stop to have 15 years ago. I just accepted I'd be there to see it through. Now, I probably will be, but...

Of course, all I control is what I can control, so all my financial decisions at this point are beginning to turn toward making sure these aren't worries that keep my one and only daughter up at night when it's her turn in the caretaker role.  Well, not all - I still plan on going to lots of sporting events and trying to rescue all the dogs...can't save all your money for your final days. Gotta live some of those days in between after all.

Note to Self

 "If you could go back in time what you say to your younger self?"

Isn't that something every celebrity gets asked at some point in time? Isn't it something, as much as we might eye roll mightily when we watch that interview, we've wondered about our own selves?  I have.  I have such a long list that I think by the time the younger me sat and listened to it all she'd meet me in the present.  Probably first and foremost is stay in college and quit being a dumbass about it and take it seriously. By the time I was a good student I was working and a young mother. I missed all the fun that college can offer, taking night classes and studying sitting next to my kids' bathtub while I got them ready for bed, and while I ended up with a decent career as it stands, it's not the one I dreamed of, and one wonders...

Which brings me to the futility of the original question and probably why our eyes roll when it gets posed. Why even bother thinking about it? Take the life you've given yourself, learn from your mistakes where and how you can, but don't waste time with regrets. Sounds pretty logical, right?  Sure.  But, damn, I wish I could slap some sense into my teenage self, if not on the big stuff like college and men (which is this: don't go through the boy-crazy phase, it's not becoming and you'll cringe a lot - a LOT - when you think of it later in life), but some of the little stuff that I pay for now that was SO avoidable.

Biggest one: wear ear plugs at concerts.  I eschewed them almost out of spite of the conventional wisdom.  Like that was going to be my rebellion against The Man. And it wasn't just concerts. I used to get home from school in the afternoons when both my parents were at work and plop one of my albums on their huge living room record player - you know, the one that's larger than some apartments - and then see how loud I could get it.  I could walk to the end of the driveway and still hear it.  How I didn't blow out their speakers or cause the neighbors to complain was a wonder.  I imagine most of the neighbors were working too and their kids didn't care; they were listening to their own loud stuff.  I remember sunbathing one summer day to the sound of Donna Summer's Bad Girls...an album which I had, but it was someone several doors down playing it. But all that rebellious rock and roll has left me deaf way beyond my years.  I have a cheap pair of hearing aids but I hate them, so if you ever wonder why I prefer texting or emailing, that's probably why. Biggest problem is: all that music that was so important to me, and that I so wanted to listen intently to savor every instrument and catch every lyric?  It's still just as important to me, but now I struggle to hear it the way I want to.  Pure idiocy on my part.  Seriously.

Speaking of sunbathing, I really wish I hadn't gone the baby oil route.  For those of you too young to remember, the 70's was the bronze age, as in skin that was bronzed was the coveted look.  So we used baby oil to essentially baste ourselves - like a Thanksgiving turkey. Why I bothered I don't know. I was the penultimate Irish-American girl: pale and freckled. And embarrassed about it.  Everyone else I knew tanned so easily. I just freckled, so the goal was to merge the freckles together somehow. I never did. But, living in a high altitude location, sitting out with oil slathered all over me, I didn't do my future self any favors.  I'm so far lucky actually. Nothing as serious as melanoma, although I know others who are not so fortunate, but I look down at my hands, I feel my leathery skin, and I know I was playing with almost literal fire. And who's to say that I'm out of the woods for more serious consequences.  I'll knock on some of that wood and hope so. In many ways, I don't think being a teenager in the 2020's is easier or better than it was in the 70's but I'm grateful when I see all skin tones celebrated.  I wish I could have accepted and been comfortable in my own skin.

Maybe the real thing to try and tell my young self is that you think the future is so far away. What you'll find is it really isn't.  And you know you'll pay a price at some point for whatever it is that you're doing that is self-destructive, but that time seems so distant. What you'll actually find is that you will happen upon it so quickly that you will be left reeling from how fast it happened. How did I get here, you'll ask? Yesterday I was carefree, lathered in baby oil, listening to my neighbor's disco albums.  Today I've asked my granddaughter to repeat herself at least a dozen times, and I'm really pissing her off - and she's only three!  How can I make her so mad already? Doesn't that come later when she's in her teens and then I REALLY embarrass her?

You only get one body. Act accordingly.

A Slow Swedish Death

Obi Wan started it.

Someone had laid a truth bomb on me that I was struggling with. What it was isn't important other than it was the catalyst for me to do a little retail therapy. I had seen this particular Obi Wan collectible at a comic book store for a price that made me blink a few times rapidly and walk away, yet I couldn't stop thinking about him. After all, Alec Guinness was the catalyst that made me decide I'd go ahead and go to this silly Star Wars movie just out since I was a big fan of his. The rest is history, and I'm sitting here in a Star Wars shirt right now, a big and heavily-invested-in-Star Wars-collectibles-nerd. So I wanted that particular Obi Wan, and I wanted him bad. I just needed an excuse; had the truth bomb not exploded, something else would have come along to give me the excuse. My daughter suggested I could find him online for less, so I did. $70 less to be exact. And he arrived, in all his glory, a 6:1 scale, hand painted, limited edition marvel, on Saturday. To make room for him, I had to move a lamp, and figure out where to store the lamp, which meant I really needed to re-organize a little annex off my office we call the Hobby Hole, and as I was going through that process I had to ask myself over and over as I picked things up and moved things around, "Why exactly do I have this?"

In the great debate of nature vs. nurture I am an interesting case study. Not genetically linked to either parent, I carry forward so many of their personality traits, both good and bad - but, bluntly, mainly bad - that I think I sort of shut the door on any other argument. Nurture wins the day, and Mother was a full on hoarder. There was an understandable reason for it. Not unlike many young people who had their formative years during the Depression, she spent the rest of her life over-compensating for those years of want. While I bemoaned that fact from the time I was young all the way to trying to clean out her things after she died, and even though I never wanted for much, I am more like my mother than I would care to be.

My daughter watched as I struggled with the fallout from my mother's hoarding. I could tell so many stories, but for now suffice it to say, while I don't think my daughter is waiting or anxious for the time when she has to help me downsize, or worse still, when she has to clear out my things because I'm gone, it does admittedly cross her mind and she's more than well aware how much stuff I have. And she's also aware of how I'm wired.  I adore estate sales, and I'm in the prime location for them. Pittsburgh is a city with an older population. I love sports collectibles in addition to all the Star Wars stuff, and don't forget Lord of the Rings, because I certainly don't forget it while procuring things I just "have to have". Now add all the stuff I gather with all the stuff I inherited as the only child, and the things my husband was bequeathed over time. Not unlike a lot of people in our age bracket. As life goes on, we just stuff our space with all our stuff.  There's a reason I guess stuff is called stuff.

But I know my daughter worries about what a mess she'll be left with, and I know what it was like to deal with my mother, and don't want to repeat that cycle, so I was intrigued as Swedish Death Cleaning became a "thing". I decided I needed to make it my thing. As just one small example, do I really need to have a picture my mother took in 1970 of a bouquet of flowers sitting on her living room coffee table? No, I do not. Nor do I need a photo of a group of young women with that coveted flip up hairstyle singing in that same living room at a DAR luncheon she threw?  I don't know who any of them are.  No, I do not.

And why in the world did I keep this? Why did Mom for that matter? Other than she kept absolutely everything that is.

Not only keep it but haul it from place to place including across country - that package of "Quickies" has more miles on it than my car. 

I don't know about you, but some stuff that just defies logic stays for so long out of some weird guilt (e,g., "Mother loved this, so she would want me to keep it."). Some out of sentimentality. A lot of it falls into that bucket actually. Some because during the course of a life sad events happen, and looking too closely at certain things dredges that up and it's easier to just pack it up and haul it here, there and everywhere. But at some point, someone has to face it and handle it. It should be me, right?

I consider the name badge in
the trash a total win

Whatever the reason, it's hard to let go. And I have to be in a "mood", as I described it to my daughter this past weekend. I managed to convince myself to throw away a name tag of my dad's from a reunion he attended in 1989.  But I couldn't bring myself to toss his Elk's membership card. Maybe in the next "mood".

And I as I poured over old photos and stationery to try and cull out some space in the Hobby Hole, I did get emotionally tweaked.  I ran across a box full of my mother's photos, including a lot that were taken when my children were small and she lived in Washington, PA. So all these happy family photos of summer vacations where the biggest worry is when I'd get to go to Steelers training camp are caught in time smiling out at me, but now so, so many people in those photos are either gone, including unfortunately my oldest daughter, or are not well. I tell people all the time that I hope the memories of their loved ones brings them comfort, and I am sincere. But I'm here to tell you it doesn't always.  Sometimes memories are ghosts and they haunt you.

But anyway, this is all a long way to say, I've decided I'll take my Swedish Death Cleaning project a bit at a time, in other words I'll bank on the trust that there will be a tomorrow. Maybe over the next couple of decades I'll actually get it down to a dull roar. On the other hand, now I know there's a young Obi Wan from the same company...and really, don't you think I need them both?

So make me feel better about myself.  What do you have too much of, and how are you doing with the idea of getting rid of it as you get older?

(And...if you're a stranger reading this and think you might just want to help yourself to my Obi Wan, remember I collect things, including BIG DOGS.  They're happy to greet you appropriately.)

Go Jump Off a Cliff

I wasn't going to go here yet in my original vision of how I was going to progress the topic of aging, but with Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One starting to get a lot of promotional push, with its 60-yr old star doing that massively impressive but, let's be real, reckless stunt driving a motorcycle off a steep cliff being featured in a lot of that, it just seemed like it was time to talk about what our role in our chosen professions are as we age, and do we get to choose that or is it chosen for us? And do we, like Tom Cruise, have to push some envelopes to stay relevant?

Paramount Pictures

Tom Cruise is a little bit younger than me, but not that much. And he's doing these crazy huge stunts that one would wonder at his sanity even if he were half the age and even if stuntman was his occupation, not lead actor, so I've been pondering what exactly is going on in that brain of his. What's he trying to prove and to whom? Don't get me wrong: I'll go to the movie. In Imax. Hopefully on opening weekend. That franchise is full of visually stunning shots and stunts; who even cares what the plot is (which, seriously...I've seen them all and can barely tell you what really went on in any of them, but I remember all the visuals). But while I sit there with my popcorn I'll wonder why he's pushing himself further and further out there with the lengths he'll go to on screen. What's odd is I saw a photo with him and his two stunt doubles. Who are both eerily similar to him in appearance. Creepy almost. Right? It's not just me? So he's got these two guys at his disposal who almost looked like they were cloned, so why not let them do the big leap?

Reddit Pop Culture Chat

Anyway, shaking off how bizarrely alike they all look, this could morph into a two-prong ponder actually:

First, there's the Tom Cruise "I'm going to push all rational limits to (potentially) show all of you - but mostly myself - that I've still got 'it'."  Because while I threw the "potentially" in there to cover myself in case he's got another agenda altogether, we all know Hollywood's a young person's game, and while that might be changing to be more inclusive, I saw just enough of The Idol to know it's still generally true. And Hollywood is a heightened, glitzy reflection in many ways of society. It's easy to dismiss us as we age. Therefore, I'm willing to bet he's fighting a war on agism. whether it's real or in his own mind.

Then there's the "we really need to take the keys from grandma" scenario where someone actually does reach a limit to what they are capable of, physically or mentally, but refuses to concede to it.

In my mind, they're two separate situations. And we don't need to talk about the latter situation yet. I am not there personally, although I'll admit I might be slower or it might be tougher to do some things I once did without a second thought. I'm still able to drive.  I'm still able to mow the lawn (takes a while, but then again it's on a slope, so cut me some slack). I can sling a 50 lb bag of dog food but it seems to have gained a few pounds over the years. I ride my Peloton five days a week. I get my steps in.  As a matter of fact I'll go ahead and declare myself in better shape than I was 20 years ago, but that is because I'm more or less doing the opposite of Tom Cruise when it comes to my career...I don't want to prove anything to anyone about what I'm capable of.  I just want to finally live a work-life balance which allows me time to get up from this desk for more than getting a precious few hours of sleep.  I've done the professional version of jumping a motorcycle off a cliff in the past and my family paid a hefty price for that.  I am tired, but it's not because of my age. Like Indiana Jones famously said, "...it's the mileage."

I'm more than willing to do my job and try to do it well. What I don't want to do is stay at the office for 36-straight hours, as I once did, catching a couple of hours of sleep on the very, very hard office floor.  I'm not sure I did anyone any favors when I did stunts like that actually. I want to work smarter not harder. (Notice I said I "want" to - not ready to claim I do so.)

So okay fine, right? Tom Cruise wants to risk life and limb. I don't.  Vive la difference, bon? Well that's where I worry, and what I'm truly pondering when I spend brain cells wondering at that stunt: is it okay? Or do each of us "over a certain age" carry the burden of every other older worker to prove all of us belong and can contribute in the workplace?

I spent a lot of my younger years working under the shadow of my father who came of age in the Depression and prized and taught the value of hard work. He was always acting as though we were one step away from financial disaster. For a while in our lives, I think that might have been true, but he managed to steer us through it intact, so I learned the lesson that he was right: a career is a duel to the death. You're fighting against others who want your place, and you're fighting against the wolves at the door.  The one who works hardest prevails.  Hard work is what you do to protect your family. I thought that was right at the time.

I also always felt I carried the weight of expectations from those women who battled to open doors for my generation. All the "bra burners" who came of age just before me and fought for equal rights for women and equal pay for equal work (which we still don't have). I felt compelled to work hard to show the world those women were right: we are equal, if not often better in many cases, than our male counterparts and deserve to play with the big boys. Even with children in tow. Anyone remember this commercial?

It's no wonder I'm tired: that's a lot of weight to carry around.

Now do I also have to constantly prove myself to be a bit better, able to work a bit longer and press to contribute bigger ideas for the benefit of all my older peers too? 

Because I don't want to frankly. I want to go on a walk with my dog right now. But that's just me.  How do you feel about your place in the work world? Or, if you're retired, did you feel like that was your choice and were you ready?

The Once and Future Me (or Never Say Never)

I'm not sure - maybe you can tell me - if children spend as much time contemplating growing old as I did.  I hope not actually.  For me, it was more or less inevitable. I grew up with older parents who had friends that were their age or even older. All my peers had parents who grew up during the dawn of rock and roll. I remember being dazzled by one mom because she'd seen Elvis in concert. Another dad introduced me to The Moody Blues, which would be a powerful force in my life until many years later Rush knocked them out of first place in my heart. My parents danced to Guy Lombardo. Of course times post-war changed quickly so in reality, as I look back, not that many years separated my parents and those of my friends, but to me it seemed like a lifetime.

I spent a lot of time around adults who seemed worldly wise. Some I did consider old, and a few were retired already, although at least once such was wealthy so I don't think that was as much age as circumstance. Almost all of my parent's friends had grown children so I would tag along their social circle and soak up their conversations. Many of them were so kind to come and talk to me like I was a small adult. The wealthy gentleman would read Edgar Allan Poe to me. He gave me the volume of Poe's stories and poems on the shelf right outside this room. I remember another couple who were attending one of my mother's dinner parties coming into my room after I'd been relegated there for "bedtime" and sitting with me to tell me about seeing Camelot on Broadway.  I thought adulthood was a magical place that I very much wanted to be a part of.  In that, I'm sure I'm not alone.

(The magic crashed one year when I watched as my dad had the dining table full of paperwork working to organize it for his tax accountant.  I remember very clearly telling him that I thought remaining a child was preferable and I wasn't in a hurry to grow up and have to do that kind of work.  He looked up from the papers he was holding, a small amused smile on his face and nodded.)

But my mother, who will loom large over many entries in this blog, was the most influential person who caused me to both think about growing older and forming opinions about it.  Dad? Dad would bow to his age eventually, but for the time I lived at home, he just was. Sort of eternal and never changing. If he thought about growing old he kept it to himself.  The only time there was any mention of aging in relation to my dad was when people would unwisely accuse him of dying his hair, which remained a deep black nearly all his life. That he would bow to an egotistical act such as that enraged him. 

Mom on the other hand did think a lot about getting older and had some very strong opinions on the subject. I would listen and, also being an opinionated little thing, formed a list of things I would never do as I grew older:

I would never wear my hair in a pinwheel or bouffant style. 

Geddy Images

I noticed all my mother's friends wore the exact same hairstyle, and I knew, from watching my mother, it was high maintenance. I never wanted to be a cookie cutter version of anyone else, and I definitely didn't want to be a slave to curlers.

L'Oréal Paris

 

Now, completely immune to any sense of irony, I very much wanted to wear my hair in a "flip up" style and cajoled Mother into trying all kinds of things to make it work, but my hair was too heavy and wavy and that never was a dream realized.

I would wear my hair long to my grave.

Sort of related to the first point, but more a reaction to my mother's rants every time a specific L'Oréal commercial came on as she watched General Hospital I decided I'd never be anything but a natural when it came to my hair. The offensive commercial featured an "older" model (I read an article about her, she was in her 40's at the time and yes, sadly, that was considered over the hill for a model and she was one of very few who was still working consistently at her age) with stunning shoulder length hair and the famous tagline "because I'm worth it". My mother never failed to say, "She's too old to wear her hair that long." I wore hair past my waist much of my young life, so I decided right then and there I'd show my mother, never cut it, and just wear it up in a bun when I was older.  I just got my hair cut well above my shoulders.

I would never dye my hair.

Farrah Fawcett

Despite thinking that the L'Oréal model had a shock of gorgeous hair, I was very determined never to dye mine.  We all know from my inaugural post what became of that lofty goal.  But this determination, which was a total judgy one I fully admit, was because I had a chip on my shoulder about being a brunette. In the 60's and into the 70's blonde was the super power color. There was Twiggy and Goldie Hawn, giving way to Cheryl Ladd and the most powerful of all: Farrah Fawcett. Sure there was a brunette Charlie's Angel, but she was the "smart" one, not the beautiful one. I was very protective of being a brunette and the Celtic legacy it represented as a result.  Blondes may have more fun, as the saying went, and gentlemen might prefer them, but I was proud to be a Celt with my red-tinted brown hair.  Take that, Marilyn Monroe.

So when my mother pulled out the old photos albums one day and I saw her as a younger woman with dark hair, I was sure she was a traitor to that cause. I never remember my mother as a brunette. To my memory she was always a blonde. Ash Blonde by none other than L'Oréal to be precise. I'm quite sure she'd started coloring it to avoid the gray, but to my young mind she was trying to conform to society's declaration that blonde was better, and I wasn't having it. Of all my lofty opinions about how I would live my life, that was number one with a bullet. Like I said, we all know how that turned out.

There were plenty of others: I would never drive a big car.  I added that to the list when a widowed friend of my parents drove up to where we were camping to show us her new car, which was a boat of a thing for that little woman. Everyone ooh'ed and aw'ed over it, and I just wondered why anyone needed a car that huge. That one's pretty much stuck. I drive a Forester, which is suited to hauling dogs. I'll never change other than to upgrade to an Outback to haul more dogs.

I scoffed at plastic surgery, which I still am leery of but with enough money probably would do.

I said I'd never be stuck in my opinions about music and be open to new music always. Yeah, well, my radio dial stopped at 2012, the year the last Rush album came out.

In short, if faced with my younger self and able to tell her anything about life, one thing that would be on the list is never say never. Accept who you are but accept that who you become will probably be different. And that's okay. But more to the point, don't cast aspersions on what others choose to do because you might very well find you'll be choosing to do the same things some 40 years down the road too, and that road is shorter than it looks.