Well, we finally did it.  My older daughter and I visited my mother.

I think I’ll need a few days to recover. :-D

I’m glad we finally did it, but gosh, it can be exhausting.  I know a lot of it has to do with aging, and most likely an un-diagnosed mental illness, but even knowing and expecting it doesn’t make it any easier.

She did, at least, enjoy the photos I printed off for her, and my daughter was able to get her laptop to stop trying to upload updates and telling her she wasn’t connected to the internet enough to show the rest.  I’m glad I included more than just the deer.  She was surprised by some of the birds, saying she hadn’t seen them before.

Some parts of the conversation went okay, then things would suddenly go off the deep end, and it would take us a while to either figure out what she was meaning to say, or redirect away from some really… wrong… things she was saying.  Unfortunately, racism is one of the things that has gotten worse as she has gotten older (she seems to have forgotten completely that her granddaughters are Métis) as well as bigotry in general.    She also was surprised that the girls are not teenagers anymore.  When we mentioned that my older was turning 25 tomorrow, her immediate response was, why aren’t you married?  Then she turned to me, asking, didn’t I want grandchildren?  As if I had anything to do with it! :-D  What can you say to that?

A lot of energy was spent trying to explain things to her in ways she could understand, such as the fact that my older daughter is working from home, that people actually pay her to make art for them, and that it’s all done online.  She was more interested in knowing how much my daughter made. :-/  No, Mom, you are not entitled to know anyone else’s financial information.

What started out as a pretty good visit did eventually devolve completely, and we got up to leave, but I was trapped by her in her chair, and she wasn’t going to move until she finished telling her story that we made clear we didn’t want to hear.  Finally, she did move, and we left.

The sad thing is, this was actually a good visit.

My mother is an amazing person.  A strong person.  A survivor who lived through wartime trauma that has literally driven others completely insane.   On her good days, she can be so amazingly kind and giving, and very intelligent.  I very rarely saw that person; by the time I was born, there wasn’t much of that person left.  I have a few memories of what she could be like, and I hang on to those to remind myself that this was the real her, and what I’m seeing when she gets like this is part of her illness.

It is very draining.

But what can you do?  We just deal with how she is at the moment, appreciate her good days, and try to be patient with her bad days.  I filled in my older brother about the visit, and we ended up talking on the phone for over an hour.  What I had described to him in an email, he says is pretty much like every visit he has with her – and as her power of attorney, he has to make the trip out a lot!  So we got to share stories, and that helped, too.

It is what it is.  As my dad used to say, “can’t complain.  It won’t fix anything, anyway.”

It sure felt good to get home, that’s for sure!  Especially to find a grouse making its way through the yard as a welcome.

I even managed to get a few bird pictures when I got back.  It was funny to see the redpolls all over Eunice the Scary Snowman, who has completely lost her face.  I missed seeing any deer, though when I went to get the memory card to upload the few photos I did take, I startled a couple of deer that were outside in the dark, barely visible in the light from the living room.

Oddly, when we went out to feed the cats before we left, we didn’t see a single one.  Even when we got home, there were no cats around the yard.  Usually, we see at least a couple!  I guess they’re taking advantage of the warmer weather, and going farther afield.

Oh, I also got to talk to my brother about our findings under the dresser.  We tried to figure out how many years it’s been there, and they tried to remember when the dresser showed up in that corner, and who could have put it there, since neither of my parents would have been able to move that dresser themselves.

The good thing is, our own litter box is now in that spot, and I was able to clean and disinfect the corner in the dining room it has been in for the past few months.

Oh, how good it feels to see that corner clear!  I might even try and open the door again, just because I can.

Then block it with the pile of stuff currently against the wall, waiting to go into storage, to free up a high traffic area.

I’m really looking forward to when we can continue moving my parents’ things out again!

And hopefully, there will be no more messy mysteries.

Oh, who am I kidding.  I know there will be! :-D

The Re-Farmer