Just hours before Pa passed away, I was talking to him, trying to reassure him that everything would be ok. I knew that he would be worried about Ma, he’d told me before when he was in the hospital, to make sure she wasn’t lonely and that she was safe. So I told him, I said he didn’t need to worry, I would take care of Ma and keep her safe and not lonely. He was no longer conscious at this point, but he was very restless and moving around, once I told him that I would take care of her, he calmed down and stopped moving. A few hours later, he passed away.

Now, I’m gonna be real with you folks here, Ma and Pa had been married just over 69 years when he died. They had a great marriage, cared immensely for each other and had been through all kinds of things together including WWII and immigrating not once, but twice within a single year, with a 10 year old son in tow. From the time I was young, we (mom, dad, me, my sister when she was old enough) all knew that when one of them died the other would be close behind. And that would be especially true if Ma died first.

With that thought in mind, we were prepared for Ma to follow fairly quickly, so I even put off taking care of some of the financial things, so that I could complete it all at once, instead of having to pay lawyers twice. My sister even came to Ontario a couple weeks after Pa passed away, thinking that it would be the last time that she saw Ma alive too. Well, lo and behold, Christmas rolls around and Ma is still living her best life. She actually came to my house for Christmas dinner with all four of my kids, the step-kid and the man…her head was spinning with the chaos, but she loved it!

For a 91 year old lady, Ma is super healthy. She only takes one little anti-depressant and Tylenol for her back pain. She does have pretty bad scoliosis, but that pain is what she takes the Tylenol for. She has a hard time getting around now, but she still manages, though I wish she would stop going up and down the two flights of stairs in her home multiple times a day. Yes, you read that right, she still lives on her own, in the home she’s been in for 40+ years. She refuses to have help other than me or her neighbors Bob and Linda. Those two are a God send for me as well. As much as I would like to be, I can’t always be there for her, so Bob and Linda are very generous at picking up my slack. The other wonderful help I have is Meals On Wheels. If you don’t know what that is, look it up, but basically it’s a bunch of volunteers that cook, prepare, package and deliver meals to people. The people who get them pay for the meals, but it’s a very low cost. Ma gets these meals Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. In my opinion, the meals are small, but Ma is rarely ever able to eat a whole one, she does eat the soup every day though. That woman loves her soup.

Ma has always loved working outside in her yard or garden. I remember when I was small, she would get so tanned that it completely changed her appearance. Pa would get angry cause she just wouldn’t come in the house. That has not changed. She is still outside all day, but at least I have convinced her to wear a hat and drink water. In the warm months, when it’s not raining, I know not to expect her to answer the phone or to call me. She’s often outside from 8am or 9am until passed dark. She told me more than once, that she loves being outside so much, and she’s out there doing her work, nothing hurts, she’s not sad or lonely and she feels like a young girl. So I figure, let her be outside all she wants. When it’s those super hot days, Bob usually goes over to chase her inside for a while so she doesn’t turn into a raisin, but she’ll sneak back out after a little while. I think having her own yard and garden is one of the main reasons that she won’t even think about going to a nursing home.

For the last year and a half, or more, I have been trying to convince her that we should sell both houses (hers and mine) and buy one together that has a little apartment for her, so she can feel like she’s on her own still. I even told her, I would make sure that the place has a ugly yard and garden and she could play out there all day, every day. She still won’t go for it. I don’t know how many different ways I’ve tried to explain to her how much easier it would be for me, and how much safer it would be for her, but she just doesn’t seem to understand or doesn’t care. I’m not the caregiver in my family, that’s my sister. I’m the one you come to when you need repairs, or things taken care of. My sister is the one that will hug you, take care of you and feed you. Ma really needs someone like my sister taking care of her and if we had a house together, at least that would be a little easier because I’d be around her all the time.

I have no desire to “put her in a home”, but I’m not going to be able to care for her alone for much longer. Even though I’m not there everyday like I would like to be, it’s still a stressful thing to be a caregiver and it does take a toll on a person after a while. I’ve tried to find a Hungarian speaking PSW, but they just don’t seem to exist. Oh yeah, did I mention that Ma thinks she doesn’t know how to speak English? Ya, so she can’t speak English, but she talks just fine with Bob and Linda, the Meals on Wheels people, and even with the doctor when I finally got her to go. So really, I think if I could find a PSW that speaks clear English with no accent, Ma would be fine, but she doesn’t believe me.

Not knowing how to do things…AKA forgetting how to do simple tasks. This is another thing that is really starting to worry me. First it was the microwave that she couldn’t work, so she uses the stove to warm things up. I’ve worried for a while, even before Pa died, that she was going to forget about the stove and burn the house down, and now it’s even worse. Next is the washer and dryer. For a while, I had to keep resetting the washer to the proper settings because she would change it, now she just leaves it alone and so can do her own washing. The dryer on the other hand, she doesn’t remember how to work, and I haven’t see one like her since I was a little kid, and I don’t remember the setting either. She only know how to switch the TV on and off, if it happens to get changed from the weather channel, she’s in a panic and saying she’s broken the TV. The latest one was the telephone, she says she doesn’t know how to answer it or how to make it call out, but I’m calling bull on that one because she called me last night to ask for lettuce. Now, I suppose that it could come and go, the remembering, but she’s always been really bad for saying she was stupid and didn’t know how to do things, so I’m thinking some of it is just her saying it out of habit.

I’m not sure if I said this before or not, but when a family is expecting a new baby, there are many resources on how to learn to care for them, how to help them develop, when to call the doctor even. Why is there nothing like that for adults that teaches us how to care for our aging parents? Even an online forum would be helpful. If you happen to know of any resources either online or in Ontario, Canada, please leave a message in the comments.

For now, I’ll just chug along with the rolls reversed.