The Mom Report

I did it. I went to see my mom. It wasn't horrible. Her caregiver had told her I was coming the day before. She doesn't know who I am, but when the caregiver tells her that I live up the hill, she knows she's been to my house. The sofa is right next to the bed, so I sat there and held her hand. She said "What's new?" and of course I can't tell her because she is hard of hearing and hard of understanding. I showed her pictures of cats and she liked that.

I have really missed our caregiver and we had a really long hug. She's the best. She has *such* high standards for my mom's care and for what my mom gets for the money at the place where she lives. She told me one of her really long stories. Remember when we were interrupted once about 20 minutes into an engrossing story where she had just said "Nobody gives you a goat for nothing"? It was kinda like that.

The regular team of caregivers is a mother and daughter. Then the daughter's sister-in-law came over from Hawaii to help. She and her teenaged son lived with the daughter. She had a horrible abusive husband back in Hawaii who everybody in the family hated and wished she'd divorce.

Toward the end of the time the third lady was working for us she had really terrible health problems. Sounded like endometriosis or something. It would regularly cause her to stay home or go to the doctor or ER. Pretty devastating stuff that was life changing for her and for the family and for my family. Everybody was concerned, but luckily she was going to have surgery this year and get it taken care of. She hasn't worked for us for several years now, but she had clients in the building where my mom lives and I'd hear about how she was doing.

Fast forward to this week. I was asking about the daughter, and our caregiver started talking about the third lady. I heard that she'd gotten married, and that sounded like a good thing. I also see that either she or her new husband looks me up on Facebook, because they're suggested as friends. Anyhoo, the story goes like this: our former caregiver comes to the daughter one night, crying. She says I'm getting married. The daughter asks a bunch of questions, because as far as she knows there is no boyfriend, definitely a current husband, and what the heck? She says "You better tell my mom".

In her community our main caregiver is a person of substantial standing. She's the head of her family line, and everybody knows her. The idea that this side-relative, who everybody else at church knows, is getting married and there has been no preamble makes it look as if our caregiver's been hiding this knowledge. And once the daughter has shared with her that the relative is getting married, our caregiver senses what's up. So she sets a trap to get the woman to confess. She was over at her daughter's house after work, sitting at the dining table and eating dinner. She calls over to the woman: "Come have some dinner with me and we'll talk," she says. The lady keeps folding her laundry in her bedroom and says thanks but no. "Come get a bowl. There's plenty," she says. Then she encourages her to have a second bowl. The woman starts to cry. "Why are you crying? Is there something that my family has done to hurt you? What is wrong"? In the telling of this she seems to be saying this in all sincerity (also cause that's the person she is). "I'm getting married tomorrow". "Whaaaaat?"

The woman tries not to tell our caregiver the name of her future husband. She tells her the name of the father, who lives in Salt Lake City. Our caregiver knows him and figures out who the son is. He has eight children. And more than that our caregiver has figured out that all of the times she went to the doctor and the ER and was sick and maybe was going to have surgery (which was mysteriously canceled) she was with this guy. All of the extra shifts that those guys worked to fill in for the woman and times when we all jumped to rearrange schedules -- that was because she was lying to her family and my family about what was happening. Argh. Nothing to be done about it but I feel bad for our caregivers being lied to. Our primary caregiver also a son and he, too, would kindly rearrange his life around this woman. There's more to the story, but the punch line was that her new husband mopped the floor and then they both skipped town when rent was due.

At this point in the story a PAL (caregiver who works for the Facility) came to give my mom a shower and I pounced on the opportunity to leave. I kissed my mom on the cheek and she smiled.

Nobody gives you a goat for no reason.