The weather has been gorgeous and I had last week off mama duty, which was great. This Saturday, however, mom and her caregiver came over for lunch. Found a new (to me) recipe from the NYT for a red lentil soup that mom and her caregiver really loved, and we had thin mint girl scout cookies and watched some online auctions. Our orchid plant in the front yard is producing flowers, and I made a bouquet to decorate the table and for mom to take home. Yay! And then other stuff was not cool at all.
She was in a mood. And from what I hear about the moods lately, the grumpy moods are more frequent. But I wish that any of the things that I do would leaven that mood. Anyhoo, when the caregiver left the table to carry away the dishes (I usually do this but maybe she wanted to get away from mom for a sec?), she came back in and mom started pounding the table. She was imitating our caregiver's footfall, and said that the caregiver was heavy and couldn't sneak around.
It makes me unhappy to hear mom be unkind to people, especially the loving people who care for her. Her behavior is awful. I took a breath and told her that her behavior was shitty, and that she is mean to people. She replied "I'm exactly the way I want to be".
Don't we all wish we were so lucky? The mom who raised me would be mortified. I guess she's just going to continue to let her fat-shaming, racist and classist freak flag fly until she dies. There isn't a thing that we can do about it, but I don't want her to hurt other people. Even before my mom lost my mind, my greatest fear about old age was that my hidden flaws would come out and I would hurt the people who care for me. Did I somehow know this was going to happen to mom?
Good times.
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