Knuckle Update

To update the knuckle is to update myself. Helping my mother, with whom I have always had the hardest, tightest, most resistent of relationships with has changed me utterly. Changed my, as a former shrink would say, paradigm. Helping her has made me love her.

I am exhausted by the insurance runaround. Worried about the money. Scared stiff that I'll end up in worse circumstances (with no daughters or daughter-in-law, or son) how can I not be. But comforted when, on a bad day, it is my sister who plants her ass in the doctor's office (taking time from the time she took to drive down from St. Louis and, with her S.O., clean the house of old food and beanie babies) and argue for the physical therapy prescription. (How why this isn't going more smoothly has to do with contracted services filling out forms in ways that others don't want them filled out or sending nurse's notes that other nurses, in bad moods that day, don't want to deal with...stupid human tricks). ohgodwherewasi?

It felt so good that Janeann was dealing with them for one day. And then guilty that she was doing my job and hers. and how grateful I am that she can do the house stuff that I could never do.

And how grateful that Deborah is there with soup and gentle nagging (did you drink water today? how much water did you drink today?).

And what a strange balloon of peace there is to feel love instead of that old resentment. Love is melting.

Knuckle Update

Knuckle Update, or Why 700 Years of Irish Resistance Training Can't Be All Bad

Less than a month after spending two days on the floor of her bedroom, the Knuckle is now fully hydrated, eating better than ever, doing her therapy like a good girl, bitching about her hilariously foul-mouthed roommate who bogarts the air conditioner controls AND the TV remote, and playing her daughters and daughter-in-law like the ladies-in-waiting she secretly thinks we are.
Here’s a conundrum that, like parenting, is something only those with experience should comment on. Given that the woman does not want to move to the indie section of an ALF (or any other section), and is totally capable of a sit-down strike, do we move her basic furniture first and then whisk her into the new digs before taking her on a visit to the old house for some hand picking of her other things, or do we spend a day or two with her in the old house packing around her and letting her “choose” which items to move and then rent a giant crowbar to get her out?
Given the time constraints we’ll all be under, the former has a certain efficient, if ruthless, charm. Given the golden rule, the latter does offer a kind of purgatorial discount. I mean, we’re all going to hell anyway, why make it worse if not to assuage the collective conscience by doing what seems so right, so respectful, so soothing to our audience of friends and well-wishers?