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October 16, 2003

Living Will and Testament

Today was a very odd morning of sorts... There were a lot of things said that don't normally get said in the first place. You know, taboo stuff...? And I wasn't really enjoying any of it.

Everything was pretty normal--at first. I was sitting at the computer before heading off to Brian's recitation (Ooh, Brian), and was about ready to type up another entry here before Mom interrupted me from her spot on the couch.

"When I get old and crazy, you'll make sure you'll put me in a nursing home, right?"

"Yeah, sure," I nodded, not looking away from the computer screen. I mean, my mother does this kind of thing all the time. She brings it up whenever she starts feeling old or funny, and it doesn't matter what the setting is. You could be eating lunch with Bill Clinton and friends at the Ritz Carlton, and she'd still bring it up. It doesn't matter. And I can understand why. All of her grandparents who became old enough got Alzheimer's and began getting funny and nuts--but nobody ever bothered putting them into any special care. Well... except for Aunt Martha who had the sense to put Grandma Alberta in a home the year before she died... I guess they thought it was insulting or something, like shelving away someone because they were diseased. But it bothered my mother because she could see that keeping them at home never solved anything, and they ended up even worse off before they died.

So since Alzheimer's runs so heavily in our family, my mother thinks she's almost sure to get it by the time she turns seventy or something. Which is why she's so hell-bent on being shipped off to a home. It's not something I like to hear, but if that's what she really wants me to do, I'll make sure it's done.

"Just make sure it's a nice one, April. I don't want to be shut up in some room all day long." Her voice was dry and tired, and it made me feel a slight twinge of depression. It just didn't feel right.

"I wouldn't put you in a crappy home, Ma. You know me better than that."

She shook her head and nodded, slipping back onto the couch before mumbling. "You know your Daddy'll probably check out of here before me...?"

I stopped typing for a moment. "Yeah.... probably." I'd thought about it before... But it was strange, because I'm usually pretty neutral when it comes to my father. I refuse to cause any trouble with him because it only gets me a thousand times more upset. The depression came back again, and I was mad that I was feeling so passive about my father dying.

"So you've gotta take care of me right, okay? Don't sit around and keep me when I'm getting bad. Put me away someplace where I can get some care."

"I promise," I told her softly, and then getting angry. "But Ma, you've gotta promise me that you won't get up in some nursing home and sit there and try and die on me. Don't stop eating and drinking and stuff, okay?"

"People do that," she shrugged, not seeming to care. I know she'd seen it before at work--there's a ton of older people who visit her practice, and a good number of them go to the Alzheimer's care center down the road.

"Yeah, but I don't want you to do that. If you want me to do what's right for you, you can't sit up there having me pay for a nursing home just so you can die on me. I don't want you doing that."

"Okay... I promise," she nodded, and then rolled back to sleep.

Things like this just make me hate being the oldest.

posted at 4:11 p.m.

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