My Mother In Law - The Musical

We needed a bit of comic relief around here, so when I got the call from my mother in law I was glad that my husband was out of the house, forcing her to talk to me. As always, her message for him was urgent and required immediate action. It’s a bit obscure as to exactly how we were supposed to help, but I listened attentively. I noticed right away that she had a new favorite word, excruciating. She was in excruciating pain from her "groins to her toe". Although the doctors tell her otherwise, she knows it must be gout because of the excruciating pain. Sometimes the pain jumps from over to her other foot and it is, excruciating. I know that jumping gout is the very worse sort and I felt that if I was a good daughter in law I should offer to supply her with a few more adjectives. How about agonizing, intolerable, unbearable, unendurable, insufferable, or unspeakable? Well, I guess unspeakable might not work for her after all.

Between the news of her imminent death she related that she has a new “wheelbarrow”, which is hopefully nursing home slang for a walker with wheels. Even so, she has not been able to use it for a week because the nurses at the home have told her that she is not to "set her foot on the floor".
“Now how,” she asks me rhetorically, “am I going to go to the toilet if I can't put my foot on the floor?”
Well, I allowed as to how that would be difficult and asked if they could bring her a bedpan.
"Bedpan!" she shrikes, "Bedpans have gone out of style!" While I sat gobsmacked by this revelation she continues, "Anyway, they put one under me and the pain was (wait for it) excruciating!" She continues to talk in explanation points about the woes of her life, and indeed, the burdens of Job do not compare to all she must deal with.

Margaret is the sort of person who, upon hearing that your arm had been bitten off by a shark, would look at you in disgust and say, "Well at least your arm is gone. Mine is causing me such excruciating pain I can't even use a fork. I don't know why you don't come up here and help me eat. You don't even care if I starve to death, do you?" It wouldn't end there either. She would go on for a bit, trying to lay down as much guilt as possible while I sat there with my bloody nub. In other words, empathy is not her strong suit.

She muttered a few words about her husband, perhaps the source of her ire, as he has pretty much checked out mentally leaving her with all the responsibility for everything in the universe, which of course, contains only Margaret. It seems like he has been relegated to the “special” dining room because he is unable to eat without turning over glasses of juice and milk and dropping food. It has fallen on her shoulders to tell him the terrible news since no one else, his son for example, has any concern about him, by which she means concern for her. I told her I would be thinking about her and she ranted for a bit about the fact that I did not write and tell her so, and then she told me she had to go now and call Cousin Keith to let him know all this critical information too.

I got off the phone and started telling my daughter the story of the call. She was a bit depressed about her life when we started, but by the time I got to the wheelbarrow she was roaring with laughter. My husband came in and we continued to discuss the latest gospel according to Margaret and I made up a little song about bedpans. Everyone chimed in with additional verses and we realized we had a hit on our hands. I mean, the boomers are aging and they grew up on musicals, so a light opera set in an old folk’s home should be just the ticket. I think the title should be obvious:

BEDPANS HAVE GONE OUT OF STYLE

I’ll get back to you on casting calls.

Eye of the Storm

I sat on the front step watching the lighting storm, feeling the cool damp air pressing down on my body as I hugged my knees to my chest, thinking of my father. He loved storms as much as my mother hated them, and perversely, to annoy her, he would carry me out with him to the screened in porch to watch the wild play of light and noise. In the safety of his arms I never felt a second of fear. I thought about how I had been that rock for my children when they were young, that place of safety. Now when the pain of the world overwhelms them, I am sometimes still the shoulder they find most comforting.

My daughter often echoes back my words to her, “we come from a long line of strong women”. She had to find that place inside herself this week when the child she already loved slipped unexpectedly from her body, for no reason we can discern. She showed no emotion, wanted no comfort, but she cannot hide her hurt from me. She took many days to tell the few people who knew, but in that crazy, perhaps self-destructive way we humans have, she first called the boy, told him about the miscarriage and oh, by the way, I’m breaking up with you. The way she rationalized it to me sort of made sense, but then she’s good at sales. Personally I think her heart is broken and she lashed out (dare I say) hormonally at the nearest target.

We’re all about fresh starts this week, painting her room, tossing out clothes she no longer wears, meeting up with friends she hasn’t seen in a while. She is my first priority, but I can’t help but feel sorry for the boy who doesn’t know what hit him. I could have told him where he was going wrong but that’s not my place and anyway, he would have to have figured it out on his own if he wanted to hold my quicksilver daughter in his hand. She’s painting her room blue with gray trim and amazingly enough, she doesn’t even know why.

The life you get, the one you make

So much shit has happened to me lately and any one item could be a thousand word essay, but I have not had time to write. I know I’ve said that before, but this time I really, really mean it. Those of you who love my soap opera are going to be glued to the screen.

First a moment of silence for my friend, my daughter’s other mom, Bid Doody, who passed from this vale of sorrow last Saturday on her sixty second birthday. Words are useless to describe the hole she left in this earth when she went away, so I will not even try. My darling girl grieved in lonely silence for three days and then, with the optimism of youth, moved on with her life. She is in love again with a man who will stand by her forever. It’s a good thing too, because she is six weeks pregnant with his child. I’ll invite you all to the divorce party, the wedding, and the baby shower, in whatever order they happen to occur.

In the same week my brother was arrested for threatening to kill a police officer that told him he had to move all the junk cars from a weed filled property he owns. Now this is not something that would normally affect me, but since it has been over two years since my father died and I recently hired a lawyer to remove him as executor of the will, it becomes germane to my case. I’m thinking it will be no stretch to have him declared incompetent. Problem is I have to travel to the redneck nest that spawned me and appear in court on June 30.

Two months ago I finally had enough of enabling my 29-year-old son and told him he had to move out of the basement. He’s somewhere in Montana tonight on his way to Seattle to live with my oldest and his wife. Fortunately, they don’t have a basement, so he will have to be self-sufficient within a few months.

Tonight I raise a glass to all my friends and loved ones, those above and those below. Life makes no promises and I asked for none, so we’re even. Carpe Diem.