Where Is Everybody?

The month of May wound down with a good friend from high school returning to the area for an eight day visit. He talked about doing some fun things like going out to a bar or nightclub, attending a concert, hiking a trail in New Hampshire and treating my mother and me to a nice dinner at a local steakhouse but I knew not to get my hopes up. Experience showed that despite his best intentions, plans often got derailed by the demands of others and I'd be lucky to hang out with him for just a few hours.

While my friend might believe a week off from work should best be spent visiting loved-ones and relaxing, his elderly father views vacation time as a chance to put his son to work fixing longstanding problems around the house usually caused by deferred maintenance. Two days into this year's trip, my friend did drive up to New Hampshire to see some of his relatives but that only caused his dad to grumble, “He wastes time running around when he's supposed to be here for me.” It's pretty astonishing to hear a parent declare so bluntly that he's entitled to all of his son's free time. My friend is stressed enough dealing with a marriage that's on the rocks and a special needs son. Now he has to give up his whole vacation to be a handyman?

Unfortunately, my friend's dad is bad with money and instead of building up an emergency fund to maintain the house, he buys DVDs, collectible coins and other frivolous trinkets. After being forced into an early retirement many years ago, he refused to get a part time job to make ends meet and incurred a lot of credit card debt. Now with each visit, he expects his son to pay for everything and being a good son, my friend reluctantly complies whether it's to replace a 70 year old mattress or a set of worn out tires.

By day five of his vacation, I suggested attending a nearby restaurant's trivia night but after spending much of the day running errands with his dad and son, my friend was too tired. He decided to stay put and grill up some steaks but his dad forgot to buy charcoal briquettes. I grabbed a half empty bag of Kingsford from our basement and dropped it off. We did get together later that night for about two hours but had to put up with his dad's television viewing choices which included terrible episodes of NCIS and NCIS: Origins.

When I returned the next night, my friend and I looked online for something to do because he was eager to get out of the house for a while. Of course, the tavern I suggested which was famous for local music didn't have any performances scheduled. Other restaurants and bars we looked up closed in less than an hour. I mentioned mini golf but there wasn't anything nearby. It was now after 9 PM so we decided to drive to Salem, MA and see what we could find.

Granted, it was a Thursday but for a “happening” city, the streets were pretty quiet. We drove by one bar but the crowd inside was definitely college-aged. Feeling a bit nostalgic, we then traveled to the Salem Willows but the place was dead. There's nothing so inviting than businesses locked up tight with metal shutters. I turned the car around and after driving down Derby Street, we noticed Bit Bar. I explained to my friend that it was a bar featuring many vintage arcade games. The place's concept seemed to have a nerdy cool vibe so we decided to check it out.

I had warned my friend that the bar scene in greater Boston left much to be desired and this place did not disappoint. The handful of patrons skewed too young and their fashions were so casual, I felt overdressed wearing a nice collared shirt. On stage, an overweight couple belted out an annoying karaoke song. One entire room full of arcade games was empty except for a lone guy playing. This was why I just didn't go out all that often. After a very short time, we decided to leave. The hostess told us to have a goodnight and once we were outside, I joked to my friend, “Thank you. I won't.”

Despite all the talk of how trendy some suburbs of Boston are, most of them are overrated. I told my friend about a YouTube video where a single woman decided to patronize different restaurants in my hometown each night of the week. She mostly wound up talking to couples and didn't meet anyone she wanted to date. That sounded about right.

We then walked around the city hoping to find something to do but all we encountered were empty streets. I told him it reminded me of The Twilight Zone episode Where Is Everybody? We eventually walked back to the car feeling defeated. I complained about how people in this part of the country lauded diversity but it was a failure of diversity when you couldn't find anyone else with similar sensibilities and tastes. My friend wasn't too keen to return to his dad's house so we closed out the night by aimlessly driving around the winding streets of Marblehead. I loved catching up with him but the scene outside the car was yet another portrait of isolation.

The next day, my friend planned to visit Cape Cod with his dad and son to make good on a 2017 trip that had been thwarted by a blowout on the highway due to the junky condition of his dad's car. I had been a passenger back then because my mother encouraged me to go but this time around, her growing health problems prevented me from tagging along.

On the morning of his last day here, we all went to breakfast and my mother and I treated everyone. Then my friend scrambled to finish a few projects for his dad before leaving for the airport. I was even drafted to finish up a few of these tasks which included dropping off a package that had been accidentally delivered to the house back in December. The dad's social anxiety prevented him from driving to the correct address to drop it off.

As expected, it was another vacation filled with lofty plans that gave way to a parent's demands and the one night I really needed to find something fun to do only led to dead ends and empty streets.

A Hand Not A Handout

Last month, our local newspaper printed an editorial pitching a caregiver tax credit. They ominously stated that there was “a reckoning coming” because the state's (and country's) population was growing older and with increased longevity came higher levels of infirmity. Older residents required more medical care as well as more help with daily living and in the vast majority of cases, that care fell on family members.

The editorial further stated that the emotional, physical and financial burden of providing that care was weighing heavily on generations of residents. As a caregiver for my elderly mother, I can certainly confirm that fact. In the past year, my mother's chronic pain has only gotten worse and doctors offer few realistic solutions to improve her quality of life. As a result, I have to spend more and more time staying home to care for her instead of having a life of my own. Then there are the many trips to the emergency room that last for hours on end.

My mother always goes to bed late but is an early riser so I might get four hours of sleep and that causes fatigue for most of the day. She's very bored with life and instead of working on her hobbies or doing something productive, she'll just sit in front of the television. Lately, my mom asks to tag along whenever I run errands just so she can get out of the house. The trouble is, she sometimes suggests going to a restaurant or store during our trip so I'll have to spend money unexpectedly. I do all the cooking and cleaning around the house and this year, I've had to manage her finances because she kept making mistakes in her check book. My parents were never that great with investing their money and my mother is still burdened by a large equity loan they never should have taken out in the first place.

Needless to say, all this leaves me very little free time. I last got together with friends four months ago and whenever I'm away from my mother for long, worry sets in because she's a fall risk. While my brother enjoys being married and raising a family, I'm treated to hearing my mom cry out in pain at all hours of the day and night. For her birthday, I took her out to a nice restaurant while my brother just gave her a phone call. Yes, caregiving does have quite a lot of burdens that average people never even think about.

The editorial also mentioned caregiving's cost to employers by making the case that many people wind up having to quit their jobs to care for a family member and that can cost businesses productivity especially when they lose great workers. At my job, the higher-ups could care less about us because they think we're all replaceable no matter how productive and efficient we are. They have no problem seeing good workers walk out the door because they can always hire a goof-off for less money. Since the company is owned by a private equity firm, the short term bottom line is far more important than retaining dedicated employees who ultimately save the company money in the long term.

At the crux of the editorial is a proposed tax credit for $1,500 and a respite voucher for another $1,500. They admit that's not a lot of money but say it could go a long way for the people who need it most. Actually, that kind of money is insulting because it really doesn't do much to alleviate the real cost of caregiving but legislators often propose measures that don't measure up. The real issue is how much of our hard-earned money we lose in taxes to begin with.

When looking at my old pay stubs, 2020 was my best year by far. For a few months during Covid, our company gave us hazard pay and since our industry was deemed essential, we could work any hours we wanted to. I'd routinely work 11 hour shifts 6 days a week and the overtime bumped my measly hourly wage up to something that was more respectable. Unfortunately, all that extra money meant my taxes went up too and since I was single with no dependents, the government taxed me into poverty. It was money I could've used to buy a new roof for the house or a new car or to get my mom a stair lift. What our legislators propose for caregivers certainly doesn't buy any of those things but buzz words like “tax credits” and “relief vouchers” sound positive and it gives the citizenry the impression that our state is doing something.

An AARP study cited in the editorial claimed most residents support the tax credits and relief vouchers along with paying spouse caregivers. Once again, singles don't rate as important as married folks. For now, the proposal is stuck in committee but instead of a handout, what I need the most is a helping hand. In light of that, how about the state of Massachusetts allow me to keep more of my money and let me decide how best to be a caregiver?

The School of Procrastination

I think how your family approaches life in your childhood can set the tone for your adulthood later on. While some parents demand excellence in all endeavors, others may let things slide. My mother and father came from humble backgrounds and even though they never ventured too far from being average people, they always tried to nurture my creativity and instill strong moral values. One weak spot that I've been thinking about this past year has been my parents' tendency to procrastinate.

Sometime in the spring, my mother thought about transcribing all of her illegible hand-written recipes so my brother and I would have them. Since she's not tech savvy, she wanted me to get the old electric typewriter out of storage. The machine hadn't been used in a couple of decades so by now the ribbons were bone dry. Did anyone sell replacements in this day and age? I made a trip to a nearby office supply store only to discover that yes, they still sold ribbons but they were out of stock. Now my mother obsessed about getting her typewriter working again. Every few days, she'd nag me to check out different stores and when I did, they either didn't sell them or they were out of stock. We finally had to order them online.

After installing the replacement ribbons, I got some paper and tried to test the typewriter out. Nothing happened when I pressed the keys so then I had to search the internet to identify the problem. Thankfully, there were some typewriter enthusiasts out there on Youtube who suspected a broken drive belt. I opened up the bottom to find the dried rubber drive belt crumbled into small pieces. These Youtube experts recommended using o-rings as a substitute so after doing my best to take some measurements, I headed to the local hardware store. They had a nice stock of Culligan o-rings for water filters that were packaged in plastic bags which made it difficult to tell if it would be an exact fit. Thankfully, the o-ring I purchased fit nicely on the typewriter and it started working once again after a long slumber.

So after being badgered for months to get the typewriter working again, what happens? It continues to sit on the kitchen table unused as of this writing. I think my mother's chronic pain partly explains her inability to type out those recipes but looking back at our family history, I think it's more than that. What about on her “good days” when the pain isn't as bad?

Procrastination always seemed to be part of our family and I wonder if some people have a genetic predisposition toward it. I recall her buying a Juice Man blender years ago in an attempt to embrace a healthier lifestyle. The machine was only used once and then it sat in the cabinet collecting dust along with a whole host of other pristine kitchen gadgets that were going to change our lives. 

My dad, having grown up during The Great Depression, would never throw anything away and a result, he'd hold onto broken or useless items that he pledged to fix later...but it was a “later” that never came. Even worse is when he'd see something in someone else's trash and take it home with him. He passed away over ten years ago and I still haven't cleaned out all his junk from the attic and basement yet.

I see a vein of procrastination running through my life too and try to do my best to overcome it with mixed results. During my school years, I was envious of the kids who always started projects and homework right away but I could never muster up enough ambition to follow their lead. In high school, I once joked to a friend, “I could do that assignment now but I get such a rush finishing it at the last minute.” Sometimes I wonder how different my life would be if I had one of those “Tiger Moms” for a parent.

When I was unemployed several years ago, I actually made great strides in cleaning and organizing the house but having a 3rd shift job has all but killed my free time. I sleep away most of the daylight hours and when I wake up, I'm exhausted. In the few hours before work, I don't have the energy to do much of anything. Then on my days off, I might tackle one of the many projects around the house but more often than not, I can't transition back to being a day person and wind up tossing and turning all night. For many years, my father worked the night shift and I have a new-found respect for him.

Thankfully, there are some things I refuse to let fall by the wayside. All of my financial documents are organized with hanging files which is a far cry from my mother's system of throwing her bills and statements into a brown grocery bag. The thousands of photos I've taken over the years are neatly organized by subject and I've been making some progress trying to get rid of the unwanted clutter in my room. Unfortunately, doing nothing is always easier and fighting that urge to put something off for later is so very difficult.

Putting in that extra effort at the beginning of a process saves a lot of time and energy in the long run but what's most important is that you follow through and see things to the end. It's a lesson I wish my parents embraced a long time ago. Meanwhile, an unused typewriter continues to sit on the kitchen table...

Her Bad Day Is Mine Too

One long and drawn out caregiver folly that comes to mind was when my mother lost her handmade needlepoint eyeglass case that featured a butterfly design against a blue background.  It was something she made a long time ago and it held a lot of sentimental value.

On a random weekend a few years ago, she couldn't find the eyeglass case so she asked me to look around her bedroom for her.  She usually put the case at the foot of the bed so perhaps it fell off and landed on the floor.  I got out the flashlight, got on my hands and knees and searched in vain.  After we spent some more time looking around the house and in the car, she wondered if the case had accidentally fallen into the small trash barrel that was by her bed.  Now her anxiety turned into frustration because I had just taken out the trash the day before and if her theory was correct, the case was now long gone.  However, I didn't recall seeing it among the trash when I emptied the barrel.  Surely even in my zoned-out state of mind, the eyeglass case would have caught my attention.  But where was it?

She was convinced it had been thrown out in the trash and now she was having a bad day.  As a caregiver, when the person you care for has a bad day, you have a bad day.  This is partly due to the sympathy you have for their awful predicament but sometimes it's because they are in such a foul mood, it rubs off on you.

Soon, I found myself searching online for what happens if something of value is thrown out in the trash.  Turns out, the trash company can look for an item at the transfer station if you call them and narrow the search by giving them the truck's route and time of pickup BUT such a search needs to be done within 24 hours.  Unfortunately, it was too late for my mother's eyeglass case if it had indeed been lost in the trash.  Still, part of me felt it hadn't.  

        
I tried to calm my mother down by saying there really wasn't anything that could be done right now.  If the eyeglass case had been accidentally thrown out, it was gone for good and no amount of complaining could bring it back.  If it was lost somewhere inside the house, it would eventually turn up somehow.  Well, that wasn't good enough and she continued to be miserable.  She got on my nerves and I found myself repeating the words she used to tell me as a child: "If you have something nice, you have to take better care of it."  I thought it was foolish of her to place the eyeglass case so close to a trash barrel.

 
After a few days, she resigned herself to the notion that it was gone forever and visited the needlepoint store to look for a new canvas.  Unfortunately, they didn't have any good patters in stock for making another eyeglass case so she left empty-handed and feeling dejected. 

A couple of weeks passed and then one night I heard her give out a yell from downstairs.  While in the bathroom, she had grabbed a towel from the linen closet and out fell the needlepoint eyeglass case.  Apparently, she had been folding the laundry on her bed at the beginning of the month and unbeknownst to her, the case was accidentally folded into one of the bathroom towels.  My overjoyed mother said,  "My prayers to St. Anthony were answered.  He has never let me down.  He may take his time, but he has always come through for me."  Now every time I take out the trash, I make sure to check her barrel a little more carefully to make sure only trash is being thrown away.

I'm glad things worked out for my mother this time around but the story of her eyeglass case shows how quickly a caregiver can go from having a nice day to dealing with sudden catastrophes.  I find myself always on guard for the latest crisis and that's a mindset that doesn't offer much peace of mind.

Caregiver Follies

I posted this subject to the Catholic Match forums last year and it was very well-received. While caring for my elderly mother, I noticed in the sea of typical struggles, certain difficulties that most people probably wouldn't even think of unless they walked a mile in my shoes. The following is a list of some of those funny and not so funny observations: 

* One pleasure in my down time that's become rare is listening to music with headphones on because if I'm upstairs in my room, I need to be able to hear my mother's cries for help if she needs something. I swear the record companies add the sound of her voice or the noise of a ringing telephone to the background of their songs because there have been many times when I think I hear those things but it turns out to be a false alarm.

* I have become a bathroom guard for those single occupancy ladies rooms since my mother doesn't want to lock door behind her just in case she falls and needs help. If that doesn't make me look like a creeper sometimes...

* My mother needs glasses to read but she will often forget to bring them along when we go out to eat and I have to read the full menu to her...loudly at times because of her hearing trouble.

* Lately, I have been finding plates or silverware that my mother washed still with bits of dried food attached because she somehow "missed a spot." 

* I will check to see what she is wearing for the day so I don't pick out an outfit with the same color palette hoping to avoid looking like those couples who dress alike.

* Sometimes she hides her medical issues because she doesn't want to worry me but I get really worried when after three days of suffering, she blurts out, “Take me to the ER. I can't it anymore.” 

* She talks to the TV during Family Feud and when I'm upstairs I will sometimes hear her yell things like, “That's an ugly suit!” or “No, you idiot!” She will sometimes answer the survey questions but I can't hear the questions: “Cows!” “Beach ball!” “Your oven!” “Mexico!”

* When I come home from my third shift job, I walk by her bedroom and listen to hear if she is still breathing.

* She no longer drives but she is an expert backseat driver.

* When I hear my mother yell, "Something's wrong with the television" I always have to fix the problem which is something usually minor like she accidentally pressed the aspect ratio button or the closed captioning button which is right next to the on/off switch.  Technology baffles her.  

* When I'm sleeping after a hard night at work, she'll often ask me from downstairs “Are you asleep?” so loudly that it wakes me up. “Not anymore!” is my typical response.

* When I am sick and just want to sleep, she keeps asking me questions about every twenty minutes: "Is your throat still sore?"  "Do you want to go to the Minute Clinic?"

* To prevent hypoglycemia, she always puts Lifesavers mints in her pockets but it's amazing how these things tend to show up around all around the house: in drawers, in cabinets, under furniture.

* Before doing the laundry, I always have to check the pockets of my mother's clothes for the previously mentioned Lifesavers mints and the large amount of tissues she likes to carry with her. 

* She craves attention so whenever a repairman comes to the house, she likes to talk his ear off. What's worse is when she touches on a hot topic like Trump or immigration.

* She asks the doctor who emigrated from Russia, "What do you think of Mr. Putin?"

* My mother will get frustrated with other old people and she's at that stage in life where she will tell them off. Before one Palm Sunday Mass, an elderly woman was talking her time to pick through the palms and my mother actually said, “Are you going to be there all day?!”

* Despite the fact that my mother is almost 86 years old, she doesn't want to use a walker because according to her, those are for old people.

* In fact, she doesn't want to associate with people her own age because in her words "they are a bunch of old farts who complain about pain all the time."

* When I do get into an argument with her, my mother has no trouble pulling out the old age card and simply says, “Why don't I just drop dead?”

* My mother always uses the speaker phone function so the sound of dialing brings me a feeling of dread because she calls so many doctors due to her failing health. Also, one of the doctors' offices plays bad smooth jazz music when they put her on hold...often for a very long time.

* While dining out, she sometimes comments on the poor fashion choices of the other patrons: “Is she for real?!” “They're not leaving anything to the imagination, are they?”

* My mother has the uncanny ability to yell a question to me from downstairs during the most dramatic part of a TV show or movie.

* Even though I am half a century old, she still worries when I leave the house. I will hear her say, “Drive carefully” and she will sometimes insist that I call her when I am ready to head back home.

* During one trip to the bank, I decided to make a long side trip down a country road just to clear my mind for a while. I came back home to see her in tears because she thought my unexpected delay might have been caused by a car accident.

* My mother doesn't understand that when I yell out of frustration at other drivers or at other people or about my life in general, I am not yelling at her.

* Hearing the sound of her pain pills rattling around in the plastic bottle brings anxiety because that means she's in pain and needs to take another dose.

* When my mother yells for help from downstairs and it sounds like a huge medical emergency...only to find out it's something not as serious like when she dropped a box of toothpicks and they landed all over the floor.

* Having to raise my voice because she has trouble hearing but then she thinks I am yelling at her in anger.

* Giving me cheap career advice that is so out of left field when I tell her how unhappy I am with my current employer. “Why don't you call channel 5 and ask for a job working in TV?”

* My mother telling me that if I ever got serious with a girl, she'd be happy to sell the house and move into a small apartment by herself. Once I start dating, however, she somehow forgets that statement and begins to worry that I will abandon her.

My post generated many responses from other caregivers on CatholicMatch who shared their own interesting observations about their elderly parents. Feel free to share any of your own caregiver follies in the comments section below.