Thursday, April 5, 2001
It's Been Raining - To LTF
When I arrived home yesterday afternoon my mother had gathered the mail, gone through it, and misplaced it. I go through the garbage now every time it's emptied to make sure I'm noticing everything. I know she has some resentment about this mail situation. I've addressed it overtly but she hasn't. Her way of dealing with it is to race me to the mailbox or lurk at the window when I'm gone and pounce upon the mail deliverer almost before she drives up to our box.
I don't see any evidence, though, that her dementia is necessarily aggressively progressive or even typical of Alzheimer's, although I keep up with the literature and know that Alzheimer's is now being taken to mean dementia-generalized. I notice many differences between my mother's dementia, though, and my aunt's and my grandmother's. I also notice the differences between my mother's dementia and my grandfather's lack of dementia at 96 a few months before he died. Sometimes I think of her dementia as willful, then I think more deeply and realize that I actually would characterize it as, rather, deliberate; not in the sense that she wants to mentally slip but that her slippage follows an eccentric path that reflects the type of woman I've known her to be. Sometimes I can predict its course under particular situations. Sometimes not.
I was, for instance, surprised to notice, as I plowed through records and schooled myself in what they meant, that she at one time not too long ago (4 years, maybe) had an acute understanding of her portfolio, directed it and I realized that maybe MFA is suffering from the loss of my mother's personal vitality in regard to her financial affairs. I stumbled across spreadsheets she had compiled including a history through 1984 and resumed in 1988 that was exactly what MA wanted and thought he was going to have to compile. Both MFA and MA were surprised that I understood and was able to find what they were hoping existed.
It's O.K. with me that they were surprised. My mother wasn't. She notices from the periphery, that I'm performing at a higher level, when I do perform, than that of which she is now capable. She appreciates it. But sometimes she forgets why I'm doing it and becomes resentful of my invasions into her mail, her health and her quality of life decisions.
The most interesting piece of information I've stumbled over in awhile was the mention, on some television program, of Styron's essay, Darkness Visible. I looked it up in the library and read it yesterday. It is dynamite. Very droll. I laughed so hard I cried, and vice versa, especially from page 43 on. My mother quizzed me about my outbursts. When I'd read her something that I could barely cite because of uncontrollable laughter-into-crying she didn't get it. She didn't laugh. I know, too, from a discussion we had many years ago, when I was not yet 16, prompted by her insistence that I not refer to myself as "despairing" but merely "discouraged", that she is immune to depression so she clearly had never been there. To appreciate this essay you have to have been there.
I was also provoked to spontaneously read sections of it out loud in order to wrap my mental tongue around the way he constructs language into meaning. It took me, with all my interruptions, maybe a few hours to read.
My mother was mystified. She did, however, graciously smile through my production; not the full display but noticeably at the corners.
The rain continues.
I don't see any evidence, though, that her dementia is necessarily aggressively progressive or even typical of Alzheimer's, although I keep up with the literature and know that Alzheimer's is now being taken to mean dementia-generalized. I notice many differences between my mother's dementia, though, and my aunt's and my grandmother's. I also notice the differences between my mother's dementia and my grandfather's lack of dementia at 96 a few months before he died. Sometimes I think of her dementia as willful, then I think more deeply and realize that I actually would characterize it as, rather, deliberate; not in the sense that she wants to mentally slip but that her slippage follows an eccentric path that reflects the type of woman I've known her to be. Sometimes I can predict its course under particular situations. Sometimes not.
I was, for instance, surprised to notice, as I plowed through records and schooled myself in what they meant, that she at one time not too long ago (4 years, maybe) had an acute understanding of her portfolio, directed it and I realized that maybe MFA is suffering from the loss of my mother's personal vitality in regard to her financial affairs. I stumbled across spreadsheets she had compiled including a history through 1984 and resumed in 1988 that was exactly what MA wanted and thought he was going to have to compile. Both MFA and MA were surprised that I understood and was able to find what they were hoping existed.
It's O.K. with me that they were surprised. My mother wasn't. She notices from the periphery, that I'm performing at a higher level, when I do perform, than that of which she is now capable. She appreciates it. But sometimes she forgets why I'm doing it and becomes resentful of my invasions into her mail, her health and her quality of life decisions.
The most interesting piece of information I've stumbled over in awhile was the mention, on some television program, of Styron's essay, Darkness Visible. I looked it up in the library and read it yesterday. It is dynamite. Very droll. I laughed so hard I cried, and vice versa, especially from page 43 on. My mother quizzed me about my outbursts. When I'd read her something that I could barely cite because of uncontrollable laughter-into-crying she didn't get it. She didn't laugh. I know, too, from a discussion we had many years ago, when I was not yet 16, prompted by her insistence that I not refer to myself as "despairing" but merely "discouraged", that she is immune to depression so she clearly had never been there. To appreciate this essay you have to have been there.
I was also provoked to spontaneously read sections of it out loud in order to wrap my mental tongue around the way he constructs language into meaning. It took me, with all my interruptions, maybe a few hours to read.
My mother was mystified. She did, however, graciously smile through my production; not the full display but noticeably at the corners.
The rain continues.
Sunday, April 1, 2001
Circle of Mourners - To LTF
When I visited MFA we talked for awhile. I enjoy talking to him although it's very easy for me to lose myself in our conversations and play at seeing the world from a stockbroker's point of view, so he doesn't have a full impression of me. Since we've known each other for awhile, though, we are familiar with some personal details of each other's lives. I knew him before I went to Seattle. At one point in our conversation yesterday MFA leaned across the desk and broached a new topic entitled, "I Know What You're Going Through, I Became My Mother's Caretaker and It Ruined My Marriage".
Although we've never discussed, in more than passing, my role in my mother's life, after he 'sympathized' with me I felt I needed to correct him about the misperceptions that I was somehow resentful for "having to" change my life and that he understand how my attempts to handle her business life, seeing as how she can no longer handle it, finally built up and overwhelmed me. I tried to explain to him that I had purposely, previous to living with my mother, kept my life extremely simple; that my problem was understanding and manipulating the complexity of her life, especially since I have serious qualms with many of the manipulations her life requires. He had a very hard time understanding me especially since I was doing some out-of-control introjection (damn, I'm glad I was reminded of that label and that state, thank you) when I talked to him about the market and my mother's position right now. I do see the complexity for what it is. I even see that it is a much more straightforward complexity than that with which I filter the world. It's easier for me to sound like his arena than it is for him to sound like mine. It is almost impossible for him to imagine that anyone would disagree with the stock market view of the world, the currency view of the world. I think he believes that if they do they don't understand it. He certainly believes that it isn't a matter of "disagreement". I imagine he thinks, "May as well not 'believe' in eating or drinking." But we came to a gentleperson's agreement: He has promised to help me understand that with which I must now deal as I become more and more the business part of my mother.
Although we've never discussed, in more than passing, my role in my mother's life, after he 'sympathized' with me I felt I needed to correct him about the misperceptions that I was somehow resentful for "having to" change my life and that he understand how my attempts to handle her business life, seeing as how she can no longer handle it, finally built up and overwhelmed me. I tried to explain to him that I had purposely, previous to living with my mother, kept my life extremely simple; that my problem was understanding and manipulating the complexity of her life, especially since I have serious qualms with many of the manipulations her life requires. He had a very hard time understanding me especially since I was doing some out-of-control introjection (damn, I'm glad I was reminded of that label and that state, thank you) when I talked to him about the market and my mother's position right now. I do see the complexity for what it is. I even see that it is a much more straightforward complexity than that with which I filter the world. It's easier for me to sound like his arena than it is for him to sound like mine. It is almost impossible for him to imagine that anyone would disagree with the stock market view of the world, the currency view of the world. I think he believes that if they do they don't understand it. He certainly believes that it isn't a matter of "disagreement". I imagine he thinks, "May as well not 'believe' in eating or drinking." But we came to a gentleperson's agreement: He has promised to help me understand that with which I must now deal as I become more and more the business part of my mother.
