Apparently I will never learn.
Every six months or so I hear from someone that the old lady has really jumped the shark this time, she’s batshit loco and about to be locked up, mere minutes away from dissolution, or else we have to get her into a nursing home this minute!
I get rousted out, shift into hyper-responsible mode, make appointments with lawyers and doctors, and nothing never happens. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Anyone who tries to help gets mugged and bloodied, and the gut-shot rhino movie just plays on and on, held over for eternity in the theater of the mind.
It is a most extraordinary thing. My 89-year-old mother called the Pima County Sheriff three times last week because she thought she heard the neighbors plotting to bury a body in the yard at 3:00 a.m. No, really. And that’s just one in a long list of alleged criminal activities next door she’s overheard, none of which are real. Why doesn’t she hear voices telling her to move into a nursing home?!? (Yes, that is a brilliant idea.)
This has been going on for six or seven years, although she only recently started calling the police, and I doubt they’ll take that kindly. On the up side, I thought this behavior might get her “into the system,” so we would have some allies. And yet, according to my sister the nurse:
I think this would have to get to point where she’s confused about one of three things: who she is/others are; or where she is; or what year it is (person/place/time). Lacking any of these, it’d be determined she couldn’t safely care for herself. At least that’s the medical perspective—and she’s still fully in control on all three points.
So even if the cops send the EMS to take her to the emergency room the next time she calls 911, like they do with wackos who harass them, she’d still “pass.” This would accomplish having her examined by a doctor (since she won’t go on her own), but little else. She wouldn’t be deemed a danger to herself or legally incompetent, no way to compel her safety. WHAT A JOKE ON ME! As the one who gave me birth will apparently never die, recover, or come to Jesus, my task is to care without attachment. I was not built for this, but I will learn. Besides, if I do not, my wife will shoot me.
The family vortex is eternal, everlasting. You probably think I’m kidding or I made this up, but I have a 99-year-old aunt in Maine who’s just the same!
They Walk Among Us, I tell you.
Take care and Godspeed.
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>>>I think this would have to get to point where she’s confused about one of three things: who she is/others are; or where she is; or what year it is (person/place/time).
No, not true at all. The one I cited didn’t know year or day yet it took a broken hip to do the job that the law prevented common sense from accomplishing.
Hey, Mike!
I hear you, and I’m calmer now. Incompetency, no, there’s no leverage there. Nothing to do but pull back and leave things to Nature. Three years ago I was sure she wouldn’t make it another month, but she seems to draw energy from madness and strife.