Helen Chronicles

They tell me it’s not hot in Tucson in November. Maybe we can actually have a Sonoran hot dog at one of those outdoor restaurants with the picnic tables under a canopy flapping in the wind. Yes, we’re going back again. I have to. My 90-year-old mother is still with us, getting proper care, but [...]

{ 5 comments }

It just hit me: it’s like I became a parent! No wonder I’m waking up in the middle of the night. Isn’t that what you guys do? With 89-year-old Helen in a long-term care facility and me with the authority and cash, I’m suddenly responsible. Intellectually, I knew this, but now I feel it sinking [...]

{ 8 comments }

That’s what my wife said to me yesterday as I was showing her photos of my Tucson trip. She was right, of course. The fun never stops with Helen, although we’ve got her where she belongs now. I woke up this morning feeling like I’d been thrown out of an airplane. There are circles under [...]

{ 11 comments }

Eighteen days of my life this Tucson expedition took, more than two whole weeks of rolling hell, panic, and relief. The period taken as a whole is like a recapitulation of my entire life. See that street sign? There were a total of three motels. I abandoned the first one after one night because the [...]

{ 6 comments }

I have to get the hell out of here. The madness is seeping in around the edges, and I just can’t think any more. My sister and I accomplished the all-but-impossible a week ago: Helen is in a safe place, getting excellent care. She’s also crazy as a loon. Yesterday she telephoned my brother to [...]

{ 9 comments }

My wife would kill me if she saw me writing at this hour, in the condition that I’m in. But my sanity demands I tell the world what’s going on. I’m in Tucson, Arizona and have been since the posting stopped. The saga isn’t over yet, and I’m stretched thinner than I’ve ever been. A [...]

{ 12 comments }

Scratch the previous post, we’re cranking up the melodrama! As I write this, my 89-year-old mother in Tucson, AZ is in the hospital again. She’s there because she called 911. She called because she thinks she’s dying, and because, to choose the best of all her paranoid delusions, her doublewide is “wired for explosives.” Yes, [...]

{ 8 comments }

I am so doomed. After a long day herding (delightful) out-of-town company around, my wife and I were sitting in the saloon having a nightcap. I reported on two phone messages from my brother in Tucson on the state of things with Helen, how she now hears “voices” all the time, that the home care [...]

{ 23 comments }