“Hello, this is your mother.  I just wanted to ask you what time is dinner?   Your aunt has called three times already. I am tired of trying to explain why my children do not give times. Will you call your brother and have him call her and then have him call me and then you call her and then call me so I know that you made the call. I am going to call her now to tell her to expect a call from your brother and then you. Did you call your sister yet. Did you call your brother? Now do so now. I will call them and tell them you will be calling…. Are you still there. You are really quite.”

“Mom, it is 7:30 am. NO ONE is going to call anyone at this time in the morning.”

“Oh, I am sorry. I thought it was 7:30 pm. Never mind. But do call.”

“Mom, I know you know it is 7:30 AM. I know you want a time…and you were given a time. 3:00 pm.”

“Well, that is just a strange time for a dinner. What are we to do till then.”

“I will be sleeping. Good Bye.”

A few moments later: “Hello, your aunt wants to know if she should eat something before. Will you call your brother………………………………….

The holidays are always a marker on the caregivers map. Changes are a little more noticeable. The pulling together of the meal is harder. The drive is too long, or they don’t remember the route. Other family members point out things we have not noticed. Hearing aides are silenced because of the noise. Or we over compensate and as one aging parent said…”it was like going to my funeral…talking and acting about me as if I was dead.” You become overwhelmed with the changes, demands, behaviors, compensations, and your own traditions. We start to measure these times through the holidays. As caregivers we can look at these milestones to see how far we came or lost.

For me, Thanksgiving was one of the first holidays that as a college student I gave up going home…my college was too far away.   It is when you realize you miss your family, even the mean brothers or annoying aunt. It not only is the emptiness of the people, traditions but the food that you love. It evokes so much of your senses that you feel a great feeling of loss. But the price of a plane ticket is too close to the next holiday, you have to make that choice. After all, there are other alternatives.

My first year, I fell for the “come and join us at the cafeteria for a wonderful home cook meal.” I think the food was good, but everything else just spelled out the fact that everyone wish they were home instead. The next year was at friends where I realize people do have different traditions, like spaghetti instead of turkey. After that it was at a restaurant where you were so crowded in that everyone heard your conversation and the food was not very good. Needless to say the alternatives were painful.

One year, a friend called up and asked if I wanted to “do thanksgiving “ with her at her new townhome. She was the first of our group that had her own place after graduation. So I drove down and we planned the meal. It was just the two of us since all our other friends were gone. I was going to do the cooking because she had to work, but she would bring the pies home. We pulled together a menu combining our favorite memories of past meals. It was quite the menu. Off to the grocery store to buy everything. Got all the items and then on to buying the turkey. Standing in front of the open meant counter we stared at all the turkeys. What size should we get? Finally we both agree we would get the size that our mothers always selected. We were happy, and quite confident in our “grown up” thanksgiving shopping experience. We had arrived! Our 22 pound turkey and all the fixings!

The next day I started working on the meal. I put on the radio and became Julia Child with all the embodiment and mess! As I progress I made a few blunders along the way. Defrosted the turkey by leaving it in the sink all night. The new cooking bag craze…did have instructions that I failed to read until after I had the turkey in…so I had to pull it all out of the bag not once but twice. I did make sure to pull the giblets out (very proud I never fell for that one). But I soon realize I was over my head. A quick long distance call to my mom for instruction and reassurance. Not once, but three times. And in those days that was paying long distance…no cell phones. My mother was kind and gentle and nice about it. After all I was interrupting her Thanksgiving, and her own cooking going on at the same time. Finally I had it all together and I kid you not, as soon as I closed the door to the oven the radio announcer said “and now Mrs. Blanky blank will tell us the most common errors in roasting a turkey.” I sat with flour all over me, displace hair, apron a mess with stains of broth and who knows what…fearful that I was going to kill us.   I could see the headlines now: “Two post college girls found dead from turkey poison in a beautiful townhouse.” So, another call to my mother for reassurance.

My friend came home with four pies. Did not remember what I liked so she got one of each.. The smell of the turkey and fixings was overwhelming and we put on a fire in the fireplace (even though it was 80 degrees outside), music and then the feast began. The table was overflowing with food. I still can remember closing mine eyes and taking that first bite. The aroma of the turkey, dressing, mash potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, green bean casserole, corn pudding, cranberries just to name a few. The flavors danced across my taste buds and causing goose bumps across my arms. I was in heaven.

What seemed like five minutes later, we had ate all we could. We were finish. My friend started to clean off the table and we both worked on cleaning the kitchen and putting away the left overs. For two people, we really had a lot of turkey left over and could not understand why. But I had a very strange sensation coming over me as we spent the next hour cleaning.   I could not put words to it until the last item was sealed and refrigerated. A whole day of work, slaving over the stove for what….5 minutes of enjoyment and then it was over! I realized I was angry. I felt cheated.   Was it worth it???

Discussed with the whole event it came to me. This is what my mother has done year after year after year. I always thanked her for the meal …but I soon complained that why did I have to go clean the table and wash dishes. I always made comments that it was not fair for the guys to sit in the living room and the women had to work in the kitchen. But never, never did I ever really…I mean really thanked my mother for all the hard work. I did what I had to do….call her. I cried as I thanked her for all that work. But I am not sure that is what I said. I believed what I really said was “I miss you.”

There would be future Thanksgivings with my mom. Some shared together with family and some with just us. But that Thanksgiving was a deal changer for me. For one thing, I was growing up and becoming independent. And the realization of just some of the things my mom did for our family. As I look back I realize that my mother and I were at a midpoint in our lives where similar experience was crossing. We were beginning to assume each other’s roles. As I was gaining my independence, she was losing hers. As I was making memories, she was losing them. I was taking control of my life and she was losing hers.

Our lives are crossing. I wish I could have asked my mom more of her feelings about this. Her fears. Her losses. In years to come we would bridge some of that…but we never really talked about it. It just happen as her abilities or needs changed. It would be years to come before all those phone calls would start….if I knew then what I knew now….

“Hello.  This is your mother.  Just one more thing. What time will you pick me up?”

“Mom, I am sleeping. You wrote it on your calendar. You will be picked up at 2:30”

“So, we are just going to come in and sit and eat? What kind of holiday is that?? Pick me up early…like 12.”

“Mom. It is 7:30 am….call me at 12 and we will talk about why you will be picked up at 2:30 then.”

“Your brother on the east coast is eating at noon.”

“Mom, It is two hours difference. He is eating at 2:00 pm”

“You are sleeping till noon?? I just can’t believe…”

“Mother, I do not sleep until noon. I am sleeping now. Hang up and don’t call back! I will call you.”

“Well, is that how you treat your mother. “

“MOM! Why are we arguing…it is 7:30 am. Please.”

“Ok. I will call you back in a half hour. But remember to call your brother on the east coast…after all it is two hours early then us. That would be 9:30. Then call me back so I know that you called him. I will call him now to tell him that you are going to call him. Call your other brother to remind him to call him too. For some reason he gets mad when I remind him to do this. And call your sister too. I will call her….”

Looking back, my life had changed quite a few years before.  I was not accepted as the Good Daughter then…I had moved too far away.  I was a convenience.

I hated the phone for years. I hated it more in the middle of the night. It haunted me…that ringing. It always had bad news associated with it.

My mother was a great caller. All times of the day. Mostly to remind me what I did or should do. “Did you remember to water your tomato plants? Don’t forget your brother’s birthday. It is going to storm so remember to close your windows”. Sometimes it would be two or three calls in a matter of hours. She would forget that she had called. You always knew when a storm was coming…she would call to tell you. If it was a holiday or family dinner and she was to be picked up…the calls would start coming days ahead – “what time will you pick me up, where again, who will be there, what should I bring”. When my aunt was alive they had phone calls between themselves and then felt they each needed to call my brother and then myself and….talk about a party line!

After my mother had died, I still cringed whenever the phone rang. After a while I would check the phone to see if there was a call because I didn’t hear it ring. Amazing. Years later, I got a phone call in the middle of the night…I right away thought it was from my mother as I jumped up to answer. Of course it was not. A miss dial.

At my mother’s funeral, a friend spoke telling wonderful things about my mom. Then ended with how much they would miss her phone calls. The audience laughed and nodded in agreement. So, we were not alone in her phone calling. She must have been on her phone all day!!!

There was a time when the phone rang and it was a positive feeling.

• A good friend calling to chat.
• Your husband calling to say he was taking you out for dinner.
• A business college informing you that you won the contract.
• The publishing warehouse calling to say you won millions

 

Then life changed. Soon the calls meant something was wrong. You were needed – NOW. They came at all times of the day and evening.   They would break into your life. But you answered.

Why? Was it a sense of duty? Was it because of a commitment? Was it because of love? Was it because that is what daughters do? Was it…….

There are different feelings associated with the “why.” And a different sense of guilt, pain, anger. As a caregiver the toil of caring is a constant drain of our resources.   Caregiving is a major stress. It hits us physically, mentally, spiritually. It goes to the core of who we are. We enter that world innocent. So it is important to step back and ask why we answered the phone.

Why we chose to do something is just as important as what we do. A deeper look as to why we answer the call helps us to see who we are as a person. Take some time to think about it. List the reasons why you chose to answer the phone. Then make a list next to you answer how that makes you feel. The reason I am getting to this is because our feelings do surface. We need to understand that and it will help us to control ourselves and the circumstances we are in. We cannot stop aging. We cannot stop the aliments all the time. But we can control ourselves.

The phone for my mother became her lifeline to the outside world. Her reason for calling was to hear another voice and not be so lonely. It even gave her a sense of purpose. To bug me…to be my mom            (ok, she did not realize she was bugging me, but she did know she was being a mother, still telling me what to do). But it also was her safety link. As annoying as those calls were, I would chose them over the other calls. The ones from neighbor who called to inform you the ambulance had come to take her to the hospital. Or the Doctor office calling to say it is time to move her to a nursing home. Or even that call from my sister asking me to come home.