Living in the assisted living building was “too hard,”  “too many old people,”  “too many silly rules.” for my mother.  After so many phone calls (from my sister and my mom) I had not realized my caregiving had started…long distance.  With the realization that her current living situation was not working, someone suggested (still not sure who that was) that my mother would live with me during the winter and my sister during the summer months.

My mother, sister and I enter an agreement.  It lasted just a few years and it was an interesting arrangement.  Six months really was not that long.  But as the months grew those last few months of each year seemed longer.

Having my mother as a “room mate” was not what I expected.  For those six months I tried to continue seeing my friends, but I was also my mothers social “mate.”  Taking her shopping, eating out, going to movies, etc.  I was balancing two worlds.  My close friends were great and they understood.  But it was hard.  One time I came home to her and my boyfriend – they were in the mist of rearranging my living room to their satisfaction…not mine.  She was now “arranging” my life.

We had our times, but she was entering my domain…my home…my world.  And on top of that, my mother and I saw a different world.  Mine was logical.  Hers was not.  We were opposites which made it even harder.  The Good Daughter was back east…I could never be that person.  Our chatter was what was wrong, not just chatter like she had with my sister.

I never thought of what it was like for her.  I just kept looking towards the end of the six months and then freedom!  But from her world…she was lost.  I was the only one she knew at first.  She had no car, no independence.  Her world was gone.  Everything that was hers was packed in a few suitcases.  If she had any items from her “home” they were items she passed to my sister or me.  Her possessions in someone else’s home.  She was in a strange place with a daughter of convenience.  She had no idea how to talk to me…so she went to what she knew….being a mother.  And in our relationship…that was to tell me what to do and when.  She too counted the days.

There is always two sides to the story.  We tend to become “doers.”  As we immerse ourselves in these duties we lose site or ourselves and the one(s) that we are trying to help.  It may have been a bit easier if I had just stepped back and looked at it from my mothers point of view.  Of course, if you had told me that then, I may have punched you.  But now, I do see it.  My mother was at that time in her life of loss.  She was homeless in her world.  She was just passing through ours.  Although I had bought her a bed, it was a twin.  She was use to a double.  I decorated her room.  It was my decorations and colors…not hers.  Her world was becoming smaller and smaller.  I did not see it.  I was just a convenience.