mil rant

When I married Kurt, his mother came to stay with us. Same week. She stayed a month and a half after saying a week and a half. She came in the door, advance directive in hand, and asked me to sign it. I declined. I told her I'd be happy to offer her son support as she ages, but I am not signing up for the job. I already have one.

It may be because I deal with elders all day, and have for all my life, that she has always come as such a shock to me. She is vain and boycrazy and almost eighty. Her demands for attention have been unending, and Kurt is always willing to step up to do what she needs. Not good enough. She was mad at his/our kids because they don't act like debutantes. No thank you notes. Dreadlocks. Purposely ratty clothing. The other grandchildren, the children of her daughter who died, and their many-fathered children, are the objects of her affection. I love those kids too, I do, but our kids deserve a g'ma.

So thirteen years we have included her in every holiday, K fixing and moving and shifting and putting together whatever she buys. I cooked for her and cared for her after a surgery, but it became clear that surgeries were elective and I backed away from that form of support. She became snitty if she wasn't invited out every other week, but didn't invite us to her place. The usual crap. Years go by while she goes on cruise after trip after guided tour. Years.

Then, a couple months ago, mil begins acting funny. Like she is hiding something from us. Turns out she had been working with a realtor and was planning a move south. Like it was a secret. Like we'd try to stop her. Very long story short, she sold a perfectly nice condo, and over the course of many trips south, many reversals in decision, she tries to back out of the sale on her condo and cannot, and is now forced to -- no, chooses to -- purchase a crappy 80's mobile in a crappy trailer park. Okay. Not my monkey...

So, this week, after my husband has tried to understand what she is doing, not even why -- just what the fuck are you doing, mom -- she tells him she's rented a truck and her realtor is driving it down to Medford. Wierd, but... Then, mid-week, it becomes clear to my husband, her only surviving child, that she has no way to make this happen. Nobody to move her things, etc. nobody to load or unload. And she's clearly been throwing Kurt under the bus to all of her friends. And we didn't even get the memo about her moving.

So Kurt finally asks wtf? He tells her he'll drive the truck down for her, when does she need to be out. She says, "the 30th." He says, "July?" "No," she says. "June." Tomorrow. Jeezus. He can't move big stuff because of his recently replaced $60,000.00 not really bionic ankle, but he'll help. So she got some kids to help load stuff and off they went. Her friends at the 55+ condo place gathered around her to say, "so glad you get to be near family finally." I can't imagine how my husband felt.

So, he drove her down there, and he and his son and his sons helped her unload. Its a good thing she went to live near family.