My Mother's Keeper

When the calendar turned to 2025 a few weeks ago, it reminded me (for some weird reason) that my father had been gone for fifteen years. He’d had a series of strokes, which finally, at the age of eighty-nine, claimed his life.

I lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the time, and in 2009 had become my parents’ part time caretaker, even though they were still living in their home. They had both been suffering from dementia for some years, but they had great neighbors, and were able to muddle along, which was something they both really wanted. In fact, at the urging of my two siblings, I took them to look at some senior living facilities nearby, which they were impressed by, but driving them back to their home my father suddenly said (as if realizing it for the first time), “Wait a minute…I already own a home!” That was the last time we spoke about them moving.

He died a few months later.

I have an older brother Rick, who lived in New Jersey at the time. My younger sister Barb lives in Minneapolis. They both came to Milwaukee to help out for a few weeks. I got the house ready (no small feat) and put it on the market, and we moved Mom to a facility nearby. I became her caretaker, and once we were able to wrestle the car away from her (she scared herself half to death after getting lost a few times), I was her only mode of transportation.

My siblings and I are an unusually close threesome, and always have been. I credit my brother Rick for being fair-minded, always willing to thoughtfully listen to another point of view. My sister Barb’s and my trust in him has been unwavering since we were little kids, and we are usually able to come to some agreement, even if we start out with disparate ideas.

Mom and I had not always been close. There was some jealousy that would come out at strange times, which caused me to develop a distrust of her, a feeling I tried to hide. It was not a healthy relationship. In my early thirties, when I went through a deep depression, she accused me of faking it and laughed off my seeing a psychiatrist. She and my father were never close to my husband Larry, as he said exactly what was on his mind, and they were always more circumspect, worried about what other people would think of them.

Larry and I had always intended to move to California. The impetus behind this idea was weather related, and we had family there, plus for artists, it seemed like a great place to settle. I told Mom this, and that she would be moving to either New Jersey or Minnesota. When it came down to making a decision, New Jersey (the place she was born) won.

Whatever was keeping her dementia in check at this point, failed, and the floodgates opened. She became alternately weepy, angry, and violent as she grappled with this new challenge in her life. She couldn’t keep anything straight in her head, and began acting out. We were asked to move her to a memory facility, because she was disturbing other residents. I took up the reins and did the best I could, selling her furniture (which wouldn’t fit in the new place) and giving away most of her other things. We got her moved, kicking and screaming, and then things really started to go off the rails.

Mom was furious. She began each day going down the corridor and banging on the glass cases that housed other residents’ memories. She would wait at the locked door that opened to the outside, and would try to escape. She messed up the new apartment she was living in. She refused to eat. After a few weeks, the head administrator told us she needed to go.

I should mention at this point that we were in the middle of trying to sell our home. We were having some work done on the house to make it more desirable, packing things up to be stored in a moving pod, then trucked to California once we found a place there. I was also continuing to teach a full studio of violin students, and was playing my usual gigs.

By this time, my siblings both came to town, and we took Mom to the hospital to be evaluated. She was angry and rude, and demanded to know who my brother was. We knew that we couldn’t get Mom on an airplane until she calmed down, so she was placed in a medical facility to test her on certain drugs. I went to see her initially, but she was so unmanageable and furious (certain that the facility was doing things that were illegal, and other conspiracy theories) that I stopped going.

It was about this time that I remember coming home at night, having dinner, and going back to my bedroom to continue packing. I was complaining to Larry about my mother, and he made a suggestion. Somehow, this escalated into an argument, and I found myself unable to stop the flood of pent up frustration: I started screaming.

Larry backed away, and closed the door. For the next few hours, I screamed. I kept thinking it was over, when a whole other bout started up. I was terrified; what was happening to me? Was I slipping into dementia? It sure felt that way, as I didn’t have any rationality left, I was raw emotion.

Finally, I was exhausted. I lay there on my bed, wondering what my sweet cat Rosa would think of this display. She already knew change was in the wind with all the packing going on. I probably scared her half to death. I scared myself half to death.

The house sold, we drove out to California, and Rick came to get Mom for her next chapter in New Jersey. She was docile enough to get on an airplane. By the following year, her dementia had advanced, and she aspirated some water, causing pneumonia. She died in February, 2016.

When I look back on that period, I give myself a gentle pat on the back. I did the best I could with someone who was, in essence, already gone.