Moving Forward

After many days of feeling quite distressed and undecided over what to do next, I think I've finally come to terms somewhat with the reality of the situation.

No matter how much I may wish to undo my decisions of last fall and winter regarding her finances and postpone it until she was in worse shape, I can't change the past.

Neither can I continually strive to earn love from a demented mother who at even the best of times gave her love conditionally.

When she is angry she is like a stranger to me. But she is a stranger for whom I have complete responsibility.

In order to move forward I have decided to create a trust with the funds that are under my control, which are about half of her assets. And the rest, which she has in her local bank, I will leave alone for now, even though it means putting them at risk.

I'm tired of trying to stay one step ahead of my mom when it comes to managing her finances. Money is important to her future, but I can't continue to spend so much time and energy focusing on it. It makes me feel like I'm always scheming, and I felt a desperate need to find some peace around this issue.

Moving forward now means looking for someone to help my mother with her housework and shopping. I need to find a kind and trustworthy person who can assist my mother and also keep me informed about how she is doing.

I feel good about my decision and hope I'm not taking too big a risk.

Deja Vu

After five wonderful months of phone calls and a visit with no temper tantrums, we seem to be back where we were last winter.

It all started around the beginning of the month when I called my mom to tell her that I had my plane tickets for my Christmas visit.

When I called my mom she sounded cranky, so I kept the conversation short and told her I would call later. Since the summer I was back to making near-daily phone calls. We hung up, and she called me right back. She asked if I was getting the bank statements for the accounts I had changed last winter. I said I was and she said she wanted them. I said okay and figured I would sort it all out later when she wasn't in such a bad mood. We hung up again, and she called right back. This time I could hear the anger growing in her voice. She said, "Your father and I worked hard for that money," a refrain I've heard at least twenty times but not since last spring. I told her that her money was in a good bank earning good interest. She said, "Bullshit!" My pre-Alzheimer's mother rarely swore.

Then I made a tactical mistake. I said, "I'm not going to talk about it anymore right now, and don't call me back again." At the moment I was shocked and upset that this issue, which I thought had been resolved, was being raised again. I think that by hanging up on her I was trying to run away from the inevitable.

The inevitable is that she didn't remember that we had spent five months last winter and spring talking about what I had done with her bank account. She didn't remember that she had told me her heart was healed, that she forgave me, and that she trusted me. I'm sure my reaction was confusing to her.

I waited four days hoping she would forget about the bank account and called again. Without saying a word, she hung up on me twice. Apparently I had taught her a new trick when I hung up on her.

Since then things have not gotten any better. I'm still planning to visit next month, and I hope she won't call the sheriff on me as she has threatened - mainly because it would be embarrassing to her.

What I've learned is that I can't expect my mother to remember anything. I've also learned that as much as I'd like to I can't go back and change what's already happened. I don't think I will ever be able to make things right with my mother no matter how hard I try.

I think I'm finished with knocking myself out to try to make things better.