Memories and Moments by GrannyJo

MY MOTHER'S NAME IS MARY

I called her "Mommy" when I was very small; "M~o~t~h~e~r", as an irritable and irritating teenager; and simply, "Mom" for most of my life. I was probably two or three years old when I first realized that when others called her, "Mary", they were speaking of my mommy.

She was beautiful, bright, energetic and strong-willed. Always a neatnik, she kept our home and herself "ready for company" at all times. Everyone who knew her remarked that she was up at dawn, had her house in order, my older brother and I taken care of and was completely 'fixed up' with make-up, hair and clothes fresh and spiffy, right down to the starched aprons that were the vogue in her day. All by 9:00 a.m.

She was my father's, "Mary", until their 38 years of a loving marriage was ended by his untimely death at the age of 58, leaving her a widow at the age of 55. By that time, I was married to an equally wonderful man who took over the details involved in the death of a loved one, helping me to help Mom in that terrible time. Because she was frightened to stay alone at night, she sold her home and came to live with us.

Nothing too remarkable in all this, is there? It happens in millions of families and is really a part of life -- to an end we all share. But, there the story changes. I need to tell you what the ensuing years taught me and what I hope to pass on in warning to all who will listen, "Don't let anyone ever make you forget who you are!"

Five years passed during which we grew to a household of Grandma, Dad, Mom and three children. We continued with our business, my mother involved with working with us. There were suitors a-plenty visiting her at our place of business, but she never paid them much attention. Then one day, she took an interest in a cigar-smoking, egotistical, unattractive man with bad teeth. He was well-known for being a money-grubber and having a cruel personality, and she was told this by many friends and relatives. But, to no avail. She was determined to accept his proposal of marriage.

In my fear for her, I made a big mistake. I told her, "Him or us." She moved out of my home and proceeded to make a closer relationship with him and his evil spinster sister. Before the marriage, however, we patched things up between us and I even held the wedding reception for them.....she was still my "mom".

It seemed things were O.K. for the first few years, although it irritated me that she waited on him hand and foot, even making his plate ahead of everyone else when we had family functions. She sold her car, moved into his house which did not even have a kitchen until she had one installed, had his home carpeted and sided, kept him and his house spanky clean and continued to work in our business.

"So what?" you say?

It would matter not, that's true, if she had been able to keep sight of who she was. After the marriage, I never heard him call her simply, "Mary" or some term of endearment. He always mumbled, "M o r r e y". Even worse, most of the time he began calling her, "Statta Baba" or just plain, "Statta". This I found out meant lazy, dumb, old lady! It drove me crazy, and if he did it when I was around, I'd say, "My mother's name is Mary." But, most of the time I let them settle their own battles, for in the early years, she could hold her own.

In 1978 my family moved across the country and she dearly missed us all....especially the grandchildren. They began to take trips once or twice a year to visit, staying with us for one to two months at a time. We accepted his presence in good grace, because of my mother. We gave them one of my son's bedroom, a car for their use, cooked dinners and took them out, and loaded them up with Christmas gifts to take home at their yearly Thanksgiving + Christmas + New Years visit.

Around 1990, I noticed Mom's memory slipping. She became less interested in keeping house, cooking and was less fastidious about her appearance. On their trips he verbally abused her more and more, but she didn't remember it very long. In her really good moments, she'd tell me that she had done things that she had to take care of...would I help her? I didn't really understand what she meant, but I told her I'd help as best I could. Finally in 1995 she gave me her power of attorney. That was her last trip to my home.

Mom failed quickly after that. She had a heart murmur from childhood, caused by a defective valve, that was never treated. She started into attacks of congestive heart failure, needed insulin for diabetes and over 10 kinds of medication. She couldn't even remember that she needed medication, let alone dose herself. It fell to her husband to give her the shots and pills. I pleaded for her to be sent to me so that she could spend her last days with those she loved, and to let me care for her as she cared for me when she was "Mommy".

I was frantic. I got in touch with the Association for the Aged and had social workers, nurses and bathers sent into the house. He sent them packing...telling me they stole his ballpoint pens. I took two trips back to check on her and found her alone, sweating in a hot apartment in the middle of August 1996 at 8:00 at night. He was visiting his sister, helping her treat her sick DOG!

Again, in a moment of lucidity, she told me she had things she had to undo. We all went to the bank and added my name to their bank account. The next day, the bank called me to say that he had taken my mother in there and had her sign to remove my name from the account and remove me as her power of attorney. I went to the apartment to ask her what had happened and she couldn't remember doing it. While he was out for a walk, though, she did tell me about an insurance policy that I needed to change back into my name. He had had her sign these old policies, originally in mhy name, over to him when they wer first married. Of course, he had her as beneficiary on nothing. This gave me an idea of what must be going on and I'm sure by now you know, also.

In April of 1997 I received a call from the hospital that my mother was in deep congestive heart failure and that I should come quickly if I wanted to see her. The call came at 8:00 a.m. and I was on a plane at 11:00 a.m. My husband left by car to go east that afternoon, and my daughter left by plane at 11:00 p.m. that night.

When I arrived, Mom was on all kinds of life support, but hanging on. I went right up to her and said, "Mom, it's Joanne. I'm here and you'll be O.K." I spoke to her all through that long night, holding her hand and reassuring her that I was there for her.

The next day, the doctor called me out into the hall and told me that they were going to remove the ventilator and what should they do if her heart stopped? Even as he spoke, I could hear the nurses exclaiming, "There you are, Mary! Doing GOOD!"

Her doctor looked at me and said, "You're looking at a miracle, you know."

Later that day, a call came into ICU from her husband. The nurse said he wanted her to tell Mom that he wouldn't be in. He had to baby-sit his sister's dog. The nurse told me, "I feel so bad for her; thank God you came.

The story is too long and painful about what went on for the rest of that trip. In short, I couldn't get permission to take her back with me and I couldn't get her to agree to a nursing home. I set her up with visiiting nurses and social aides as best I could, and then we had to go back to our family and lives. I could only keep in touch by phone, to the tune of astronomical phone bills. Evil Husband never once called me to let her talk.

In August that same year, I flew back to see her. She was worse than ever. The bathers hadn't been coming, the house was dirty, he was very abusive and she even had a bruise on her lip that no one seemed able to account for. I had everything taken care of--renewed nurses, Social Aid, Meals-on-Wheels and told him that everyone concerned was aware that if any of the services were discontinued, I was to be informed immediately. I would then return and take the matter to court on a competency suit.

We also went to the bank to have the accounts adjusted. I found over $10,000.00 still in a checking account, gathering no interest. He hadn't transferred anything to savings for two years. In the course of signing for the new co-account, I discovered that in April of 1997, while my mother was fighting for her life in the hospital, he and his sister were running around moving all of the funds into his name alone, and changing his will, removing my mother as his beneficiary. Instead of putting it back the way it was, we split the account into one for him and one for my mother. I took over all bill-paying responsibilites for them and would handle the affairs from my home. In short, I set them up in their own apartment in a type of Assisted Living arrangement. My mother made a will in favor of my brother and I and he made one for his son.

On the morning that I left, my mother signed one more insurance policy back to me as beneficiary. As we tearfully kissed goodbye, she said, "I hope I finally have it right again." I'll never forget seeing her standing with her walker, looking out her back door as I drove off in the still misty-darkness of that early morning in September.

End of horror story, right? Wrong.

The morning after I arrived home, about September 4, I got a call from the hospital again. My mother had suffered another siege of congestive heart failure, this time with a heart attack resulting in damage. She was fighting it off at the time.

I immediately called Evil Husband to ask what had happened. Instead of answering that question he said, "I'm not happy with what we did when you were here. I have an attorney and I don't want to talk to you any more. If you want to know about your mother, call the hospital." Which I did.

Mom was taken off the respirator the following day, and before she had even oriented to her whereabouts, her husband sent his attorney and two witnesses in to have her sign away everything that she ever had or did. The money went out of her account, supposedly into their names only again. They even had her sign a will, leaving her estate to my brother, because "he would take car of ME, but I wouldn't do for HIM!" That mattered little to me, because if anything were to be left after her care, (she had so very little) I always knew it was half and half.

When I called her later that day, she was crying, asking for an attorney, and saying she thought she'd done something wrong, but couldn't remember what. "Please come and get me and take me with you." Those were her exact words.

Then the nurse on duty came on the phone and said that as a professional in charge of my mother's care, she was very upset and angry herself. She had even told the attorney, "What are you doing in here? This woman isn't able to sign any papers, physically or mentally!" He just said he dealt with matters like that all of the time and HE knew what he could and couldn't do.

Now her husband had everything in his name, what else could he want? Well, he wanted her to go back to that apartment with him in charge of her medicine again! Just that day I had found out from a relative that on the day she had the heart attack, they had dropped by to see Mom. They found her gasping for breath on her bed and her husband told they they would have to leave, because he was going out for dinner with his sister. He left my mother at home alone, without ever notifying her doctor that she was very ill. She had the heart attack later that night.

There was NO way she was going back into that apartment with him!

I called Protective Services for the Aged and had them put a stop on her release until things could be straightened out. I got an attorney, ready to go to court if I had to. I berated my brother so that he would finally get involved. For may years he had only visited my mother for about ten minutes on a Sunday morning--his way of dealing with his dislike of her husband was to just stay away. Finally, her doctor must have seen the light that she just was not safe there, and told her husband that he wouldn't release her to her former environment. She finally was admitted to a nursing home, within walking distance from their apartment.

From September 1997 until February 1998, Mom lived clean, warm, well-fed and correctly medicated, able to move around in her wheelchair or with her walker. The personnel always remarked how cheerful and friendly she was....but a long silence ensued when they were asked about her husband's visits. I called at least once a week, they had to bring a phone to her or she would go to the desk....he refused to pay for a phone. She received letters, cards and gifts from me, her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He even went into her room and tried to take some of the things that she was sent, on the premise that, "They Steal Here".

And then, beyond belief, about a month before she passed away my brother went in on his weekly visit and found her crying. She kept saying, "I don't have any money and can't pay and they're going to put me in jail." He discovered that because of stocks and bonds that nobody knew the Evil Husband had, her nursing home stay couldn't be paid entirely by Medicare. He hadn't paid a nickel of what was owed up to that day. He and his son had been in to try to get her out, supposedly threatening her about jail, if she didn't sign herself out. Of course, no doctor would allow them to take her out. She was now in need of round-the-clock care.

In the early evening of February 11, 1998, here in LV, I received a phone call from my cousin. She had just received a call from the Evil Husband, telling her that my mother was back in the hospital. I immediately called the emergency room and they told me she had been transported with very low blood sugar and extreme congestive heart failure. They had the blood sugar normalized, but the nurse, who knew both of us from our other excursions to the hospital, said, "I've never seen Mary look so bad, and there is nobody from the family here." When I asked her if I should come right away, she told me that she didn't think I would ever make it in time, to try to get my brother there, and to keep in touch by phone throughout the night.

I found out through my sister-in-law that my brother, who was a musician, had a job that night and she didn't want to call and upset him. She said that she would have him go up to the hospital as soon as he got home--about midnight. I called the hospital with that news and heard that Mom had been moved to ICU and suffered a heart attack, according to the tests that they'd taken.

The nurse was frantic, saying that Mom's husband had no way to get there and there were decisions that he had to make. I said that as soon as I heard from my brother, I'd have him pick up the Evil Husband and take him with him.

The doctor took the phone from the nurse and said, "Don't you understand how desperate this situation is? Call her husband and tell him to get here! Mary has had a massive heart attack!"

I said, "I DO know the situation and my heart is breaking, but he refuses to speak to me. Do YOU understand that he will just hang up, and I don't need to subject myself to that, when MY mother is dying!"

The doctor said that he had a good idea of what it was all about, especially when the Evil Husband started yelling in his ear about how much money that 'damned nursing home' had cost him and they still hadn't done anything for her--and what kind of a doctor was HE and how much was HE going to charge?

I said that there was nothing I could do about that evil old man, but asked for the nurse again. I asked her to put the phone to my mother's ear, which she did. I told Mom that it was Joanne, that I loved her and not to worry about anything. Nothing she had ever done was wrong and that I would always be there for her. I then told the nurse to keep me posted, and sat down to wait and pray.

Twenty minutes later, the phone rang and it was the head nurse from ICU. She said, "I'm sorry, but it's all over. Your mother expired at 12:55 a.m. Your brother was just getting off the elevator, he didn't make it in time. He came alone. Her husband refused to come.

Sadly, it was over. The bright, loving, feisty, beautiful woman I knew as Mom was gone. The Evil Husband had taken advantage of her condition to strip her of all of her worldly goods, the inheritance she had designated for her family, and her pride and dignity, all because she once forgot who she was. But, he will have to deal with his own fate, somewhere--some day.

My heart aches with the loss of her. I am angry that she lived so ignobly for the final years of her life. I despair that I could do nothing to keep her from dying alone. Yet, I take some comfort in knowing that my voice, with its words of love was there for her in her final moments. Above all I pray that she is, at last, resting with the Good Husband who knew, loved, and appreciated the woman who was "Mary" all the days of their married life.

There is, in the end, one thing that Evil Husband and all of his clever attorneys can never take from us, or change, no matter what they do. Somewhere she is again aware that......

MY MOTHER'S NAME IS MARY
by
Loving Daughter, JOANNE