Good morning, y’all. I brought the last of Mulva’s blackberry cobbler with me over to the rec room to sustain me through this next missive. I love it with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. I don’t know that there’s a better dessert. Mulva had to look real hard to find any blackberries this year. I keep telling you all, it’s the heat, not the humidity. 

When we left off, I was beginning my last day in Asheville before returning home to an uncertain fate. I hit the ground running and was at the Buncombe County Registrar’s office at 8 AM as they opened. With very little fanfare, I became Mom’s fully ordained Power of Attorney. I lit out for the banks that I knew held accounts, and I was at the first one before the ink could dry on the POA documents.

Bank one was basically Mom’s operating account for her personal business, bank two was the rental properties. On a lark, and because I know how little Mom trusts banks, I went to two other banks just to see if Mom had any accounts there. I was fifty percent successful. Bank three had savings accounts with rights of survivorship doled out to Edna, Charlotte and Maggie. I knew there was a possibility of there being more accounts out there, but I was going to allow the U.S. Mail to update me with their whereabouts. I turned in a change of address at the Post Office to have all of Mom’s mail sent to TackyToo. I think I actually grinned. Mom’s mailing address being at TackyToo was some high quality irony. Since I was near Aunt Edna’s house, I put her next on my list.

Aunt Edna was seven ways to flustered and she just couldn’t sit still. We hadn’t gotten two or three sentences into the conversation before she brought up the garbage key. I am stupefied. I ask Edna, “what do you think is going on?”, and I have to clarify with, “do you think Mom’s going back to the condo?”,”Do you think Mom’s going to be able to take care of herself?”, “Do you think this isn’t going to happen again?”.

Edna hems and haws and sputters before coming up with what would be a logical answer, “We need to get over there and make sure the stuff in the refrigerator doesn’t spoil”, Edna says.

“Already did it”, I reply, “I cleaned out all of the refrigerator, all of the expired food, and all of the expired medicinal products.”

“Well, your Momma was asking me to bring her some Tylenol 500 because she needed it to get to sleep”, Edna says. Again, I am stupefied.

“You know you’re not supposed to bring medicines into a hospital”, I reply, “how will the hospital know what dosages to use if you guys are medicating her too?”

“You’re right, you’re right”, Edna says, “but we still need the garbage key.”

At this point I don’t know what’s going on, but something is out of plumb.

“An empty condo generates no trash”, I retort, “I think we’ve got much bigger fish to fry”. I plunge right in, “I’d like for all of us to work out a situation that takes the family component out of Mom’s care. It’s obvious that you and Charlotte are stretched beyond your means”.

“Well, Charlotte should be here for this”, Edna says.

“If Charlotte can get up here in the next ten minutes, ok, but I don’t have time to dilly dally”, I reply.

Edna calls Charlotte, who tells Edna that she hasn’t had her shower yet, and then she needs to put on her makeup. When the information is relayed to me, I respond that I don’t have time and I’ll email her my suggestions.

When Edna sits back down I ask, “What do you think is going on with Mom?”

Edna being coy again, “What do you mean?”.

“I mean what do you think is going on with Mom’s brain function?”, I say, “It’s pretty clear she has lost a lot of function since Thanksgiving.”

“Well Charlotte thinks she has the alzheimers pretty bad”, Edna responds.

I give a look of total incredulity, “What do you think”, I ask.

“I think she has dementia”, Edna answers.

My brain is going, “ding ding ding we have a winner”, but I just nod in agreement.

“Charlotte wants to know your Momma’s diagnosis, do you know it yet?”, Edna asks.

“I do, but I think if Mom wants Charlotte to know what her diagnosis is she’ll tell her. Maybe Charlotte can ask her when she goes to see her.”

“Well Charlotte’s been afraid to visit your Momma, Hanna was so mean to Charlotte the last time she saw her”.

“I don’t want to hear all of that”, I reply, “that’s why I’m trying to work on a solution that takes all of us out of caring for Mom, you can just be her sister and not her caretaker”.

“Well, praise Jesus, that’s exactly what I want to hear”. “My blood pressure has been so high I thought I was going to stroke out right here on the floor”. “Your Mom just expects more than anyone can deliver”.

I nod in agreement, “That’s my point”, I say, “I don’t know when Memorial Mission is going to kick Mom out, her vitals are coming back quickly. I just want us to have a soft spot for her to land when they kick her out”, I continue, “She needs full time care, and hiring a full time professional will run through her savings in a couple of years”.

“Well, Charlotte and I were thinking we knew someone who could stay part of the day with her at a reasonable rate”, Edna says.

“What about when Mom needs to go to the bathroom and the helper is not there, is Mom just supposed to hold it until the next shift?”, I finish with,”It will have to be a licensed person to administer drugs, so that kind of puts you in a different salary range”.

Edna nods in agreement.

“Will you help with the rentals until I can find someone to manage them?”, I ask.

“For a while”, she responds, “but I’d like to just be done with all of it”.

“I’ll try to find someone ASAP”, I say. We hug and I head off to the hospital and my next battle.

I arrive at Mom’s room to a flurry of activity. Ann Wallace has Mom concerned about the whereabouts of Mom’s purse. Mom’s upset in that “old people whiny” kind of way, and I reassure her by reaching under the sink and showing her her purse. Crisis averted. Ann Wallace starts into her hundred most helpful suggestions for getting Mom back to her condo, and I let her have her lead until she tells Mom she’ll pick her up tomorrow and give her a ride home. I said something like, “Mom’s been very sick, she nearly died, she needs to stay here as long as she needs to, to get well. We don’t need to be rushing her treatment, we want her to have a good outcome”. The very nice words were delivered with a laser like glare that left no doubt my real message was, “get out of here now”. Not being quite as stupid as she looked, Ann left shortly thereafter.

I chatted with Mom, who was still completely obsessed with her fuchsia colored blanket. I tried to keep things positive and light. I asked Mom if she wanted me to pay her bills for her while she was sick and she said yes. I told her I would give her purse and keys to Maggie so she could give them to Jackson when he came in. “Jackson is coming in?”, she asked with a big grin on her face. “He is”, I replied. She sat with a grin on her face until it was time for the nurse to take her to the bathroom. After the bathroom break the doctor came in and listened to Mom complain about being swollen, bloated and bruised. The doctor handled Mom with great patience and servility.

I followed the doctor into the hall and asked, “What’s next?”. The doctor described a course of action that not only freed up the bed of someone who was physically recovering, but ensured the fact that Mom would not be released into the wild until she was ready. The doctor was going to recommend a thirty day stay in a rehab hospital where Mom would be in a hospital setting, real doctors and nurses, but also focused on getting her physically fit for the next step. No one knew what the next step after the rehab hospital might be, but it was sure that whatever that step that was, it would be easier if Mom could handle going to the bathroom by herself.

I got the name of the facility from the doctor, who added that Medicare would pay for all of it. Good luck for a change. The doctor was proposing a transfer for the next day and I told her that my brother Jackson was coming in and would handle the move. I thanked her profusely and headed to the cafeteria to call Jackson and get a bite to eat. I called Jackson and gave him the basic plan of attack.

I’m going out to see the rehab facility and make myself known in case they need any POA decisions made. I’ll meet up with Mattie who lives out that way and give her the keys to the condo and van. Jackson and Mattie are meeting for supper to catch up and to coordinate their plans for Mom’s care in the future. Jackson is coming in from Chattanooga, so the timing should work out to where he can pop in on Mom during evening visiting hours after meeting up with Mattie. I head back upstairs to visit for an hour or so before saying my goodbyes. I minimized my problems and tell her I’ll be back to see her as soon as I can. I tell her Jackson is on the way and the grin returns to her face.

I head out for the rehab facility which is on the way home. It is a new building set out in the middle of pastures, very serene. Everything looks first rate, I introduce myself to the director and give multiple phone numbers for contact information. Everything looks in order and I point the Trans Am towards Nunsuch. I turn the radio up to drown out the voices in my head. Just as I hit Hwy 64 a tune comes on WNCW radio, “When You Get To Asheville”, by Edie Brickell and Steve Martin. Yeah, Steve Martin the “wild and crazy guy” and Edie Brickell of the New Bohemians and the current Mrs. Paul Simon. Now the cosmos is screwing with me. I get across the hills before dark and I start seeing haints in the rear view mirror.

More later.

Good morning, y’all. I couldn’t sleep last night so I got up early to get some more of this off my mind. You know how it is when your mind is just racing but you’re not coming up with anything constructive? It ‘s kind of like roller skating on Vaseline.

To resume my story, it is New Year’s Day 2015 and I am stuck in a little corner of Hell called Asheville, N.C. I am looking for supper in a town that has clearly closed for the day as evidenced by all of the dark store fronts. I finally spot a Chinese joint named, “Pu Pu Hot Pot”. Well, “any port in a storm” as Daddy used to say. It wasn’t bad, as far as “Pu Pu” goes, and I headed back to Mom’s condo to try to plot my next moves. I needed to be extra effective in the time left to me. I called Mulva and Jackson and discussed Mom’s complete loss of cognition. I told them of Mom’s new official diagnosis. Jackson reminds me that I have Mom’s Power of Attorney and that I need to gather up all of her paperwork so I can begin paying her bills for her. Mulva reminds me that I need to clean out the refrigerator and shelves and get rid of anything that might spoil.

Turns out Mom hoards garbage sacks, as well as toilet paper, and I find enough to do the job. I’ve never seen so many cans of Hormel Smoked Baked Beans, some of them eight years old. I fill the trunk and all of the seats of Mom’s van with expired or spoiled food. I haven’t even hit the medicine cabinet yet. I can barely enter Mom’s bathroom and maintain focus. The “cleaning up” that Charlotte and Edna were so hot to take care of apparently didn’t include the toilet and surrounding floors and walls.

I focus on the medicine cabinet and under the sink. My efforts come up with things going back to 1957. The bottle of Castor Oil I find might have been the same one Mom threatened me and Jackson with when we were kids. Well, I make executive decisions about what was necessary should Mom come back home, and throw the rest in a bag and shove it into the van. It’s a short drive to the dumpster and I accomplish the dual goals of keeping Mom’s battery from dying and keeping the neighbors from calling the police over a “funny smell”.

Next I start on Mom’s paper work. Mom had a very interesting filing system. She would devote a dresser drawer to a year. Anything in a year would go in a drawer, not by payee, not by date, not even by tax implications, if it was 2010, it went in this drawer. I decided to bag it the same way. I figured I had plenty of time to sort it out properly when I got back to Nunsuch. Each drawer had about two dozen self addressed envelopes to the Shepherd’s Chapel in Arkansas. God only knows how much Mom had contributed to these guys over the years, but it was sure that the Shepherds wanted to make it easy for Mom to send more. I debated offering to sell the envelopes back to them for a “postage only” deal, and then threw them away. Screw ’em.

I moved to Mom’s kitchen table where she kept her current stuff and started trying to parse through the most relevant and time sensitive items. Charlotte’s incessant texts were now being split between the garbage key and Mom’s condo association dues being due. I could, “give Louise, Mom’s neighbor, a check, she’s on the condo board”, as Charlotte entreated. Or I could, “set the whole damn thing on fire if you don’t quit bugging me”, I thought, but I am trying to be “the adult in the room”.

I continue sorting through the flotsam and jetsam that an 88 year old considers important. While sorting, I find three steno pads filled with Mom’s writing that catch my eye. Upon further inspection, I find that the pages are filled with exact conversations that Mom and I have had in our weekly Saturday phone calls. I could not have been more stunned if you’d smacked me in the forehead with a ball peen hammer. On these steno pads were scripts that Mom had written out to be able to handle her end of the conversation. Mom wanted to be able to come up with topical items to interject when it was her turn to talk. I am overwhelmed. I call Jackson back with the news. My brother commiserates with me about the fact that “Elvis had left building” a lot further back than we thought.

Just like giving her Doctors the right answers to their standard “senile tests”, Mom had devised a method to make Jackson and I think that she was still “with it”. Mom’s red on yellow “Do Not Resuscitate” order glared at me from the refrigerator door and I marveled at her tenacity to “die like Aunt Sudy”. Aunt Sudy had died at age 91 while reaching for the refrigerator door, as the legend is told. “Dropped dead just like that, not a bye your leave or a peep came out of her”.

Reflection is the enemy of efficiency, so I just scooped everything up and throw it in the trunk of the Trans Am. I find one other item of interest on Mom’s kitchen table, an envelope with Ann Wallace’s name on it. In my role of almost ordained Power of Attorney, I open the envelope. Turns out it is a promissory note from Ann to Mom that is due on the first of February. The plot thickens. I spend the rest of the evening Googling addresses and maps of places I know I need to go before leaving town. I find a number for a 24 hour hot line for senior services and take a chance. I bend the ear of some poor social worker whose seniority did not allow her to be off on New Year’s Day. God bless her, she is very helpful, very patient, and gets me mentally prepared for the potential of applying for guardianship of Mom. I Google attorneys whose specialty is Elder Law and find a promising firm. I keep the attorney’s number in reserve. I don’t have a clue as to how this is going to play out tomorrow.

Rather than getting a guaranteed “bad night’s sleep” on the guest bed, I opt for the loveseat/sofa in the living room. Seinfeld is on and “George’s boys can swim”.  Tomorrow is another day.

Good morning, y’all. I am absolutely tuckered out. I’ve remembered so much stuff in the last twenty four hours that a total frontal lobotomy would result in a call of no foul. Wasn’t it Tom Waits who said, “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy?” Well, enough of that kind of thinking.

When we left our story, it is January 1, 2015, I am in Asheville in Mom’s condo on the second day of my Odyssey. I have awoken from a fitful night’s sleep on a bed that would have been used during the Inquistion to finish off the survivors of the rack and iron maiden. I have three texts from Charlotte wanting to know if I have Mom’s keys, and in particular the “garbage key”. I do not understand the focus on the garbage key, even though Mom’s situation at the condo is sort of unique.

Mom lives in a gated community overlooking the golf course. It is very, very scenic, and the community dumpster sits just outside of the gates of the community. I guess the community didn’t want garbage trucks rumbling through in the early AM breaking their solitude. The community decided to be a little self sufficient in the interest of peace and quiet, and so they came up with the “outside the walls” dumpster solution. The dumpster did require a specific key to gain entry, and this is what Charlotte is focused on for some reason.

Charlotte had brought up the garbage key the day before when we had our terse discussion of where I was shortly after my arrival. I presumed Charlotte was at the hospital, but when I called her, my question, “Where are you?” was met with, “I’m at home, where are you?”. There followed a brief discussion with me explaining my expectation that Charlotte would be where our dying Mother was. Turns out, Charlotte apparently thinks I’m coming to Asheville to see Charlotte. It was never mentioned previously that I was supposed to show up at “Hoarders R Us”.

I just do my best, “to be the adult in the room”, and ease out of the conversation as easily as possible. During this conversation she mentions Moms keys and the garbage key about three times. She whines on about how fragile she, Charlotte, is, and recounts how mean Mom has been, even when Charlotte has been trying to help her with her medicines. There is a level of self serving B.S. I can abide, and Charlotte has already pushed past her 2015 quota. 

I head on over to the hospital where I find Mom sitting up in bed talking to some elderly lady I don’t know. Mom has a blanket on her bed that is in a very distinctive fuschia color which I know must have come in from the outside. I take a seat out of the way and Mom continues listening to her friend who has identified herself as Ann Wallace. Ann probes Mom as to when Mom is going to be released, if she needs a ride back home, does Ann need to call some friends to setup home health care and so on. Mom’s best response through all of this was a weak, “I don’t know when I’ll get to go home”.

Next, Ann goes into a soliloquy that chills me to this day. She starts telling Mom about some friend that had gone to an assisted living facility and was beaten up, nearly beaten to death. If that story is not bad enough, Ann tells of another friend who was raped in a nursing home. Ann assured Mom that Mom needed none of that, “assisted living business”. Ann was sure Mom could get by fine at home with just a little help from her friends.

Well, during the rape story I had had enough. I truly didn’t know where Mom was going to wind up. I was sure that I didn’t want some crazy old crone convincing Mom that Assisted Living wasn’t the best thing for her, when it truly might be. I started asking Ann pointed questions about her credentials to make recommendations to Mom in the hopes of making her uncomfortable enough to leave. If not leave, at least shut up.

Mom’s doctor came in and crazy Ann bid us an adieu. The doctor asked Mom some questions and Mom contributed to the interview as well as she could. The doctor explained that they had to use a catheter to get a urine specimen from Mom and the results were the worst bladder infection they had ever seen. The doctor related that everyone was very surprised that Mom’s vitals had bounced back as well as they had. Mom smiled at everyone and told everyone thank you for all of the wonderful care she was receiving. The doctor offered promise of release in a couple of days and headed off on her rounds.

I spent the next few hours talking, or trying to talk to Mom. About every third sentence from Mom was about the blanket that Edna had brought her, and how pretty the blanket was. It was pretty clear to me that “Elvis had left the building”, so’s to speak. The question was whether Elvis was ever coming back. Mom had some specific short term memories; she remembered Maggie bringing her to the hospital, she remembered Charlotte trying to “dose her” with blackberry root extract, she remembered Obama was president. She didn’t know what day it was or year, 2014, or 2015, and mostly importantly, didn’t know where she was.

Mom was convinced she was on the psyche ward of Memorial Mission. When I asked her to break it down for me, she explained that she knew she was in a new part of the building and that Memorial Mission had had to add on to their facilities in the past to handle their share of the mental health issues in Buncombe county. Since her room was nice and new, and had such a wonderful view of Mt. Pisgah, Mom surmised she was on the psyche ward. I asked Mom if she knew if there was an event that led to her being placed on the psyche ward. She kind of blanked and started focusing on the blanket again.

Lunch came and I took the opportunity to go to the cafeteria and call Mulva and Jackson. It is funny when two very different people who are confronted with the same set of problems will respond in exactly the same way. After explaining Mom’s complete loss of capacity and the fact that I thought it really was time to do something different with Mom, particularly something that didn’t involve Charlotte and/or Edna, Jackson and Mulva both responded, “I don’t care where you put her as long as it’s not here”.

In truth, that’s my response too. There are situations where the elders can move in and live out their days with family, but that has never been an option with Mom. My brain was absolutely spinning over the possible outcomes of Mom’s situation. It certainly took my thoughts off of my problems. I have to get about neck deep in elder care in the 30 hours available, before I’m due back in Blairsville. I go back upstairs to Mom’s room and watch Mom fall in and out of consciousness. I take the time to start texting and emailing people who might know something about what I needed to do.

The doctor comes in to check on Mom about 4PM and is very laudatory in her praise as to how well Mom is doing. She gives Mom the promise that, with continued improvement, Mom will be able to go back home in a couple of days. I follow the doctor out into the hall and ask for a word. Did I mention earlier that the doctor looked like she had just come from cheerleader practice? Anyway, I relate the fact that Mom is as confused as she can be. Mom is not the same as before going in. I am given a stock group of answers as to why Mom should be allowed to go back home.

At this point, I relate to the doctor that Mom knows all of the answers to all of the psyche questions. Mom practices them everyday. “Do you live on your own, do you do your own housework, do you cook for yourself, how do you stay busy, yaddita yaddita”. The doctor looks perplexed, and then sees the relieving doctor coming on shift. She asks me to repeat what I’ve just said to both of them. The new doctor starts to affirm the first diagnosis when I am forced to swoop in for the clincher.

“Did you ask her where she is, I mean specifically where she is, because she tells me she’s been committed to the psyche ward”, I ask.

They tell me to wait where I am for a few minutes and they head into Mom’s room. They’re gone for about ten minutes before they come back and confirm the diagnosis of severe dementia. They add the diagnosis to Mom’s chart and we agree we will follow Mom’s mental issues more closely before we decide to let her get back behind the wheel of a car.

I go back in and visit with Mom until supper time and then I head out. I tell Mom I’ll see her tomorrow and head off into the Asheville night in search of supper on New Years Day. As it turns out, Asheville closes on New Years Day. Do make a note of that for future reference.

Good morning, y’all. I’m going to try to monopolize the computer this evening while everyone is at church. Doesn’t matter the denomination, they all want a second chance at you on Sunday. That works just fine for me. Once I start remembering something ,it’s hard for me to let go before I finish. Here goes. 

Well, we left off earlier today with me standing at the foot of Mom’s bed in Asheville’s Memorial Mission hospital. Mom was looking like one of the telepaths in the movie Minority Report. She is pale, asleep, and breathing deeply with hoses running everywhere. I sit for awhile and text Mulva and Jackson that Mom is alive, and looks like she is being cared for. I sit for a bit and then head to the cafeteria to see if I can find something to eat. When I return, one of the nurses stops me to give me an update. Mom is suffering from severe dehydration which has resulted in a sever bladder infection. Turns out the bladder infection is so bad that Mom’s urine has turned to mucous. I am informed that Mom was, “within hours of death”, but was awake now.

I go in, and Mom manages a weak smile before asking, “what are you doing here?”

I reply, “more importantly, what are you doing here?”

Mom rambles for a while before she relates some story about Charlotte and blackberry root extract. She finishes off the story in classic Mom style, “I told Charlotte I brought you into this world and I can take you out!”

There, for just a second, she was back to her old self. Mom then kind of looked drunkenly around the room and went to sleep. I sat for a little while and then tried to compose my thoughts as to what the most important things were for me to do while I was here. I dreaded it, but I knew I was going to have to talk to Aunt Edna and my sister Charlotte to get the details behind this episode. I also needed to get a feel for what they saw in the future.

Aunt Edna lives in West Asheville in an old Craftsman style house. Edna uses the main floor for herself and rents out the other floors as apartments. Mom liked the concept so much that she bought the house next to Edna’s and moved in. Later on, when their younger sister Matilda bought a third house on the street, they were joined together as they never had been as sisters. Mom referred to the sisters as the “Golden Girls”. Mom seemed to be happiest during this time, then long time smoker Matilda died. The passing of her younger sister seemed to change Mom’s general outlook, for the worse.

Next, Charlotte moved in to Mom’s basement and earned her certificate in mental disease. A few years later, depending on the teller of the story, Mom needed to move on and bought a condo overlooking the golf course. Mom was living independently in her condo with some minor assistance in shopping and Doctor’s appointments from Charlotte and Edna. Charlotte, an “unorthodox Jew” was not available on the Sabbath, which was sundown Friday until sometime Sunday, so “don’t call”. Charlotte’s faith did allow her to use the internet, though. You could email Charlotte any time day or night, if you needed to get a message through. Ironically, Mom lost her internet skills several years ago.

I pulled up in front of Aunt Edna’s house and took several deep breaths before knocking on the door. Edna answered in her bombastic manner, hugs and kisses and salutations. Edna was wearing her hair long like Camryn Manheim, and the resemblance was frightening. I accepted Edna’s offer of coffee and settled down to try to find out what the heck was going on. I wanted to gain knowledge, while trying to not absolutely lose it over what the knowledge conveyed.

I updated Edna with my talk with the nurse and start probing as to how and why we got to this point. Edna hemmed and hawed and related her own high blood pressure problems. Edna related how mean Mom was, and how horrible Mom had been to Charlotte. Edna went on ad nauseum about how nothing pleased my Mom. I nodded my head in agreement, I knew all of this. The question was, “how do you let somebody that you’re seeing everyday get sicker and sicker for a week or so and not spring into action?” I forget how I asked that question, but I will never forget the answer, “Well, she’s got that DNR you know, I’ve had my nurse’s training and I know you don’t mess with a DNR”.

“Well, screw me”, I think. The question that still remains unasked is,”Were you going to let your sister die in her own filth in excruciating pain, because, once upon a time, you wore a white uniform and emptied some bed pans at an old folks home?” I did ask Edna to clarify what “D”o “N”ot “R”esucitate means to her. After a great deal of rambling, Edna’s response was generic enough to where, if Mom had fallen down the steps and was semi-conscious on the sidewalk, Edna was ethically bound to leave her there. I guess the look on my face was not giving Edna the positive reinforcement she thought she would get. She went on to relate that “use to”, mountain folk would just take to their beds and never get up again.

“Well, screw me”, I think again. I touch on the fact that bladder infections are prevented by drinking a lot of water. I headed off Edna’s objection by replying, “But Mom doesn’t like to drink water because it makes her go to the bathroom”. Edna nodded in agreement and then related that Charlotte had been trying to treat Mom’s infection with some holistic medicines. “Is that where the blackberry extract came from?”, I ask.

Edna replies a cautious, “yes”. Edna then gives me ten minutes on how mean Mom was to Charlotte the last time Charlotte went over and tried to give Mom a dose. “If you could have seen the look of pure hatred your Momma gave poor Charlotte, it would have broken your heart”. Well, I seriously doubt that.

I make some inquiries about Mom’s properties and what would Edna’s best advice would be for handling Mom’s affairs, short term and long term. After a while, my head is just spinning. I wave off Edna’s offer to have Charlotte come over and join our discussion. I head back to the hospital and go to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee and to call Jackson. I give Jackson the view from 50,000 feet and ask him to stay put, at least until I leave. At this point I’m sure Mom’s caretakers are unable to help her anymore. The “Golden Girls” have turned to tin.

I meet Mom’s doctor in the hall and she looks like she has just come from cheerleader practice. I am old, she is young. She relates the seriousness of Mom’s illness, “doesn’t know why in the world Mom hadn’t gone septic”, and, for right now, they were pumping fluids and antibiotics. The doctor is hopeful that if Mom’s cognition returns she may be released to home health care in a few days. I go in and visit Mom until dinner time and she slips in and out of consciousness. I tell her I’ll be back tomorrow and head out to meet my niece Maggie for dinner.

Maggie relates the day from her perspective, and it ain’t pretty. To get Mom to the hospital they had to use Mom’s van, which Maggie has left back at the condo. Maggie gives me Mom’s keys, which weigh about seven and a half pounds. There’s a key for every lock but the “Pearly Gates” I surmise. I thank Maggie profusely for her stepping in and tell her I’ll stay in touch. I’m in a hurry to get to the condo. I’ve got to see what this horrific mess is that needed cleaning so desperately. Close inspection of the condo reveals no evidence of a mess, or that anyone had vacuumed or dusted or cleaned the bathrooms in quite a while. I call Mulva and fall asleep watching Seinfeld, just like at home.

More later.

Good morning, y’all. I’m a firm believer that the world can get along without my contribution until the sun is up and I’ve had the chance to caffeinate myself sufficiently to withstand the rigors of the day. Any deviance in that routine risks a change in the tides and bird migration. Be warned.

When we left off about one AM last night, it was New Year’s Eve day and I was headed across the hills to Asheville. I am on a mission to find out whatever state Mom was in. Jackson called me in route and said that he’d heard from Maggie. Maggie had been able to get Mom into the car. When Maggie had called Mom’s Doctor, he said to just go ahead and take Mom to Memorial Mission. They admitted Mom with a blood pressure of 60 over 46. Jackson asked if he should come on to Asheville or hold back. I told him to hold back because I didn’t know how much longer I’d be free. I knew that at some point I was going to be out of the picture for a while and I wanted to carry as much of the load as I could until then.

Let me take a small break here to point out that while I love American Iron, as my Firebird will attest, there is one indispensable piece of equipment available on new cars that the old iron can’t match, Bluetooth. Controlling a car on a windy mountain road while trying to talk holding a phone is at least one thing more than I am capable of doing at the same time. The infernal ding, ding, dings of Charlotte’s incoming texts and calls on my cell phone are enough to make me want to jump the curb, but I don’t. Anyway, parents, make sure your kids have cars with Bluetooth. Try to combat human nature at least that much.

I stop for gas and to catch up on Charlotte’s urgent messages. Charlotte’s text messages let me know what I already know. As much as I hate to do it, I’m forced to call her for more current information.

“Where are you?”, she inquires.

“About half way there”, I reply, “are you at the hospital?”

“No, Edna and I came over to Mom’s condo to clean up”, she says. 

I am absolutely gobstopped. I have promised myself and Mulva that I am going to be the “adult” in the situation. For the next few days, I will not let my feelings run rampant. Besides being a good habit to develop, I also have my freedom to consider.

“Mom is near death in the hospital, and you and Edna are at the condo cleaning up?”, I say as tempered as I can.

“We figured we’d clean up before you and Jackson came in, you’re planning on staying here aren’t you?”, she replies.

“I don’t know where I’ll stay or for how long”, I reply, “I’ve got three days right now before I have to report back in person”. “It sounds like Mom is close to death and I don’t know what all that means”, I continue,  “what are you and Edna cleaning up at the condo that’s so urgent?”

“Well, Mom’s been sick for about a week and I tried to get her to let Chris Coe come over and straighten up for her”, she whines. Charlotte then anticipates my next question, “Chris Coe is a fellow Edna met at church that cleans and does odd jobs for me and Edna”.

Now, I have visited Charlotte just one time in her new digs. It is a basement apartment in a building Mom owns in Asheville. It was back on that fateful Thanksgiving when I had a crisis of conscience in not warning her then current husband to run for the hills. Charlotte’s apartment looked like Fibber McGee’s closet had mutated to twelve hundred square feet. The only organized part of the apartment was the laundry room where shelves where filled with boxes of sterno, butane, toilet paper, meals ready to eat and bottled water. Floor to ceiling, a doomsdayer’s wet dream, just waiting for the apocalypse, or a spark. I had mentioned to Mom that one call to the fire department for an inspection would serve as an instant eviction notice for Charlotte, should Mom ever need to kick her out. Mom never played that card, she had Charlotte right where she wanted her.

“I gotta go”, I said, ” I should be there in about an hour”.

“Ok, bro, see you then”, she replied.

Again with that “Bro”. Jesus, I’ve got to cure that feeling I get when she says that. I nudge the Firebird a little over the limit, I figure it’s not going to be worth any Smokey’s effort to write me up for going six miles over the limit. I’ve picked up WNCW on the radio and I’m enjoying the Bluegrass as I motor along on the highway to Hell. I follow the signs to Memorial Mission hospital. When I arrive I am confronted with one of the 8 wonders of the world, the Memorial Mission parking lot. I tell you what, if Charlotte gets her Apocalypse, the two things left around will be cockroaches and that parking lot.

I negotiate my way to the lobby to a septuagenarian manning the information desk. Based on her attitude, I’m guessing she was a volunteer. I do manage to wrangle Mom’s room number from her. Mom is on the third floor in the Women’s Health Unit. I make my way to the nurses station, which is the hub centered to the rooms spoked out all around. Mom’s room  is on the backside of the building. When I walk through the door of Mom’s room I am confronted by two indelible pictures, Mt. Pisgah through the room’s picture window, and Mom connected to machinery. If Mom was an octopus, all of her arms would be attached to machines with lights and digital numbers. If Mom was an octopus, she’d look better, even if she’d been out of the water for a while. In spite of our relationship, it still makes you catch your breath.

We’ll continue on more tomorrow.

Good morning, y’all. Good news! The shrink says I’m making real progress in sharing my feelings. The word from my sponsor is that I’m towing the line straight and narrow. Maybe there is something to all of this touchy feely crap. Hold on to your hats, I’m about to give you a few more shovels full of touchy feely.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, Mom missed her opportunity to walk on those “streets paved of gold” back on New Years’ Eve day this year. In my opinion, she missed her opportunity many, many years ago, but, I’ll not dwell too long on the differences of my valuation of her life’s work, as opposed to her self-evaluation. Long story short, she was knocking on death’s door, and it is a matter of opinion as to who was going to answer. Smart money is on Beelzebub.

December 31, 2014, New Year’s eve day of 2015, I am at home here at TackyToo, out on bail, awaiting trial that is set for the 15th of January. Mulva had relented and gone bail for me. I was able to return home while I waited for my “just desserts” in the matter of vehicular homicide of a fiberglass bee. The predawn morning is shattered by the phone ringing. I see by the caller ID that it is my sister Charlotte. Now, the thing about caller ID is, like anything that gives a glimpse into the future, your imagination will take you either way. A call from the bank can mean that they made a hundred dollar error in your favor, or, that your paycheck bounced. It’s 50-50, it could go either way. Not with Charlotte, it’s 100% all of the time going to be bad. The question is, “bad by how much?” At this particular juncture of my life I am like my step-daddy George used to describe as, “being in Hell with your back broke”. Now, I’m about to find out from my sister that this little spot of Hell that I occupy is right below the septic leak.

“Mom’s sick, she needs to be in the hospital”, Charlotte whines into the phone.

“Why are you calling me”, I respond, “why aren’t you calling the doctor?”

Charlotte whines, “she won’t go to the doctor, she says she has an appointment on the 15th, she’ll go then”.

“Well fine, take her then”, I say.

Charlotte drones on, “But Edna says Mom’s blood pressure is 70 over 45 and that she really needs to go to the doctor”.

Edna is our aunt Edna who helps Mom maintain her “independence” by running errands for Mom, and, generally keeping Mom grounded in reality. Well, I’m no doctor and I know that 70 over 45 ain’t good.

“Jesus Christ”, I say, “why didn’t Edna call the EMT’s?”

“Edna didn’t want to fight with Mom helping her get into the ambulance”, Charlotte whines, “it would just break Edna’s heart”.

At this point, seismic equipment all over the world begin to pick up enormous changes in the Earth’s crust centering in North Georgia near a town called Nonsuch. I feel the heat in my ears.

“And what did you expect me to do?”, I hiss into the phone.

“We thought you and Jackson could come up and take Mom to the doctor, or the hospital, whichever you think is best”, Charlotte whines on.

“I’m nearly three hours away, even if I can leave town, which I don’t know that I can”, I retort, “Are you all just going to leave her there until Jackson and I can get there?”

“Well, we’re just at our wits end and don’t know what to do”, Charlotte continues to whine, “Mom called Monday night and wanted me to stay over there because she thought she was having a stroke, but I just thought she was faking to get attention”.

What followed was ten minutes of self serving clap trap that I basically tuned out while I explained to Mulva what was going on with my hand over the receiver of the phone.

“Is there anyway you can get Mom to the doctor?”, I interrupted.

“Well, I could call Maggie to see if Mom would go with her”, Charlotte whined. Charlotte then proceeded to go into a ten minute character assassination of Maggie, Jackson’s daughter who lived in Asheville.

“Well then, for the love of Christ will you call Maggie and get her involved while I see if I can leave town?”, I replied. “I’ll call you back when I hear if I’m allowed to leave”, I said. 

“Ok, bro, and I’ll let you know if Mom makes it to the hospital”, Charlotte chimed.

The use of the term, “bro” ruffled my feathers beyond description, but I needed to calm down before calling the appropriate people to see if I could leave the state for a day or two. Phone calls were made, promises were made, considerations given and a couple of hours later I’m throwing my duffel bag in the back seat of my 1977 Pontiac Firebird, Smokey and the Bandit Edition. I am headed out for Asheville. The three hundred horses growl, the cassette growls louder, “When you’re goin’ down the road at night, and you feel the Wild Turkey’s bite”. I pop out the cassette. No sense inviting more trouble. It’s 6:30A.M. and I’ve taken my coffee to go. I drive with the confidence of a man who knows he can pass anything on the road but a filling station. This is not going to be pretty.

We’ll continue tomorrow.