Sadness at the Edge of Town

I didn't get to make my usual mid week visit to Ancient Mom, and decided to go yesterday. Wifey jumped in, and said she might as well go along, to see her father. It was a sad and bad day all around. When we got to the Miami Jewish Home, Wifey left for her father's building, and I found Mom in bed -- it was 11 am. She looked very week, and awoke still in ghost land. Isaac Singer, the great Yiddish writer, said that as he aged, he began to believe in ghosts, as he saw them all the time. And so it is with my mother -- she was asking why she couldn't find her Aunt Martha -- a lady gone over 25 years... Mom didn't feel up to getting out of bed, and the nurse told me she had a bad bout of the runs in the am. Plus, the maintainance crew was waxing the floors, and the fellow kept asking when I was leaving, so he could do his job. I stayed about half an hour and left -- saddened by her state, saddened by how little she is visited by much of her family -- saddened by the whole ordeal. Meanwhile, Wifey was with her Dad, who is happy and cheerful in his new surroundings. She invited me to meet them at a gorgeous old ficus tree, but I begged off. My father in law is a handful -- he always made me extremely nervous and unsettled, with his rapid fire questioning and manner. He shoots questions at a person and asks the next one well before an answer can be given. I've grown used to him over the years, but yesterday I just couldn't bear the thought of being around him. So Wifey came back, and I was in a sour mood with her all day. I realized later I was angry about my mother, not her. But even sweet guys are allowed to be assholes once in a while, right? My old friend Professor Steve is so wise. He writes often about aging, and one of the saddest things is how damned unattractive the elderly are. They look bad, they don't tend to smell too great, and their moods are frequently less than giddy. So family and friends find it easy to simply ignore them, especially if they're lucky enough to know the olds are in secure places. And so it is with my mother. She has 6 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren, all but two of whom live in Florida. Four of her grandkids and their children, her great grandkids, have visited her exactly ONCE in the past year. Not surprisingly, I have no relationship with these people, and I'm sure they'd say how busy and harried and issue filled their lives are. But still -- a lady who is so sweet and did nothing but shower these people with love and gifts and caring goes unvisited, in this last part of her life. I'm angry, and I'm ashamed. But a therapist would tell me to let it out, and not harbor the feelings inside, where they find a way out in the form of anger towards the innocent, like Wifey. I just don't get it. My old friend Mirta visits Mom each Friday, and tells me it's a highlight of her week. She misses her own beloved mother so. I run after Mirta to send a bill for her time. She's busier than anyone I know -- full time babysitter for her grandkids, and full time nursing student as well. I thank her and thank her -- telling her she's much more family than my mother's own family -- and she laughs it off. To her, the time with my mother is a privilege. So I'm proud of Mirta, and I love her for what she does for ancient Mom. I just wish my mother's blood relatives would somehow feel at least a fraction of the same.