Ready to Jump off the GW Bridge

by Carl
(Bergen County, NJ)

I have a 94 year old mother. She is living in a senior type apartment in the Bronx, NY, I live in NJ. She has an aide 5 days a week for 4 hrs.a day. She insists she does not want an aide on the weekend because she wants to be alone. She calls me on Sat. And Sun. Complaining how alone she is.

I go there about every 10 days. I do all her shopping, pay her bills, take her to her many doctor visits, I am with her for all holidays, birthday. Do all necessary tasks with medicaid, etc.

I have one sister whom no one in my entire family has spoken to in the last 12 years. The Ice Queen has removed herself from any involvement and is happy driving her Lexus around Westchester county. She has 2 daughters, one I refer to as a cube (of ice ) since she too is disconnected.

The other is a sweet young woman who does call and will try to visit her grandmother a few times during the year.

I'm fustrated to the point of having thoughts contrary to my nature. I realize my mother is now getting harder and harder for me to manage. I have looked at a few nursing homes and walked away, seeing the majority of the people living there are drugged and just sit, mostly out of it.

My mother when given someone's ear, is completely different, she is active and comparatively alert. It is only on the weekends, when she will go into the manager's office and cry that she is frightened and lonely. Some of the people see me there and know how often I go and what I do.

Others don't know and think me heartless. I am almost 67, have had colon cancer, now IBS and will have a prostate biopsy done.

I've been through both of the World Trade events and I'm tired, beat. I don't know what to do. Turn my back and have her taken kicking and screaming to a nursing home or continue doing as I am until one of us dies?

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