This is my first post. . . but I just had to write about Mother's Day. My sister & I are struggling with what to do for this. We've decided to just send flowers, as when she starts counting up cards and gifts, flowers seem to be the most important count.
At this point, my dad is in a nursing home and in no great hurry to get out. Mom has decided she needs to move (they were told this several years ago), but decided to insulted about being told what to do. Now that dad is somewhere else, we get phone calls (that last for hours). If we don't get the phone calls, then she will call other friends and family and speak against us.
Also, she has said, she wouldn't be in this mess if we lived nearby. In one breath she tells us she can handle things by herself, and in the next breath she asks for advice. Any advice given is taken as being bossy. A friend once told me to consider, when on the phone, to act as if you're a trash can. She doesn't want any advice, all she wants to do is dump on you - so - don't put any effort into giving the advice, once you've given it once.
My sister & I have started timing the amount of time before we utter one word on the phone with my mom. My personal length of time that's gone by before saying "uh - huh" has been 25 minutes. My sister's has been 20 minutes.
For awhile dad used email. Mom never used it - and dad was the one filter that was in place to keep email away from her that might upset her. Now however, that filter is gone. For years we have asked her to quit speaking against us. We told her it would be nice to be able to trust our own mother. She apologized and said she always does the wrong thing. Unfortunately, somehow the computer got infected with a virus. For about 3 days, every email she sent out, my sister & I were copied. We found out what we being written about us, not only to family, but to financial advisors.
This Mother's Day is a little more complicated, as their 50th anniversary is coming up. She doesn't want anything, and yet if we don't do something, we will hear about it for the next 5 years. So we've decided to fly out, camp in a National Park, and go and come as we want (but take them out to dinner for their anniversary).
So the struggle right now is to do what is right for both my Dad and Mom and to deal with all the guilty feelings.
