Elaine Marcus Starkman

The Elderly and the Sandwich Generation

1987-1990

April 27. [1987]

Since her arrival last night, Ma's been sleeping on and off all day. The time difference, the climate change, the new environment, have exhausted her. Either that, or she's escaping through sleep. It's difficult to know how much she's capable of, but we do know she can't manage alone any longer. Maury's sold the small apartment building she and Pa owned since the fifties. She's spent the last six months shuffling between his brother and sister; now she's here. Didn't have the heart to ask how long she will stay. . . .

April 28.

Not sure how old Ma is, maybe eighty-two. During her seventies she was fine, now this slow disintegration. Why do some people age more slowly than others? Is it something they do to themselves? Heredity? A life-style they cultivate? . . .

April 30.

[The family rearranges its living space to make room for Ma.]

Since Amy's the youngest, looks like she gets the pull-out couch in the dining room until Karen goes away to college. Then she can take Karen's space and move in with Lori. Jon gets to keep his own room. He needs somewhere to study for his classes at college this semester while he works part-time.

Amy's sleeping on the couch for a few months isn't so terrible. Slept on one myself growing up, but it's less common in middle-class families nowadays.

So far the kids have adjusted to Ma better than I have, but

they're gone most of the day. They aren't responsible for her the way I am. I'm too anxious about her.

May 3.

Gave Ma her first bath today. I've never bathed an older person before. Although her face is very wrinkled, and for a small woman she's heavier than I thought, her body is not unattractive, though she's the last to know it. . . . I'm touched by how difficult the simple task of bathing is for her.

May 14

. . . Seeing Ma do nothing is my hang-up, not hers. I try to find tasks to occupy her, give her some old sewing, spend some unwilling time with her in the kitchen. . . . Mostly she does nothing, which makes me edgy. I have to readjust my thinking; for her, time isn't as urgent as it is for me. . . .

May 25, Memorial Day Weekend.

. . . For a treat, I took Ma to have her hair done today. . . . I left her while her hair was drying and went home for an hour. For the first time in a month, the house felt empty without her. It's not so bad, three generations living together. We're heading for those times again with inflation, longevity, and all the changes in health care.

June 8.

[Regarding the building she owned and rented, Ma asks:] "Who takes care of the building now?"

Mary explained once again. While she was with Arnold, she was vehemently against the sale. "We had to give it up, Ma; you just couldn't manage it alone anymore." The old hurt that we try to protect her from clouded her eyes. "If Arnold and Helen and you made my mind up, okay. I trust you. You're all good children; you do what's right."

Sometimes I wish she'd question more, like she used to; she's become too accepting. Where's the "suspicious old woman" I've read about in books?

June 10.

Took Ma on my errands with me: shopping, the post office, the library. She dragged behind so slowly, I don't have the patience to try it again. . . . Well, maybe one more time.

July 30.

Ma taught me a sentence today. Sounds something like this Cholodno, golodno, edadum, deloko. "I'm tired and hungry and far from home." Think it's a dialect of Russian. She pulled it out of thin air while she was sitting in the living room. When she stares into space, her mind isn't empty after all, but filled with rich remembrances.

October 30.

Shocked this morning when Ma put on all her clothes backward. Said she couldn't see. She's disoriented, can't find her way from the bedroom to the bathroom. I've been crying all day. What an emotional roller coaster.

November 1.

To the doctor again. He confirmed the fact that she's had a small stroke, accompanied by "a slight loss of vision"--some of it will return in about a month.

Of all things! I've dreamt of her falling, breaking bones, having a heart attack. But not her eyes. Her reading and sewing are the last things she had.

November 5.

We've started to use a bedpan. She's in bed a lot, and I can't carry her to the bathroom. The other day she got stuck on the toilet; I had to call a neighbor to help me lift her and steer her back to bed.

Maury's bought a small commode. Wonder if I'll ever get used to it. Right now I hate it.

December 14.

How quietly she rests in her chair waiting for Dora [the home health-care worker]. If only I could rest like that. If only I could trust like that. Blessed be old women, be they black, white, or yellow, who take care of other old women, who change their sheets and do not hate them, who accept their age and do not fear it.

Am I jealous of Dora, of her ability to work with Ma? That she can sit outside in the yard with Ma in peace while I pace about, prisoner in my own house? . . .

December 17.

I won't be the one responsible for placing her in a nursing home. With added help, maybe we can delay it, but even if Ma goes to Mary Alice for a few months, commuting back and forth can't work forever.

December 21.

Karen is home for the holidays; she has nowhere to put her clothes. Ma starts telling her about the building she owned. "Beautiful flats they are. I keep them up. I rent to good paying people, no bums. Reasonable. You can't get places like that." Karen blushes, "But Grandma, Dad's already sold the building." Ma walks out of the room in dead silence.

March 5. [1988]

Tomorrow night I'm going to a support group for adults of elderly disabled parents.

April 3, Support Group.

Quiet tonight at support group. Didn't feel like contributing. . . . Some talk about not medicating patients if it makes them more cognizant but also agitated. What's better? A more aware old charge and more nervous caregiver, or less aware charge and a less nervous caregiver?

I didn't want to be present tonight, maybe because I don't have the answers. Felt like forgetting the whole business and--what?--escaping to the moon.

April 4.

The left burner on the stove is smoking. Three dishes crash to the floor. Ma stands in the kitchen looking helpless.

"I wanted, Claire darling, to help, make things easier for you. I tried to cook for you. Maybe I didn't see too good." She weeps as I lead her back to her room.

How many times I too have been forgetful, left the stove on myself. Cursed be age, cursed be the loss of one's abilities.

May 24.

We've made a decision. Ma will go to the Muir Manor Nursing Home on June 15. It's one of the most difficult decisions we've ever made in our lives. . . . And I sit here and write--my heart is broken. . . .

June 16.

Maury packed her bags and left with her early yesterday morning. Grateful the girls weren't around. Only once she was in the car did he tell her where she was going. He narrates the event in a monotone.

"She didn't say a word; she only asked if I believed in an afterlife."

"How did you answer?"

"I said the way we remember the person--that's the afterlife. Can I bring her home one weekend?"

I swallowed hard and remained silent. As if Witch Claire might say no. . . .

June 19.

I've gone through Ma's room and cleaned out the clothes she no longer wears, ancient rent receipts she brought from Saint Louis, letters from people long dead, old jewelry, nightgowns and torn bras.

The quiet is healing. Maury and I went for a long walk. In some ways I know he was waiting for me to make this decision because he couldn't do it himself.

June 21.

Visited the Manor with Maury for the first time. I dreaded confronting her. She kept asking. "Am I in the hospital? When can I come home?"

Hard to know how to answer. For a moment she wouldn't look at me. When she finally said, "It's nice to see you, Claire," I fogged up and let Maury do the talking. "You'll stay here for now, Ma. There are good nurses to take care of you. [Home-care nurse] Anna's pregnant and can't come to the house anymore." "I can stay home without Anna. I can get into the tub by myself." . . . All Ma wants to know is when she's coming home.

February 20. [1989]

No, Claire didn't make the Jell-O; no, the nurse in the hallway isn't the cleaning lady. No, Claire doesn't want to eat lunch here. I tell Maury about my visit; he defends her, "Anyone would become forgetful living in that environment." . . .

April 3.

. . . Emptied of her last vestige of strength and sex, Ma sat on the bed in her "undershirt" (she no longer wears bras) unwilling to eat.

Maury dragged her like a white limp doll onto the toilet. "Don't waste so much paper, darling, I don't need it." I want to throw a bomb, blow everyone up, stop this absurd system.

July 11.

Ma's doing better. She puts her hands on her breasts. "There's no milk here for my children." "Your children are grown, Ma."

"Even if children are big they need a mother. They always need a mother."

I look away, and run across the street to buy her a yogurt, but I just can't go back to the Manor. End up pacing the mall and eating the yogurt myself.

August 1.

Silently she sits, greets me without moving a muscle in her face. I tell her we've been away. She will not look at me, will not eat, but when an aide takes her tray, she shouts, "Give me my food. Give me back my food." Then, "Can I come home now? I'm not so dizzy." She moves her hand about aimlessly; it jumps like a grasshopper.

I become old and dizzy myself. I become like my teenage neighbor scorning his mother, "You've ruined my day."

October 29.

Amy visits Ma this week with her friend Peter and me. . . . At first she calls me "nurse," but when she recognizes me, she says, "Claire darling, I love you. Go into the kitchen and take something to eat. You need to have your strength. Take, Claire darling. Take all the food you want."

I harden myself so I don't go to pieces in front of Amy. Later we talk about our feelings. . . . While [Amy] seems to care, she insists, "Grandma's not alive anymore." Part of me agrees with my offspring; another part says Ma still has her soul, and that is what keeps her from dying.

February 25. [1990]

Today I found Ma in "wheelchair row" waiting to be fed. How I detest that. Put her breakfast on a tray and wheeled her outside to show her the flowering winter plants.

"Who am I, Ma?"

"Tell her who you are, don't ask," Maury whispers to my conscience. Why did I do that?

She half looked at me. "A nice lady."

"Claire, Ma."

"Claire?" "Yes."

She reached for my sweater as if she were a child reaching for a new object, something not tainted with the dullness of this place, then pushed it aside, and wanted my purse. Did it remind her of the days when she had her own purse? She looked sad but didn't cry. Almost wished she had.

April 26.

She refuses to open her eyes, to speak. She's closed off from us and the world, drawn into herself either out of anger or exhaustion; she will not acknowledge Maury's efforts.

Why do I expect her to be responsive because I suddenly show up? If she doesn't acknowledge my presence this time, do I "punish" her by not coming again?

May 15.

Last night during yoga meditation, my teacher told us to envision someone who needed healing and to see that person in white healing light, then to let go. I let go, Ma, only you're still there, you hang on.

November 8.

Couldn't bear this visit even though the hallways have been renovated and were "cheerful." According to Maury she was "better" than last week. Better. Her hair, the most unkempt I've seen it, was wild about her head, her eyes slightly opened. When I entered the room, she closed them and wouldn't look at us. Maury fed her from the syringe. This time I didn't touch her. How long her dying is.

[Ma died on August 5, 1991 having declined steadily. In her last years, she had a series of strokes, and was frequently confused, forgetful and silent.]

Elaine Marcus Starkman. Learning to Sit in the Silence: A Journal of Caretaking. Watsonville, CA: Papier-Mache Press, 1993.