TheBanyanTree: The Glue has done, gone and run out...

[Sheri Baity]

I got to thinking about this concept yesterday while I was reglueing my coyote hide back onto the material backing.  It was back in 95 when I first put it together.  Here I was setting on the floor and just about redoing the entire hide.  That process last night swept me away to a different thought.  Before I knew it, I was thinking about the glue, my father, that kept the family together through all kinds of things and life.
 
How long does glue really last.  Well for this display hide that I've taken here and there and everywhere from one seminar to another, has lasted me about 13 years.  But the glue to a family can become no good at the drop of a hat.  And that is where I find myself right now, empty, no glue in sight and no want or will to get any more.
 
Since my Dad crossed over, I've been doing over and above to try and keep the glue together that my Dad did so well.  I've been trying to keep my Mother healthy or at least comfortable while in and out of nursing homes and hospitals.  I've been trying to keep the rest of the family in touch with what has been happening.  I'm power of attorney to her affairs which leads me into so many different directions some days, my head just spins and my chest just thumps.
 
But last week, I had had enough.  I realized that I am not my Father.  I will never be seen as him or his glue.  I can not do it all.  I can not do it anymore.  Someone else in the family has got to step up to the plate.  Although I've been warning them for the past 4 monthes that my Mother needs to go in a nursing home and it's time that we all get together and talk about it, I have been ignored over and over again.  But this last fall, ( meaning, actual fall down and go boom, yet again) I talked with the doctor and told him that this is where I believe she should be.  He quickly agreed with me and said, "It's time that I stop believing that everytime I send her home from the hospital that she will take care of herself and be okay."  I said, "Yes, it's time to stop pretending, indeed."
 
When he told her that he wasn't releasing her to her home, that she needed a nursing home, well he also told her that I was in agreement.  Well, that is all it took.  "I" was suddenly the one that wanted her locked away in some nursing home to just lay there and die and a whole other kind of crap came from her mouth.
 
Background here, we have never gotten along.  I've always been the black sheep of the family.  The fat one, the one that would never amount to anything.  The one that really hates her and the one that is only after her money... blah blah blah blah blah...  So I spent the next 48 hours making phone calls to the rest of the family and her.  It was not a pleasant journey, but I was doing my job.  Then all of a sudden, the rest of the family stopped talking to me.  Now this family has not been able to talk to each other, but they have always talked through me, the mediator of sorts.  Then I got a phone call from my one sister.  She said that she has been talking with the rest of the family and they were very upset that I was putting Mother in a nursing home.  
 
Suddenly now, after all of this time... they can speak to each other??!!??  And true to fashion like Joyce, (my mother) I am the one to blame??!!??  Well now... that was enough.
 
I was done.  So I picked up the phone, called my sister and told her to give Joyce a message for me.  1. To get a new POA   2. To take my name off of the will, life insurance policy  3.  Don't anyone call me again, consider myself out of the family, it's all you three's problem now.  I'm done.
 
It turns out that the doc never released her home.  He told her that she was going to a nursing home for 20 days.  Then after rehab, if the family got her life alert, he would think about letting her go home, but that there were no guarantee's.
 
I set here thinking that the family really did die when my Dad did.  It is such a mess.  But you know what... harsh as it may sound... Let the rest of the kids deal with their Mom.  I knew the love of a wonderful Father... but I never felt the love from a Mother.  So, I'm going on with my life.  Let them deal with the Joy's of Joyce.  She has become such a negative, nasty person, I don't want or need that in my life anymore.  And it's not right that no one else stepped up to the plate before.  
 
Bottom line is... She is not safe by herself anymore.  She needs assisted living or nursing home.  She needs someone to handle her finances.  She needs glue to help her through the rest of her years which are looking rather numbered these days.
 
and the harsh truth is... I've just plain run out...
 
 
 


Sheri L Baity
Pro Staff Lohman/Mad Game Calls
Flambeau Outdoors

God Give Me Peace because if you give me strength, I might beat someone do death!