Summering with Mom

At the beginning of June, a storm did some damage to my mom's house knocking her out for about a week. My family let us know this happened and wrung their hands while we traveled down to the New Orleans area and got the roof and electricity fixed. However, we also realized mom was not up to living by herself anymore. 

My mom is 87, fiercely independent, and was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2015 (though it may have been coming on for longer than that). She was rather adamant about not moving and not needing help, though it was obvious to everyone but her that she did. 

So once her house was fixed, we brought her up her. Now we had discussed before leaving her home that this was a permanent thing. She agree to think about it, but I don't think it sunk it. Nope, I know it didn't sink in until recently because, she has fussed and argued about it several times. Lately, it's sinking in because now she talks about going back getting some of her things. 

Another reason it is sinking in has to do with moving her Medicare and Medicaid around. Good lord, if ever you need to realize that a one payer, centrally run, health care system is a necessity try to figure out how two different states do services! Heck, even the companies that provide services through something like Medicare don't offer the same plans in different states. It's utterly stupid. 

Listening to me try to figure out these silly things and fill out applications (which always makes me grumble) has convinced my mom that this move thing is happening. Though she might not remember that tomorrow. 

We also moved her elderly dogs up with us. She dotes on them, but we could also see that they were not doing well either. I can say they have improved up here. They may not like being stuck in the more limited space (5 cats live here and they don't like cats), but they love the yard. 

So while we are still figuring things out, what we'll do with my mom once I go back to work, it looks like things are working. That is a big plus, though I think the jigsaw puzzle and puzzle book industries may realize much higher profits considering the way we're going through those things!

Sorry for being absent

I'm sorry for being absent, but dealing with my mom and her dementia is time consuming. It's depressing actually on some days and funny others. It's always something.

I'm also trying to put stuff together for her Medicaid/Medicare and my work and the classes I take. Oy.

So while I work, here's a post I had to write for one of my grad classes dealing with questionsof inequality.

Rosary

               The problems of inequality and justice are too broad, too vast, and too complicated for a mere three hundred words, but the readings and media we were assigned this week make me feel angry, frustrated, depressed, and often impotent. Then again I also identify as a proud feminist with Marxist leanings.

               The media referenced this week makes me angry because these have been the arguments of my entire lifetime. I was born in 1965 a time of turbulence and optimism. What angers me is that now in 2015 when I will be fifty years old, we seem not to have moved forwards, but to in fact have regressed. Income disparity is at level not seen for a hundred years or so; racism still permeates our culture and discourse as does the violence it calls up; and women’s bodies are still a battleground.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 designed to promote and safeguard the civil rights of all was basically gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013 when they ruled states no longer needed federal approval before changing state laws that affected voting. Yet, we constantly hear of voter fraud and polling place bullying, but the law is now fairly unenforceable. We also have now so many Voter ID rules that we have basically reinstituted a poll tax. This makes me angry.

In 1973, Roe vs. Wade was decided, I was eight. The majority of my lifetime has seen the abortion issue debated and thrown around. This, too, makes me angry. What makes me even angrier are all of the recent attempts by legislators to limit, to repeal, and to control women’s reproductive rights. This makes me angry.

When my father died before my third birthday, my newly single mother raised me, and we lived on Social Security survivor’s benefits. I know what it is like to be part of the “welfare state.” When I hear people say things about how the poor don’t work hard enough, how they have opportunities if they only took them, I become angry. When I hear people condemn fast food workers for striking to have a livable wage, or when I hear the trickle-down economics blather, I become angry. I become angry because I watch my students who try to raise their children on these minimum wage jobs struggle to have an education which might lead them to opportunities that they can barely imagine because our nation, if not our world, has limited their dreams to what is appropriate to their income, their race, or their gender. I grow angry.

Unlike the Incredible Hulk, however, I cannot let people not like me when I am angry. Anger motivates but it does not solve. What does solve? Well, Emma Watson’s speech before the UN shows us one way—to talk to each other, to discuss these issues. Openly discussing these issues is uncomfortable; these discussions make people wiggle and avoid committing, but we must have them. When we see each other as people first and not as income, race, or gender, we can then begin to find the answers the solutions.

Obviously as an educator, I believe educating people on these issues is important. As we learn from our past how we have treated each other, how people have felt about that treatment, we can learn then to respect each other. In respecting each other no matter income, gender, or race, we can begin to see the solution.

I do not have a solution. This is a problem bigger than me, but I am at heart a Utilitarian: That which is good is that which does the most good for the greatest amount of people. All people, not just one or two groups, all. Until we can see, accept, respect, and talk with one another equally, I will remain angry—an angry liberal feminist with Marxist leanings, who wants to see and to work for a forward movement on these issues in the next fifty years of life.

 

Life Events

Sunday, two weeks ago, we received a somewhat frantic phone call from my uncle telling us that my mom (she's 87) has roof damage causing her electrical power to go out. The damage was so bad the company would have to shut off her power until it was repaired. Picturing the worst--huge gaping holes in the roof--my husband and I pushed our visit to her up a week, and arrived at  her home on that Tuesday (a six hour drive away).

We found my mom working outside of her powerless house. She kept wondering why she didn't have power. My mom has dementia; she was diagnosed about 7 months ago. This was going to be an interesting adventure.

The first thing we realized was that we were lucky. Yes the house had damage, but it was not nearly as bad as my uncle had made it out to be. Thanks to facebook, old friends, and the internet, we were able to find a contractor to be at the house on Wednesday, and he got us an electrician. They both worked tremendously hard to get everything fixed by Friday. They were a blessing. In the meantime, we stayed at a hotel because it was 95 during the day with a heat index of 102 or so.

During this time, we realized that while we need to get the house fixed up and made safe. We can't let mom live there anymore. We actually knew it, but having to see it and face it was different. So my mom is up "visiting." She's been here a week, and she may have very little memory, but lord, physically, she's is fairly decent shape for an 87 year old. She's had a cleaning like mad. Our poor garbagemen may have heat stroke when they see the amount of trash bags we have out.

We've told her we want her to stay permanently, but she still asks about going home. Sigh. She can't, and no matter how often, we mention it, it doesn't stick.

In the meantime, life goes on. I need to transfer insurance between states. We now have to take care of two houses (one out of state). We have to take care of ourselves. It's definitely a day by day situation. Errands must be run, bills paid, classes planned, and all the stuff we do.

I find myself looking for patience more than ever. It will all work work out has become my mantra because I have no choice but for it to work out.

On the title

One of my favorite quotes from literature comes from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." A large rambling anthe of a poem, "Song of Myself" covers a wide span of ideas and concepts, but my favorite line (and there are a large number of them) is, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large -- I contain multitudes.” I love this line because it speaks to human potential. 

I chose it for the title of this blog because we all contain multitudes. We contain a multitude of selves, ideas, concerns, loves, and so forth. I know I certainly contain multitudes, and often contradictory ones. For instance, I am both a teacher and a student. I am a wife and staunch feminist, and so forth. I think this is the human condition to contain multitudes. 

In this blog I hope to share some of the multitudes that make up this one human. Your multitudes may vary. I may post essays. I may post snippets. I may post photos. I may post papers I write for class. I may store ideas for teaching. I may ruminate on many things. My ideas and my thoughts may be contradictory, so what? HUman do hold contradictory ideas because as Whitman posits we contain multitudes. 

Test post

This is a test post so I can see what I am getting into.