With some distance from the last post, it occurred to me that maybe my mother had such strange responses during the DNR talk because, in fact, that whole conversation was not all about me, (wheee, what a concept!) but on her side of it, the excruciating business of admitting it’s time to start letting her partner go. While I was wrapped up in how painful it will be to sign a DNR, she was likely wrapped up in what it will be like for her to to execute it. While I wanted to escape to go play with my family, she knows implementing the DNR will leave her alone. So, hindsight does make room for the possibility I might be/have been a bit of an asshole in this situation.

But I sure didn’t see it that way Sunday.

Directly from the park, Middle ordered lunch and went to pick it up. The rest of us leisurely gathered children and walked back to Middle’s house. When our families arrived, my sister had set the dining room table with place cards on each of our plates and our order waiting by our names. Cute! We all sat down to eat.

Over lunch, Middle asked Mom to dig up Dad’s service record, because the VA might help pay for daycare if Dad’s service qualifies.* You could see Mom bristle at the request, as she does not want to put Dad in daycare, but she agreed to find the information. Then Middle announced she’d signed Dad up for two or three residential waiting lists. As a precaution in case something happened to Mom first.

To Mom’s credit, she managed a fully polite, “Oh, where did you sign him up?” Followed by a forced, lighthearted, “You know, we visited PLACE A, but I hadn’t heard about PLACE B. Where is that?”

Middle mentioned PLACE A was closer but that it required sharing a room, while PLACE B was farther away, but had single room options. There was some talk about whether Dad would ever share a room, how much it cost a month, cross talk, and such.

The next thing I remember clearly was Mom leaning back in her chair and saying, in a directive tone, “Well, I’ll tell you what you need to do. If something happens to me, put your father in the cheapest home you can find. California’s too expensive. There’s some in Alabama—“

Which is one of the things that lights my sister’s hair on fire: Mom won’t let Dad so much as go to daycare for a single afternoon. She waits on him hand and foot. But somehow she thinks we should (or even physically could) move Dad 1000+ miles away, to the cheapest hellhole we can find, dump him among strangers, and leave without so much as a glance back.

Middle put her hand out, have-a-cup-of-shut-the-hell-up style. “No, see, you don’t get to reach beyond the grave and tell me what to do. You want to put Dad in some home in Alabama? Do it. When you’re gone, I’m going to handle it as I see fit.”

It’s where we’ve been for years: Middle trying to control how Mom takes care of Dad (daycare! VA help! More caregivers!). Mom rolling her eyes, while at the same time trying to dictate how Middle should take care of Dad after Mom’s gone. Both thinking the other’s plan is idiocy.

Somewhere in there, Mom turned to me and said, “Do you have any idea how expensive those homes Middle chose are?” And holy shit, they were indeed expensive.

So here’s where I said some stuff you might not like to hear. My justification: I needed my mom and my sister to get the fuck on the same page, because I could see Middle was wrecked from having this argument a thousand times and getting nowhere. And I knew what I was going to say was the truth. And I knew from reading my Dad’s end-of-life pages earlier that day that I could say these things and still be right with him. And also, although I am totally simpatico to Dad’s end-of-life worldview, I know Middle is softer. She has a right to say goodbye to Dad however she needs to. And I think she needs my mom’s help to do it.

I said to my mother, “I don’t care. Whatever Middle decides has my vote a hundred percent, however she wants to spend Dad’s money. In fact, she needs to be paid out of the estate something extra just for being at Ground Zero when it happens, since there’s no plan in the works. And here’s what you need to know. Middle will be dealing with this all by herself. I will not come up. I will not spend more than 24 hours total taking care of Dad. It will all fall on her. Believe me when I say, I will leave Dad in a ditch before I’ll come up here and take care of him over my own kids. And if he lives long enough to run out of money for the residential program, I won’t spend a dime of my kids’ inheritance on him. So if you care even slightly about what happens to Dad, or to Middle when she’s cleaning up the mess, you’d better figure it out.”

It was as if I were the most ghastly creature to ever inhabit a burrito luncheon. Honestly, I felt pretty ghoulish. But you better believe my mom heard me. (Ugh, so did the kids. I mean, they were rolling around the house during all this. Sorry kids! I’ll pay for your therapy out of the money I didn’t spend on my dad’s end-of-life care!)

Even so, I’m proud of what I said. Enough with whatever power struggle my mom’s got going on with my sister, her steadfast refusal to bend the slightest bit to help Middle.

And a big Fuck No to what seems to be my mother’s viewpoint that after she’s dead it doesn’t matter what happens, her willfulness to leave us with a disaster. I’m intensely relieved at letting her know I will not be Dad’s safety net. Far better than feeling obligated to take care of Dad because there had been some implicit agreement – which, looking back there had been an agreement. Or at least, there had been Mom showing us for years what she intended to do.

It did seem to work, I guess on account of my mother’s belief I’m indeed a stone cold monster who will follow-through on all those threats. So… yay? I think I’m saying yay here.

Mom sat at that table, and Middle cried and said all the things she was afraid would happen if Mom died first. Mom was pretty unsympathetic, but at least willing to listen. When she got off track (“just cremate me, then you can do the memorial on your schedule!” in response to Middle’s fear at losing both parents at once) I hard core interrupted with, “What are you going to do to make the transition work for Middle?” Which is polar opposite to how it’s gone recently, with everyone trying to make it easiest for Mom, or at least bend to her wishes of making it ‘easy for Dad’.

After fighting for a good part of the mid-afternoon, Mom abruptly said, “Well, I’ve heard enough,” and went back home to check on Dad. The husbands made a plan to take kids to the local pool, and Middle and I stayed back to talk about what had happened with Mom. Which, JFK, is another post unto itself. Motherfucking two and a half day trip.

*It’s complicated for a lot of bland reasons, nothing scandalous. But also fairly unclear as to whether he qualifies.