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Smith Says

Published Tuesday, August 24, 2010 4:04 PM

By Julie R. Smith
Summerville Journal Scene ®

When three adult kids try to take care of one ailing mom, the result is regression—all the way back to childhood days.

We don’t push each other in the pool or scream and stomp our feet. We just snarl things like, “I can’t hire a caretaker from 200 miles away,” and “YOU make her take the morphine!”

There’s an old saying that one mother can raise 10 children, but 10 children can’t take care of one mother. I’m here to tell you, true dat.

There are actually four of us, but my sister Moonbeam* has been far away—possibly on another astral plane--for many years. We assume she’s still roasting rose hips at her holistic health clinic in Oregon. In all fairness, I’m sure she’d brew a nice pot of dandelion tea if she was here, and by here I mean “on earth.”

You may wonder why we don’t try holistic remedies for Mama. The answer is, she likes her drugs. If I had diabetes, emphysema, congestive heart failure, lung tumors, high blood pressure, edema and acid reflux, you can bet I’d be hollering for good old Western medicine, too.

Taking care of a sick parent is nerve-wracking. I can make my own bone marrow biopsy sound funny, but can’t speak a coherent sentence to Mama’s caseworker. As for setting up a hospital bed in a living room or parceling out pain meds, I’d sooner swim the English Channel.

It’s funny--my brothers and I range in age from 61 to 49, but in these last few months we’ve not acted like sensible, seasoned adults. Peel back a few layers of vulnerability and sibling rivalry slithers right back in.

“You always were the airhead,” T-Bob remarked one day, when I couldn’t remember where Mama’s glucose strips were. So I pulled his hair and kicked him. (Just kidding. I punched him in the arm.)

But I was indeed labeled the family airhead back in the day, with my nose in a book and my head in the clouds. Moonbeam was the artist/philosopher, and T-Bob was the holy terror (he skated in the street, shot out the neighbor’s storm door and generally ran wild.)

My oldest brother, Bubba, born when Mama was only 20, was Mr. Responsibility.

He was the only babysitter we ever had. He taught me how to tie my shoes and do long division. He put out my hair when I accidentally set it on fire. He told me airheads were very special people. (Okay, I made that up.)

Now, as the only child still in our hometown, Bubba coordinates our mother’s health care, finances, transportation, house maintenance, grocery shopping, and doctors’ appointments.

I and T-Bob—who evolved from wild child to an uber-conservative conspiracy theorist—get home when our schedules allow, which basically means Bubba bears the brunt of everything.

T and I write checks, offer opinions, keep in touch. We pretend like we’re doing enough, and know we’re not. But not a word of reproach comes from Bubba, who handles reams of red tape and doles out Mama’s morphine along with her beloved soup from Olive Garden.

“You were always her favorite,” I teased him last week. He smiled, stretched his aching back and said, “Hey airhead, your shoe’s untied.”

So I hid his car keys.

*Fake name, but it fits.

Julie R. Smith, who can’t get the hang of being an adult child, can be reached at widdleswife@aol.com.

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