Today’s Dinner Special: Fiasco, Topped With Good Intentions
2016; Elsevier BV; Volume: 17; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/j.carage.2016.03.017
ISSN2377-066X
Autores Tópico(s)Child Welfare and Adoption
ResumoOn a freezing early February morning, after an exhaustive search for the place that would suit her needs, my husband David moved his mother, Eloise, from her garden apartment in Westchester, NY, to an assisted living facility on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, 30 blocks south of the apartment David and I had shared for some 20 years. At 95 and going strong, my mother-in-law was fairly clear-eyed about the move, and no doubt imagined that living so close to us would bring her comfort and pleasure, even as it would bring us peace of mind.I had always wanted a huge, messy family with lots of generations, drama, and complicated relationships, where hurt feelings could be soothed with enough laughs, food, and wine in someone’s kitchen. We would live in a big compound (like the Kennedys!), and go from house to house like an endless campus frat party, interchanging children and sharing recipes.But we are, alas, a tiny, rapidly aging family unit here in New York City: Eloise, her two sons — my husband, David, his older brother, George — and me. Eloise’s one grandchild (George’s son) inhabits Narnia (also called California’s Silicon Valley) and is singularly non-communicative, despite being eyebrow deep in technology. So her boys (62 and 65 years old) and I are the whole support system, with occasional cameo appearances by family friends and distant relatives. We are the embodiment of the new demographic featuring an upside down pyramid with a glut of old, older, and oldest at the top.We were all adjusting to Eloise’s new living arrangements.David’s older brother seems unfazed by his mother’s move, as he is safely off in an outer borough, continuing to visit as his schedule allows. It doesn’t allow much. A high-powered lawyer with decades of experience, he is constantly in motion, in demand by individuals whose names appear on the front page of The New York Times and on network news. Eloise’s face lights up with even the mention of George’s name. David and I, on the other hand, are anything but high-powered and get caught in the crosshairs of the Manhattan grid when it comes to proximity to Eloise’s place.On days when I do enter through the sticky portals of the assisted living facility where she resides, I get panic attacks, precipitated by bouts of claustrophobia; constantly searching for an exit strategy to get me out those doors and back home, before I die, and praying I won’t have to stay for dinner.What’s the Big Idea?So on a Thursday, after my husband hadn’t seen his mother in 5 days, he came up with this idea: “Hey Annie, how about we make Mom feel like she still can host family gatherings, and have Passover seder at her place?” he said.“Her place? Do you mean her room in the facility?” I asked, with as little snark as I can manage, wanting to add loudly, “Have you lost your mind?”“Well,” David responded, “She has a big room, and she has her regular dining room table in there; and she has a kitchen, so why don’t we? Come on, it’ll be fun! And she’ll love it!”Looking back, I consistently wonder why I didn’t just say what I was thinking, or simply laugh at him and change the subject, perhaps with a “Yes dear. Sure.” Instead, I said, “Hmm. OK, let’s go for it.”Clearly we were all trying to make each other feel better — David imagined his mom would feel better if somehow she could still play the matriarch and hostess — roles she took up happily and sustained for over half a century. I imagined David might feel better if he had the power to make his mother happy with such a plan. I wanted him to feel better, because his level of stress was off the charts since Eloise moved in down the road.We set the plan in motion. We called George and told him of our plan. Long silence. “Uh ... Okaayyy,” he said. “If you think that will make her happy.”We had about 10 days to make the whole meal/event happen for just the five of us, including George’s most recent girlfriend. My husband, like his mother, is extremely organized about making lists and keeping to them. I am allergic to lists, as I find it impossible to think in a linear fashion. Eloise, on the other hand, would sit down and have coffee and read the newspaper on days when she was expecting people over for dinner. My favorite adage from Eloise regarding my astonishment at this is, “Annie dear, we all have different talents!”When it is time to go over to Eloise’s room to set up for the evening meal, we are like a fine-tuned MASH unit. We each cart four tote bags brimming with plates, napkins, paper bowls, a tablecloth, glasses, a tub of gefilte fish, two gallons of frozen matzoh balls and soup, string beans that I would braise at Eloise’s place, a roasted potato dish, fancy wine for George, five boxes of matzoh that Eloise likes to eat year round, the seder plate, complete with roasted shankbone, roasted egg, parsley, chopped up fresh horseradish, and charoses (a sweet apples-and-wine-based mixture). And of course, special silver wine cups for each of us. For a main course we have chosen various fish entrées cooked by our local gourmet, Zabar’s, on the Upper West Side.Now We’re (Not) CookingWe arrived at 4 p.m., with Eloise nicely dressed for dinner, already in dining mode, snacking on some matzoh. She looked blank and not all that happy to see us and the eight bags we had in tow. While trying to maneuver into her miniature kitchen, suddenly I noticed: there are no cooking utensils; the tiny refrigerator was even smaller than I thought, and where I thought there was a stove there was instead a small area for preparing food. It didn’t take long to figure out there was, in fact, no stove.I gesticulate to David, trying not to be furious at him for not noticing this before, and even angrier at myself for neither asking nor noticing.“Oh…whoops,” he said. “Oh well.”Oh well? We had a gallon of frozen matzoh balls in frozen soup, the string beans and potatoes, and all those nicely cooked (expensive) pieces of fish that George was so particular about. I looked over at Eloise, who was sitting with her hands crossed over her lap, just staring.“What’s wrong?” she asked.“Oh nothing, Eloise,” I said, realizing we are in this stuffy room on a chilly April afternoon, intending to make a delicious, hot meal and create a convenient, joyful Passover for Eloise, who complains bitterly about the tasteless cold food she is forced to eat in the ALF.And then it hit me: David and I both told ourselves we were doing it for Eloise. But in retrospect each of us was deluding ourselves that we could somehow grab hold and pull Eloise into the present.Of course we were doing this for ourselves. Of course we didn’t want to go to all the trouble of cleaning up our apartment and making the Passover meal there.Even worse, I realized, even at this early juncture of Eloise’s new living arrangements, neither of us wanted to go through all the work involved in taking Eloise out of the assisted living facility, getting her a wheelchair to transport her to a taxi, and escorting her to our place, then have David take her home, get her settled, and get himself back home late. Before Eloise moved down here, we simply went to her home for Passover and other holidays, enjoyed ourselves, cleaned up, and went home. I realized almost immediately that I am not willing to sacrifice and do for Eloise in the way I did for my mother, who died 5 years ago, and who I was missing quite a lot. That’s just the plain truth.The Best Laid Plans Often Aren’tIt was not lost on me that Passover is a celebration of freedom, but Eloise felt like a prisoner in that room with the heavy door that swings shut. And obviously, bringing the family meal to her made it worse for her and dreadful for all of us. We had labored so hard to make this work, and Eloise seemed even more bored and unhappy, even as we spent the precious resources of time, focus, and energy trying to bring her happiness. In truth, I wondered when it would be time for David to focus some of those resources on enriching our family of two, thoughts that were dangerous given the murky future that would be this new arrangement of Eloise as a near neighbor, and certainly not thoughts I wanted to own up to. But there they were. It was not lost on me that Passover is a celebration of freedom, but Eloise felt like a prisoner in that room with the heavy door that swings shut ... bringing the family meal to her made it worse for her and dreadful for all of us. My takeaway lesson from this fiasco: Just as a parent experiences a child’s anxieties and triumphs, so too does an adult child experience a parent’s anxieties and triumphs when that parent has aged out of being the nurturer and aged into being the one who needs caring for. And that can cause an adult child to make some bad choices. I vowed from then on to be candid with myself about my motivations when it came to Eloise, and to help David learn to do the same.Ann D. (Annie) Gross is a writer, consultant, and researcher, specializing in health and aging. She previously wrote “A Daughter’s Journal” for Caring for the Ages, depicting her mother’s physical and emotional struggles in the waning months and days of her life. On a freezing early February morning, after an exhaustive search for the place that would suit her needs, my husband David moved his mother, Eloise, from her garden apartment in Westchester, NY, to an assisted living facility on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, 30 blocks south of the apartment David and I had shared for some 20 years. At 95 and going strong, my mother-in-law was fairly clear-eyed about the move, and no doubt imagined that living so close to us would bring her comfort and pleasure, even as it would bring us peace of mind. I had always wanted a huge, messy family with lots of generations, drama, and complicated relationships, where hurt feelings could be soothed with enough laughs, food, and wine in someone’s kitchen. We would live in a big compound (like the Kennedys!), and go from house to house like an endless campus frat party, interchanging children and sharing recipes. But we are, alas, a tiny, rapidly aging family unit here in New York City: Eloise, her two sons — my husband, David, his older brother, George — and me. Eloise’s one grandchild (George’s son) inhabits Narnia (also called California’s Silicon Valley) and is singularly non-communicative, despite being eyebrow deep in technology. So her boys (62 and 65 years old) and I are the whole support system, with occasional cameo appearances by family friends and distant relatives. We are the embodiment of the new demographic featuring an upside down pyramid with a glut of old, older, and oldest at the top. We were all adjusting to Eloise’s new living arrangements. David’s older brother seems unfazed by his mother’s move, as he is safely off in an outer borough, continuing to visit as his schedule allows. It doesn’t allow much. A high-powered lawyer with decades of experience, he is constantly in motion, in demand by individuals whose names appear on the front page of The New York Times and on network news. Eloise’s face lights up with even the mention of George’s name. David and I, on the other hand, are anything but high-powered and get caught in the crosshairs of the Manhattan grid when it comes to proximity to Eloise’s place. On days when I do enter through the sticky portals of the assisted living facility where she resides, I get panic attacks, precipitated by bouts of claustrophobia; constantly searching for an exit strategy to get me out those doors and back home, before I die, and praying I won’t have to stay for dinner. What’s the Big Idea?So on a Thursday, after my husband hadn’t seen his mother in 5 days, he came up with this idea: “Hey Annie, how about we make Mom feel like she still can host family gatherings, and have Passover seder at her place?” he said.“Her place? Do you mean her room in the facility?” I asked, with as little snark as I can manage, wanting to add loudly, “Have you lost your mind?”“Well,” David responded, “She has a big room, and she has her regular dining room table in there; and she has a kitchen, so why don’t we? Come on, it’ll be fun! And she’ll love it!”Looking back, I consistently wonder why I didn’t just say what I was thinking, or simply laugh at him and change the subject, perhaps with a “Yes dear. Sure.” Instead, I said, “Hmm. OK, let’s go for it.”Clearly we were all trying to make each other feel better — David imagined his mom would feel better if somehow she could still play the matriarch and hostess — roles she took up happily and sustained for over half a century. I imagined David might feel better if he had the power to make his mother happy with such a plan. I wanted him to feel better, because his level of stress was off the charts since Eloise moved in down the road.We set the plan in motion. We called George and told him of our plan. Long silence. “Uh ... Okaayyy,” he said. “If you think that will make her happy.”We had about 10 days to make the whole meal/event happen for just the five of us, including George’s most recent girlfriend. My husband, like his mother, is extremely organized about making lists and keeping to them. I am allergic to lists, as I find it impossible to think in a linear fashion. Eloise, on the other hand, would sit down and have coffee and read the newspaper on days when she was expecting people over for dinner. My favorite adage from Eloise regarding my astonishment at this is, “Annie dear, we all have different talents!”When it is time to go over to Eloise’s room to set up for the evening meal, we are like a fine-tuned MASH unit. We each cart four tote bags brimming with plates, napkins, paper bowls, a tablecloth, glasses, a tub of gefilte fish, two gallons of frozen matzoh balls and soup, string beans that I would braise at Eloise’s place, a roasted potato dish, fancy wine for George, five boxes of matzoh that Eloise likes to eat year round, the seder plate, complete with roasted shankbone, roasted egg, parsley, chopped up fresh horseradish, and charoses (a sweet apples-and-wine-based mixture). And of course, special silver wine cups for each of us. For a main course we have chosen various fish entrées cooked by our local gourmet, Zabar’s, on the Upper West Side. So on a Thursday, after my husband hadn’t seen his mother in 5 days, he came up with this idea: “Hey Annie, how about we make Mom feel like she still can host family gatherings, and have Passover seder at her place?” he said. “Her place? Do you mean her room in the facility?” I asked, with as little snark as I can manage, wanting to add loudly, “Have you lost your mind?” “Well,” David responded, “She has a big room, and she has her regular dining room table in there; and she has a kitchen, so why don’t we? Come on, it’ll be fun! And she’ll love it!” Looking back, I consistently wonder why I didn’t just say what I was thinking, or simply laugh at him and change the subject, perhaps with a “Yes dear. Sure.” Instead, I said, “Hmm. OK, let’s go for it.” Clearly we were all trying to make each other feel better — David imagined his mom would feel better if somehow she could still play the matriarch and hostess — roles she took up happily and sustained for over half a century. I imagined David might feel better if he had the power to make his mother happy with such a plan. I wanted him to feel better, because his level of stress was off the charts since Eloise moved in down the road. We set the plan in motion. We called George and told him of our plan. Long silence. “Uh ... Okaayyy,” he said. “If you think that will make her happy.” We had about 10 days to make the whole meal/event happen for just the five of us, including George’s most recent girlfriend. My husband, like his mother, is extremely organized about making lists and keeping to them. I am allergic to lists, as I find it impossible to think in a linear fashion. Eloise, on the other hand, would sit down and have coffee and read the newspaper on days when she was expecting people over for dinner. My favorite adage from Eloise regarding my astonishment at this is, “Annie dear, we all have different talents!” When it is time to go over to Eloise’s room to set up for the evening meal, we are like a fine-tuned MASH unit. We each cart four tote bags brimming with plates, napkins, paper bowls, a tablecloth, glasses, a tub of gefilte fish, two gallons of frozen matzoh balls and soup, string beans that I would braise at Eloise’s place, a roasted potato dish, fancy wine for George, five boxes of matzoh that Eloise likes to eat year round, the seder plate, complete with roasted shankbone, roasted egg, parsley, chopped up fresh horseradish, and charoses (a sweet apples-and-wine-based mixture). And of course, special silver wine cups for each of us. For a main course we have chosen various fish entrées cooked by our local gourmet, Zabar’s, on the Upper West Side. Now We’re (Not) CookingWe arrived at 4 p.m., with Eloise nicely dressed for dinner, already in dining mode, snacking on some matzoh. She looked blank and not all that happy to see us and the eight bags we had in tow. While trying to maneuver into her miniature kitchen, suddenly I noticed: there are no cooking utensils; the tiny refrigerator was even smaller than I thought, and where I thought there was a stove there was instead a small area for preparing food. It didn’t take long to figure out there was, in fact, no stove.I gesticulate to David, trying not to be furious at him for not noticing this before, and even angrier at myself for neither asking nor noticing.“Oh…whoops,” he said. “Oh well.”Oh well? We had a gallon of frozen matzoh balls in frozen soup, the string beans and potatoes, and all those nicely cooked (expensive) pieces of fish that George was so particular about. I looked over at Eloise, who was sitting with her hands crossed over her lap, just staring.“What’s wrong?” she asked.“Oh nothing, Eloise,” I said, realizing we are in this stuffy room on a chilly April afternoon, intending to make a delicious, hot meal and create a convenient, joyful Passover for Eloise, who complains bitterly about the tasteless cold food she is forced to eat in the ALF.And then it hit me: David and I both told ourselves we were doing it for Eloise. But in retrospect each of us was deluding ourselves that we could somehow grab hold and pull Eloise into the present.Of course we were doing this for ourselves. Of course we didn’t want to go to all the trouble of cleaning up our apartment and making the Passover meal there.Even worse, I realized, even at this early juncture of Eloise’s new living arrangements, neither of us wanted to go through all the work involved in taking Eloise out of the assisted living facility, getting her a wheelchair to transport her to a taxi, and escorting her to our place, then have David take her home, get her settled, and get himself back home late. Before Eloise moved down here, we simply went to her home for Passover and other holidays, enjoyed ourselves, cleaned up, and went home. I realized almost immediately that I am not willing to sacrifice and do for Eloise in the way I did for my mother, who died 5 years ago, and who I was missing quite a lot. That’s just the plain truth. We arrived at 4 p.m., with Eloise nicely dressed for dinner, already in dining mode, snacking on some matzoh. She looked blank and not all that happy to see us and the eight bags we had in tow. While trying to maneuver into her miniature kitchen, suddenly I noticed: there are no cooking utensils; the tiny refrigerator was even smaller than I thought, and where I thought there was a stove there was instead a small area for preparing food. It didn’t take long to figure out there was, in fact, no stove. I gesticulate to David, trying not to be furious at him for not noticing this before, and even angrier at myself for neither asking nor noticing. “Oh…whoops,” he said. “Oh well.” Oh well? We had a gallon of frozen matzoh balls in frozen soup, the string beans and potatoes, and all those nicely cooked (expensive) pieces of fish that George was so particular about. I looked over at Eloise, who was sitting with her hands crossed over her lap, just staring. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Oh nothing, Eloise,” I said, realizing we are in this stuffy room on a chilly April afternoon, intending to make a delicious, hot meal and create a convenient, joyful Passover for Eloise, who complains bitterly about the tasteless cold food she is forced to eat in the ALF. And then it hit me: David and I both told ourselves we were doing it for Eloise. But in retrospect each of us was deluding ourselves that we could somehow grab hold and pull Eloise into the present. Of course we were doing this for ourselves. Of course we didn’t want to go to all the trouble of cleaning up our apartment and making the Passover meal there. Even worse, I realized, even at this early juncture of Eloise’s new living arrangements, neither of us wanted to go through all the work involved in taking Eloise out of the assisted living facility, getting her a wheelchair to transport her to a taxi, and escorting her to our place, then have David take her home, get her settled, and get himself back home late. Before Eloise moved down here, we simply went to her home for Passover and other holidays, enjoyed ourselves, cleaned up, and went home. I realized almost immediately that I am not willing to sacrifice and do for Eloise in the way I did for my mother, who died 5 years ago, and who I was missing quite a lot. That’s just the plain truth. The Best Laid Plans Often Aren’tIt was not lost on me that Passover is a celebration of freedom, but Eloise felt like a prisoner in that room with the heavy door that swings shut. And obviously, bringing the family meal to her made it worse for her and dreadful for all of us. We had labored so hard to make this work, and Eloise seemed even more bored and unhappy, even as we spent the precious resources of time, focus, and energy trying to bring her happiness. In truth, I wondered when it would be time for David to focus some of those resources on enriching our family of two, thoughts that were dangerous given the murky future that would be this new arrangement of Eloise as a near neighbor, and certainly not thoughts I wanted to own up to. But there they were. It was not lost on me that Passover is a celebration of freedom, but Eloise felt like a prisoner in that room with the heavy door that swings shut ... bringing the family meal to her made it worse for her and dreadful for all of us. My takeaway lesson from this fiasco: Just as a parent experiences a child’s anxieties and triumphs, so too does an adult child experience a parent’s anxieties and triumphs when that parent has aged out of being the nurturer and aged into being the one who needs caring for. And that can cause an adult child to make some bad choices. I vowed from then on to be candid with myself about my motivations when it came to Eloise, and to help David learn to do the same.Ann D. (Annie) Gross is a writer, consultant, and researcher, specializing in health and aging. She previously wrote “A Daughter’s Journal” for Caring for the Ages, depicting her mother’s physical and emotional struggles in the waning months and days of her life. It was not lost on me that Passover is a celebration of freedom, but Eloise felt like a prisoner in that room with the heavy door that swings shut. And obviously, bringing the family meal to her made it worse for her and dreadful for all of us. We had labored so hard to make this work, and Eloise seemed even more bored and unhappy, even as we spent the precious resources of time, focus, and energy trying to bring her happiness. In truth, I wondered when it would be time for David to focus some of those resources on enriching our family of two, thoughts that were dangerous given the murky future that would be this new arrangement of Eloise as a near neighbor, and certainly not thoughts I wanted to own up to. But there they were. It was not lost on me that Passover is a celebration of freedom, but Eloise felt like a prisoner in that room with the heavy door that swings shut ... bringing the family meal to her made it worse for her and dreadful for all of us. My takeaway lesson from this fiasco: Just as a parent experiences a child’s anxieties and triumphs, so too does an adult child experience a parent’s anxieties and triumphs when that parent has aged out of being the nurturer and aged into being the one who needs caring for. And that can cause an adult child to make some bad choices. I vowed from then on to be candid with myself about my motivations when it came to Eloise, and to help David learn to do the same. Ann D. (Annie) Gross is a writer, consultant, and researcher, specializing in health and aging. She previously wrote “A Daughter’s Journal” for Caring for the Ages, depicting her mother’s physical and emotional struggles in the waning months and days of her life.
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