Fishmonger

I'm living with Craig and his parents right now and they brought his mom's mom home with them on their latest trip to Michigan. Craig's Grandpa just died and his grandma is 86 years old with dementia and little to no hearing.

Needless to say, she can't take care of herself. So being that they are generous people and take in strays (like me), Craig's parents decided to help her out of her pickle.

They shouldn't have. Poor Gwen (Craig's mom), she's been having a horrible time. It's not that she's not trying, believe you me, she's doing good. But her mom likes to argue and doesn't put in her hearing aide and misinterprets what you say ALL the time just for the sake of arguing.

I feel so bad for her (Gwen, not Grandma).

So today started out bad because Norah (Gwen's mom) decided she was not going to take her pills, lie to her other daughter about abuse and no one helping her out, just so she can get back to Michigan. She's called a few of her friends to see if they can help her out and no one wants to.

She's horrible to those who help her. It's an awful sight to see someone so old and close to death, so deceptive and evil. Gwen's always just trying to make sure she's eating and getting the right nutrition, going to doctor's appointments and taking classes at the senior center in town.

But Norah decides that it's not good enough. Here's some things that have happened so far.

1. We all have dinner together (something I'm getting used to) and if you're not hungry, you get a little bit of food and push it around until dinner is over. She'll say she's not hungry--even though she hasn't eaten since breakfast. Gwen threatens to take it up to her room and Norah, instead of toughing it out says that she'll lock the door (which is pointless b/c you just have to twist the door handle a little bit and you're in). Today she added, "Pushy" in hissing tones to her routine when Gwen threatened the special treatment.
2. One day she didn't want to hear what Gwen had to say, so she didn't put her hearing aide in at all. She was headed out for a walk and Gwen asked her to put in her hearing aide b/c Norah likes to walk in the middle of the road and she can't hear cars come up behind her. Norah's response: "I don't care, let them hit me, I'll be better off."
3. Gwen says "I love you mom". Norah's response, "yeah, yeah I'm tired."
4. She blamed her neighbors for stealing something that Gwen swears her dad threw away out of disuse. Gwen offered to by the $10 item and stick it in her room if she'd just shut up.
5. When she went to the doctor's to be tested for Dementia, she asked Gwen and Al (Craig's dad) all the questions she could remember from her husband's diagnosis. So she had the answers to the questions they asked, making it seem like she didn't have dementia. Sneaky.
6. That's not the end of it with that visit. The doctor noticed she was depressed and Norah told the doctor, and drum roll please: "They took me away from my friends and family." (Craig's dad went around that day saying things like "What are we, chopped liver?" I kept saying..."What friends? What family?")
7. And that brings us back to today. Her "friends and family" that we took her away from don't want to help her. Her husband is dead. Her other kids rely on her and can't handle Norah on their own. Gwen is the only one that doesn't need to work and can put in the time and effort to try and keep her healthy and out of the retirement homes.
8. Still today... she called her other daughter and told her that she wanted to see her account information (that daughter is her payee) because Al didn't show her anything. However, he spent 2 hours each day showing her her account, transaction by transaction, check by check, line by line on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and now Monday morning.
9. Norah had gotten an email confused and thought it said that her other daughter was buying everyone fish. They pulled up the email and it said that the e-mailer always enjoyed learning new ways to cook fish... no mention of any one's name. (they had sent the recipe of fish we had eaten earlier that evening). She ended up calling Gwen a "Fishmonger" and no one knew what to make of that.

So... being the smart ass I am, I looked up what "Fishmonger" meant with good

ol' Wikipedia, and

it says: Someone who sells fish.

It also happens to be a euphemism

used in Shakespeare's Hamlet to refer to

someone as a "pimp".

So there you have it. Gwen is none

other than a fish selling pimp. Pretty good

thing going on there if you ask me. So that's our new saying of the day, and probably for the rest of our lives.

We're going to start calling each other Fishmonger.

But from this experience, I have learned something. Weird I know.

Craig's mom keeps telling me that when she's old, just put her in a home. This experience has definitely shown me a lot of the evil that can go around, no matter how small the package or high the

numbers in your age are.

It also put into perspective the future that could happen for my grandparents,

parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, me (although that's unlikely) if they get dementia. All of them seem stronger than Norah so there's hope for all of them to miss this bug. I miss them and wish I could see them more, so just in case, I can remember what they were like before they went crazy.

Sorry... Morbid I know. But it makes a girl think. I'm 21 (soon to be 22) and I may be consumed by my own life right now, trying to make it paycheck to paycheck, but sooner or later, I'll wake up and notice that people are old and they're crazy (and in some instances, crazier) and I blew the chance to know them better.

But I still have time :)-