I call this excerpt from Bill's journal

"Breakdown"

 

... Then we drove my mother down to Mrs. Leonard's house, just for a look. She was very apprehensive about it and was determined beforehand that it would be a nightmare, and that's what it was to her. She behaved rather badly down there, said that she couldn't sit cooped up in that cell for twenty-four hours a day. At Mother's request, Mary got in touch with the Lutheran home for elderly people and took Mother to see it. It's down on Madison opposite the park. Mother was wildly enthusiastic about it, wants to go there at once. Of course, they have to accept her first, then put her on a long waiting list. The entry fee is $2,500 and they expect to be sole beneficiaries of one's estate.

 

Mother refused flatly to go to Mrs. Leonard's. Mary showed her Poskanzer's brother's nursing home, found that, like the other one we looked at, it charges seventy-five dollars a week. Mother said that she couldn't afford this.

 

Mary issued an ultimatum - that she goes to Mrs. Leonard's next Tuesday and tries it for at least two weeks. Then, if she can't stand it and hasn't made other arrangements, she must move into an apartment which Mary will choose for her. … Mother had Mary put an ad in the paper asking for room and board, preferably somewhere around here.

 

This thing is hurting - the ruthlessness, the inhumanity, and my own feeling of helplessness - my inability to save either my mother or my wife from this mutually destructive conflict.

 

My mother is so pitiful in her weakness and her misery, and yet I can't lift a finger to save her from any of the torture Mary inflicts upon her without threatening Mary's very precarious mental balance, and so I too must be ruthless. I try to be kind to Mother in little ways and give her vague assurances that we'll work it all out somehow. Mother can't see at all why she is being driven out, but I can see it more and more clearly. She really can't continue to live here; for her own good she can't, and there must be somewhere else where she can build some sort of life, if she is capable of doing that under any conditions. Her whole orientation to life has been masochistic for so long. Even Aunt Ann's infantile megalomania seems to offer a better base for a tolerable adjustment. It's this masochism of hers that is completely intolerable to Mary. At least in her present condition, she just simply can't take it.

 

I wrote my first letter to Billy today - about the most self-consciously parental thing I've ever done, and it was a little difficult. In my own veiled way I often suspect that I am a bigger flop as a human being than was either of my parents. It's true they failed in many ways and are at least responsible partially for my own failures, and yet they probably gave me more love than I have ever given any of my children, and they probably even fought their battles more realistically and whole-heartedly than I have ever fought mine. I'm too complete a fraud even to be able to become honestly mentally ill or to commit a violent act. Certainly, then, I have no right to pass moral judgment on anyone.

 

Wednesday, September nineteenth

Even amid her storms Mary is still doing some hard objective work on mother's problems - a weird mixture of concern and ruthlessness. She storms at Mother and then gives her therapy, tries to get her to face up to her problem and see that she will be much better off if she takes a hand in running her own life. Mary is trying to arrange an interview for Mother with a Miss Moyer, who specializes in counseling elderly people. She also located a couple of apartments in this area, looked at them, showed one of them to Mother. Mother began to see the possibility that she might live by herself again. (I'm not so sure that this is a realistic possibility myself) On the other hand, Mary tells Mother that she can go and live in a hotel until she can make some more permanent arrangement.

 

Mary also put in a lot of work on betting Bucky's financial affairs in order.

 

I collected my pay check, which didn't seem to be as much larger as I imagined it would be, and deposited it in the bank.

 

September twenty-first

Mary had her appointment with Morgenstern … and immediately afterward she had to drive Mother and me over to the Albany Medical Center for an appointment with Miss Moyer, the counseler for elderly people recommended by Morgenstern. Finding her office involved asking in Mother's presence where the "Psychiatric Section" was. Although I had tried to explain to Mother why it would be a good idea to talk over her problems with Miss Moyer, she kept saying that she didn't know why she was there. Mary left us, saying that she thought it would be better if Mother had her interview without me too, but Mother was too frightened to go in alone, and I think I was able to break the ice and give a fairly objective overview of the whole situation. At first all that Mother would talk about was her desperation and need to find some place to live quickly, and all that she wanted, was help with this immediate problem. I let her talk whenever she wanted to. Toward the end she opened up just a little. Miss Moyer seems very pleasant and quite competent. She kept asking Mother about her interests, especially in relation to people, an area in which Mother was very dense.

 

We arranged to see her again next week. Next time I hope to be able to wait outside. Mother doesn't realize that the main help she needs is with her own attitude and outlook. I'm not sure that she really can be given enough therapy to help with these long-range problems. Even so, just being able to talk freely with an objective and yet sympathetic party may give her a good deal of short range help.

 

Sunday, September twenty-third

Is this the first day of fall? Yes, I think it is, and it has been fall-like the last couple of days. Friday and Saturday morning we had quite heavy frost and broke records for coldness this early in the fall. The sky had a wintry look late this afternoon.

 

And inside it was a bleak day too. This trouble about mother is tearing us all apart. She told me this morning that ideas of suicide are troubling her a great deal. The biggest conflict at the moment is between her desire to apply for admission to the Lutheran Home and her desire to leave me the little capital she's accumulated. The application blank calls for her to list her property and agree to will it all to them and threatens penalties for falsification. She's afraid that if she turns some of it over to me before going in or even making the application, they'd discover her act, by noting the discrepancies between present income and her bank records for the past few years, if no other way.

 

I'd just as soon she'd give it all to them, especially considering her reasons for feeling so strongly that she must make sure that I get it (which I'd just as soon not discuss - because they reveal only too clearly what must be some of the roots of my neurotic difficulties). I wrote a long letter to Louis Eaton asking his legal advice about whether she could dispose of part of her property before filling out that application. I wrote to Miss Moyer telling her more about Mother's present condition, especially her preoccupation with suicide.

 

Monday, September twenty-fourth

A wump in the night that brought us both instantly awake at four in the morning. Mother wasn't in her room. Mary started to run downstairs. I looked in the bathroom and there she was, stretched out on her back. She was "out" but quickly regained semi-consciousness, but was very dazed and confused. We helped her back to her bed. She complained of dizziness but showed no visible bruises, and nothing seemed to be broken.

 

In the morning Mary called Poskanzer. Mary had checked Mother every few minutes for the rest of the night, found her pulse only mildly elevated. Poskanzer looked her over, talked to her and tried to allay some of her anxieties, spent about an hour with her. He found no evidence of a cerebral accident, and said that the phenobarb she had been taking couldn't account for her fall or confused state. Mary fed her breakfast and lunch in bed and tried to keep her quiet.

 

Mary called me at school just before my one o'clock class and asked me to come home as soon as I could, which I did, right after that class. Mrs. Cardany, the woman who had agreed to furnish Mother room and board, had called up and weaseled out of the deal. From today's perspective it didn't look like such a good idea anyway. We discussed other alternatives, including a couple of places that had turned up nearby on Manning.

 

I was looking up Mrs. Leonard's number to tell her that we had decided to give up the room we've been holding at her place. It was a little after three. When Mother suddenly called me in an urgent and disturbed way - "Billy, Billy!" I went in and found her half out of bed and very agitated. Mary took one look at her color and phoned Poskanzer to come at once. Mother started to retch, and fresh blood came up.

 

Almost at the same time she started passing blood [from her rectum]. Poskanzer arrived quickly, took one look, said it was a massive internal hemorrhage, probably from a ruptured ulcer, called St. Peter's for an emergency admission and called an ambulance.

 

The ambulance came just as the children were getting out of the school across the street. The nice lady policeman held up traffic for us. I rode with Mother and Mary followed in our bus.

 

Mary remembered and recognized fully half the personnel we encountered in the hospital, recognized Dr. Leddy, a surgeon she thought was good, in the elevator, was able to put Poskanzer on his trail immediately when he suggested calling him into consultation.

 

They cut off Mother's clothing and got her into a bed in a four-bed ward. Glucose i.v.s were started into both her arms. Her blood was typed, which took some time, and then a large bottle of fresh blood was hooked into the i.v. system. A drain was run down into her stomach, and the blood that came out was not so much as we feared and was darker. Her pulse, which had gone way up, came down a little.

 

Mother became quite calm. She was convinced she was dying, and she wanted to do it the right way. She told us that she loved us both and repeated her careful instruction about where her valuables were kept. Later the sedation took effect, and she felt discomfort. She found the tube into her stomach and the urethral catheter very uncomfortable. Leddy said that he would make the decision later in the evening as to whether surgery was necessary, said that of course at her age she was not a very good surgical risk.

 

Mary and I stayed near her, did what we could. Finally, when she was quieter, we went down to the hospital cafeteria in the basement for a quick supper. Mary went home for a while to take care of the children while I sat with Mother. Later she drove me home, so that I could make some sort of preparation for tomorrow's classes. She said that if nothing further happened, she'd come home shortly after eleven, when the night nurses came on.

 

I am worried about Mary too. She was running a temperature of ninety-nine-six or more earlier in the day, and with her present psychological state and the role she may feel that she has played in this whole matter. … I'm waiting now for her to call or to come home.

 

Mary got home about a quarter of one, reported that Mother was on her third pint of blood, showed little change.

 

Tuesday, September twenty-fifth

Doris Creegan picked up Mark this morning, as she said she would, but off the front porch without informing Mary, which upset her till we discovered that she really had him.

 

Mary called for me after my nine o'clock class and drove to the hospital. Mother was dazed, very uncomfortable but her condition seemed unchanged.

 

I left at eleven, walked back to school, which, pursuing a ragged hypotenuse, took me longer than I anticipated. I had lunch, prepared briefly, met my one o'clock class, did a little work that I couldn't postpone, bused home, gave Tommy instructions, then took a bus over to the hospital.

 

Mary was coming out just as I entered. Things had taken a turn for the worse again. Mother had had two more massive hemorrhages. Transfusions had to be pumped in under pressure. They could no longer delay and had just taken her up to the operating room. I had signed a permit for surgery when I was there in the morning. X-rays had been impossible of course. They had to go in without knowing the location of the trouble.

 

We went home for a while. I kept expecting a phone call telling us that Mother had not survived the operation. Mary said that she thought that she had at least a fifty-fifty chance because her heart was still in pretty good condition.

 

At four-thirty we returned. She wasn't back yet. About quarter to five Dr. Leddy, the surgeon, appeared down the hall. He's not a bad sort, rather simple and earthy in his manner. He said that she came through the operation well, that they found an ulcer the size of … well, he indicated something between a walnut and a ping-pong ball. In the middle of it was a large inflamed blood vessel. A resident later said that it was an unusually large ulcer, looked like an old one, and was located on the rear wall of the stomach toward the right side.

 

Mary and I had dinner in the hospital cafeteria again. The food is quite good, and the cafeteria prices are remarkably inexpensive. It is meant only for the staff of course. We stayed till after eight. Mother sort of sem-revived once or twice but slept soundly for the most part. She was getting oxygen and a glucose i.v. Mary said that her pulse and respiration seemed good and that she thought she had a good chance of pulling through.

 

Mary drove me home, because I have preparations for tomorrow. She relaxed for a little while, then went back because she wanted to be there if Mother went through an agitated period. She has, of course, been giving Mother the best of care, been alert to all that was going on, and seen to it that Mother got prompt attention when anything went wrong. Mary ran a slight elevation again today, but, as always, she was magnificent in handling an emergency situation.

 

How Mother will react when she finds that she is not dead is hard to predict. She may find this outcome very difficult to accept. After "dying" so many deaths for so long a time, I would like to hope that another miracle might occur and that she might decide finally to try really to live a little, but I suppose that this is really too much to hope for.

 

Mary got home shortly after midnight, reported no change in Mother's condition.

 

Wednesday, September twenty-sixth

Doris came to take Mark this morning, but he was feeling a little sick, so she didn't. I called Mary at noon, after my two morning classes, got no answer, checked to see if she was at Doris's, got no answer, so I bused out to the hospital. Mother was sleeping soundly, and the lady in the next bed said that she had been asleep very peacefully all night. She also reported that she occasionaliy called out for her mother. (I wonder, is there buried somewhere deep within me a small child. to whom I may some day regress and call out for mine? I find it hard to think so. There's a big hole there, but why? I'm sure that my mother did her best to mother me.)

 

I called Mary again, found her home. She drove over, and I sat in the car with Mark while she went up. Mother awakened partially, recognized her, remembered that Mary had told her that she had had the operation but did not remember the details. Mary told them to her again - how big the ulcer was, where it was, and so on. Mother wanted to know whether they had connected up her stomach with her intestines again. Mary tried to reassure her that nothing so drastic was involved.

 

When we went back this evening, she was still sleeping. We found out that they are giving her nembutal. When she wakened briefly and partially, she complained of pain but dozed off again and did not seem to be under tension. Her color was good. Only one i.v. is still going, and that, very slowly. She seems to be getting excellent nursing care.

 

Just outside the door to Mother's room and standing on a pedestal is an Infant of Prague, decked out in heavy robes, wearing a gold crown and carrying a gold orb. I've had to stare at it a good deal during the last couple of days. It doesn't improve on close acquaintance.

 

I received a good answer to my inquiries from Eaton. He seems to warn against Mother's signing over her estate to a charitable organization like the Lutheran League, says that if she tried to hold back anything, they would pursue it and get it. He suggests talking it over with them first and seeing how much they would settle for. …

 

Thursday, September twenty-seventh

Rain all day.

We visited Mother this afternoon. She was almost fully conscious but not very rational. Her interpretation of what happened to her seems to be that it was entirely due to our treatment of her. We tried to kill her, almost succeeded. Now we ought to be satisfied. when can she come "home"? It must be soon because her life's blood - money - is draining away fast. Her detailed concerns were the same old neurotic ones about getting her checks deposited and so on. She's learned nothing, can't change, and I see more clearly than ever how absolutely impossible it is for her to continue to live with us.

 

Mary was so upset that she gave me a very hard time for hours on end. We didn't go back to visit Mother this evening as we said we would. Didn't get through dinner till eight or so. Probably just as well I had work to concentrate on, so I couldn't relapse into misery, self-pity mixed with self-accusation, and just plain misery.

 

Mary's conscious-level reason for attacking me is that she feels that I share my mother's accusation of her, that I view her as a "symbolic murderer" (a phrase I used, without the branding nominative form, in one of our many recent anguish sessions), and that I refuse to share equally with her the respansibility for what has happened. My more immediate faults, she tells me, are a refusal to "manage" my mother and make her behave, thus putting on her the burden of doing so, and a refusal to recognize long ago that the situation was impossible and was a big factor in making her (Mary) sick, and doing something to correct it long before this.

 

My long range atrocities constitute an unspeakable list of completely sickening, vicious, cowardly, and unnatural things I've done to her and the children. It's a total burden of guilt I cannot possible take on fully and expect to salvage enough shreds of self-respect to carry on. The total impact is that, whatever her role has been in this recent unpleasantness, it has been the upshot of years of unbearable torture and only a fragment of what I deserve. And the trouble is that I really am so sick, so paranoid and masochistic - that a great part of me is only too willing to accept this version as true. Doing so, however, doesn't help me to deal with my immediate and pressing problems.

 

At one point Mary said that the only way she could go on living with me would be if I submitted myself to immediate and massive psychotherapy. I replied that I couldn't do this because I felt that it was taking every last reserve of energy and control I could scrape up to carry on right now.The extra drain on my energy and the extra disorganization that taking my personality apart would render me incapable even of the miserable minimum level of operation that I now have. She can afford to get completely disrupted and disorganized, take to her bed, and let things go. I can't.

 

Well, there's the whole nasty tale, and I don't think I glossed it over or rationalized it very much. It ought to prove what Mary says. I'm always too slippery to let her prove what a shit I really am!

 

Friday, September twenty-eighth

Second straight day of solid rain, quite hard at times today, with gusty wind.

A quieter day. I slept for several hours this afternoon and then felt much better. Mary saw Morgenstern, said that he pressed her into a corner today, talked with her about "guilty rage."

 

When we saw Mother this evening, she seemed much improved, had sat up for fifteen minutes, and she was more in command of herself, was even showing an interest in the people around her.

 

Mary and I went to a movie tonight, in the way that we used to in the old days - drove downtown, parked the car on a dark and narrow hillside street amid tall old buildings, walked to the Strand, loaded up with popcorn, and saw a double feature - a British naval thing that was typical of its genre, and a psychiatric film called "Pressure Point," made from a story in Robert Lindner's The Fifty-Minute Hour….

 

Tuesday, October ninth

The rains returned today. We are having a good many rainy days.

Mary talked with Dr. Poskanzer about Mother. He said that about half of her stomach was removed in the operation (I thought that they just cut out a small patch). The lung trouble was probably not an embolus but partial collapse of one lung and filling up with fluid. He says that her lungs seem to be clearing up well. She has continued to run a slight elevation, so he has stopped the antibiotics to see whether she has an abscess resulting from the operation. He doesn't think so, however. He says that her EKGs are good. He agrees with Mary that the chief trouble now is with her attitude and her refusal to try to help herself. He testifies to her strength, says that when he tried to help her sit up in bed this morning so that he could listen to her chest, she almost pulled him over.

 

Mary called Miss Moyer to see if she had any suggestions for some sort of simple occupational therapy for my mother. She didn't but said that she was glad to be kept informed of her condition.

 

Mary ordered some flowers for my mother, which were delivered while she was visiting Mother this afternoon. Mary had a card inserted saying, "From a secret admirer." Mother was sure that the card was from me, and Mary didn't correct her impression.

 

And Mary also bought some slippers and a bathrobe for Mother. She picked me up at school around four, ... I visited Mother and found her even more unhappy than usual, whimpering about the "intolerable pain" she suffered this morning when they tried to relieve her impactions, and complaining that they hadn't given her the enema they promised. Just then a nurse came in to do this. On the way home I encountered Poskanzer, just getting into his car in front of his office. He said that when he saw her this morning she asked him why he didn't just let her die rather than suffer all this pain. Guilt? Childishness? She certainly is not prepared to try in any way to make her life tolerable.

 

I sat with Mark this afternoon while Mary went to see Morgenstern. Doris Poskanzer called and said that Mark was supposed to spend the afternoon with them, so I walked him over. Morgenstern told Mary that he thought a psychiatrist should be called in on Mother's case. Mary mentioned this to Poskanzer when she went over to pick up Mark, but he didn't agree. He suggested a possible organic basis for Mother's psychological symptoms. Mary thinks that he is anti-psychiatric.

 

And then the hospital called. The nurse on the floor said that Mother had disturbed the whole ward again, had been screaming that she was in pain and demanded help. She said that they had removed her to a private room. She suggested that we come over.

 

By the time we got there, the shot of demerol they had given Mother had taken effect, and she was quite peaceful. She didn't remember making a big fuss. Except for being sleepy, she was quite rational. We talked to her and tried to reassure her, told her that all the tests seemed to show that she was making a good recovery (which was true. Poskanzer told this to Mary), and mainly, we kept reassuring her that we were not abandoning her and that she would be taken care of. She has been saying for several days that she needed more constant care than she has been getting, so we suggested a private duty nurse. Mother agreed. She decided that she was in most need during the day shift, so we arranged for this service to start tomorrow morning. It now costs twenty dollars a shift.

 

One of the nurses told us that the other day she tried to cheer up Mother by telling her that she would be going home shortly, and Mother replied, "I don't have a home."

 

Poor Mother, things have just piled up too high for her lately, being transplanted hither and yon, the shock of adjusting to living with us, the shock of being told that she could no longer live with us, her surgical emergency, the shock of adjusting to hospital life. And wherever I turn, I seem to find myself as bearing a large share of the ultimate responsibility for her troubles. I urged that she come and live with us.

 

I seem to have contributed to Mary's breakdown more than can readily be determined. I agreed to the necessity of re-locating Mother when it became apparent that Mary could no longer carry on under present conditions.

 

Certainly, guilt, though I seldom feel it consciously and vividly, must have a good deal to do with my present psychosomatic difficulties and general feeling of disorganization. I've even had a few momentary interludes lately when I've felt suddenly disoriented.

 

Saturday, October 20th

Mary spent a good part of the day with Mother, who was also cared for by a special nurse. Mary says that Mother seems considerably better today. Mary helped her through the crises of the day, such as eating her meals, which was one of the things that have been upsetting her.

 

Mary talked to Dr. Leddy, who said that he wants to keep Mother in the hospital a couple of days longer for observation. Early last week Mary made arrangements for Mother at the nursing home run by Dr. Poskanzer's brother. It is conveniently located at the corner of New Scotland and South Maine.

 

Note: At this juncture the Cuban missile crisis broke in on our domestic crisis. I describe it separately in Chapter 27.

 

Monday, October twenty-second

Mother is scheduled to be released from the hospital tomorrow. Mary spent the afternoon with her, then conferred with Poskanzer. Mother herself came to the conclusion that she should seek psychiatric help, so Poskanzer agreed to call in someone to see her tomorrow, perhaps his brother-in-law, Dr. Kay. I saw Mother this evening, and she really did seem considerably improved, was much more alert. I think that Mary should be given almost all the credit of bringing her back from the abyss. Not that she is out of the woods (to mix the metaphor) as yet.

 

Alas, that manifestation of mental health on Bill's mother's part didn't last very long.

 

Tuesday, October twenty-third

Mother's transfer from the hospital to Poskanzer's Nursing Home went fairly smoothly this morning. It was done by Mary and the private duty day nurse Mother now has (Mrs. Ehmann). Various comp!ications arose later, however.

 

First, there was the question of the bonds. Mother's hospital bill amounts to more than thirteen hundred dollars. They accepted a check for seven hundred, said that they didn't have it all totaled up as yet anyway, would send us a bill for the rest. The bank informed us yesterday that they would permit Mother to sign the sole authorization not in the presence of a bank official, since she had a checking account at the bank against which they could verify her signature - but they would need a copy of Dad's death certificate, since the bonds are made out to both Mother and him. Mary and I went to the bank this noon. I looked through everything in Mother's box but could find no copy of the death certificate. Nor could we among Mother's stuff at home. Mother later told Mary thut she had used them all up. Mary called Dr. Norgaard in Denton, and he said that he would get some copies from the county health officer and send them to her.

 

I put back a thousand dollars of those bonds in Mother's box. We are selling sixteen hundred, and they ought to bring in considerably more than that, because they've been held about five years beyond their maturity.

 

Just as Mary was cooking dinner, there was a call from Poskanzer, who had just had a call from his brother about Mother. She was raising hell at the nursing home. Could Mary come right over? She did, and I finished dinner. Mother was all upset again - mostly bed pan trouble. Apparently she has to have someone in constant attendance upon her, or she gets frightened and upset.

 

Wednesday, October twenty-fourth 

Poskanzer's Nursing Home informed us that we would have to remove Mother. She was continuing to disturb all of the other patients, and they couldn't let it go on. Mary conferred with Eddie Poskanzer, Morgenstern, and Kay, the psychiatrist who has seen Mother twice in the last couple of days. The upshot was that no nursing home would take her in her present condition. She would have to be sent to the State Mental Hospital at Poughkeepsie, and this would probably be a condemnation to deep and hopeless senility. So we brought her home.

 

I carried her down from the second floor of the nursing home and placed her in the car. She was as limp as the proverbial sack of flour and kept slumping between my arms. It was one of the hardest jobs I can recall ever doing. I was completely winded afterward. On her part, she could only whimper and make inchoate noises.

 

The simplest operations that have to be done for her are difficult - feeding, turning her over, putting her on the bedpan. She offers no cooperation at all. Sometimes, she moans in a most distressing, frightened way, but she can't tell us what she wants. Mary is very good at taking care of her, of course. But this can't go on, not for very long. Kay says that he thinks that she has some organic deterioration. Her confusion at night indicates this to him. But he doesn't think that this accounts for her present condition. She is in an acute stage of apprehension and wild, unreasoning fear, completely irrational, completely withdrawn, completely gone.

 

It is very upsetting and very disruptive. Mary is already showing signs of recurrence of some of her old troubles, particularly in her relations with me. I cannot let this go on for more than a few days. If Mother doesn't show marked improvement soon, and at the moment it certainly doesn't look as though she will, she must be sent somewhere, whatever the consequences. I'm afraid that her chances for any sort of reasonable life have about run out.

 

Thursday, October twenty-fifth

Heavy frost this morning. The porch roof and the roof of the car were frosted white.

Mother seems less disturbed but is also less responsive this evening. Mary had to fight through the simplest operations with her all day. Just trying to keep her from getting dehydrated is a major problem. I picked up a load of baby foods on the way home this afternoon to try to have something which she can eat. The tranquilizers Kay prescribed may be too strong. She became completely incontinent after Mary gave her one today. Mary is getting a new half-strength prescription.

 

We didn't get much sleep last night. Mother kept groaning and wailing in a high falsetto voice. At least she seems quieter tonight, but still in total rebellion from or against everything, totally regressed to earliest infancy, or beyond, unable to talk. Mary says that she doesn't seem to be badly disoriented, however, knows where she is, does seem to understand directions once they get through to her.

 

Friday, October twenty-sixth

Snow flurries today, A good deal of snow farther west.

 

Mother seemed a little better this morning but went steadily down hill during the day. Mary got Kay to preacribe half-strength doses of that tranquilizer, but there didn't seem to be any in-between point between anxious agitation and complete torpor. In either the agitated or torpid state, giving her food and liquids is extremely difficult, and in both states she is completely incontinent.

 

I called up Kay this evening, and we both talked to him. He thinks that Mother has suffered considerable organic neural damage. He says that the prognosis is not good. He says that sometimes, after several months of complete regression, there is a spontaneous remission, but the general trend is downward. One negative factor in her case, he said, is her lack of vision, since people orient themselves primarily by visual cues. I wonder about this. Sighted people orient themselves primarily by visual cues, and they may not be able to learn new cues if they suffer loss of vision in old age. But the blind and near blind who have been this way since childhood learn other cues.

 

In general, however, the prospect for Mother looks dimmer and dimmer. This is a bad evening, identification and guilt are becoming pretty excruciating for me. I know that the main thing is that her whole life is catching up with her. This happens to many of us, if not to all. My own adjustments, I know, are very precarious, and I can see what might well happen to me when things close in - can see my own dismal end played out for me in all its excruciating detail. And then there's the guilt. If I had planned for her more wisely or taken more decisive action, this might not have happened, or might at least have been postponed till a time when general physical weakness would have eased her out more easily.

 

Saturday, October twenty-seventh

 

For most of the day Mother really did seem somewhat better. She cooperated a little more in her own care. Both Mary and I talked to her at length about the need to focus her attention on things outside of herself. I asked her questions for half an hour or so about things in her environment. Toward evening she got increasingly apprehensive. She seems to find her intestinal functionings particularly frightening.

 

Monday, October twenty-ninth

So bright and crisp, a late fall day, but our lives are full of darkness.

Last week we were all having our collective encounter with nothingness. Today everyone seemed already to have forgotten this experience and were busy infesting the day with their old cares.

 

Mary finds that the only way she can snap Mother back to a momentary contact with reality is to be real mean to her. She had another troubled night (and we had rather little sleep). But maybe she seemed a little better today, ate a little more. We tried to get her to sign those series E bonds that I have to cash to pay her doctor and hospital bills. She was willing enough to do it, but couldn't.

 

We finally got her up painfully and scooted her over to her desk on a chair. Her signatures were unrecognizable. Her attention would wander before she could finish, and the letters would got all scooched up and trail off.

 

Mary is at the dress rehearsal for the Choral Society's concert, which is to be held tomorrow evening. So far at least Mother is quieter this evening.

 

Mary conferred again with Kay today. He is still pessimistic, thinks that sooner or later, and preferably sooner, we will have to come around to committing her.

 

Certainly the present sort of arrangement can't continue much longer. Commitment, it seems, is a rather long and complicated process to put through, and it can be cancelled at any point along the way. Mary and I talked it over and concluded that we would have to start the process at least, with the idea that we could stop it if she shows some improvement during the waiting period. I have a call in for Kay, and I am going to tell him to set the wheels in motion. Monday,

 

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