My mom is ninety-eight years old (and well on her way to turning ninety-nine) and she seems to still be stirring up trouble. Case in point, -----
Today I drove over to the nursing home to visit her and when I walked into her room, her roommate (who looks to be a spry 70ish) stuck her head between the dividing curtains and glared at me.
"Hi, Miss Eva, how are you today," I politely inquired.
"Well, I have a big problem," she responded.
"Oh, no," I replied. "What's the matter?"
"Her!" Eva answered, pointing at my mother who was lying innocently in her bed.
"My mother?" I said incredulously. "What's she done?"
"I can't keep her," Eva answered.
"Well, then it's a good thing you don't have to because she doesn't belong to you," I replied.
"But she's HERE!," she persisted.
"That's because she's your roommate," I told her.
"I'm not supposed to have a roommate, " she insisted. (Mind you, Eva is a fairly new addition to my mom's room.)
"Then keep this curtain closed and pretend she's not there," I suggested.
"But it's not my curtain," she answered.
"All the more reason to keep it closed," I said.
I glanced over at Mom. "Hey, Ma....remember your first roommate.....the one you threw the shoe at?", I asked her.
"No," she answered.
"The one whose husband came up to visit every day," I continued.
"Oh, yes," she replied. "She was nice."
"Yes, I really liked her. I think she was the best roommate you ever had," I told her. (Unfortunately she passed away and the next roommate got it in her head that Mom was trying to steal her husband away from her, even though her husband had passed away and it was a male nurse, not her husband and it was all in her head. THAT roommate was so obnoxious about the imagined transgression that Mom was transferred to another room where she had a roommate that was just there temporarily on rehab and then departed back home. Now we have Eva.)
Now I admit that I might have said that last part about the "best roommate" a little louder than necessary out of spite because frankly, I was still a little miffed with Eva over something she'd said last week. I had arrived to visit Mom and when I walked into the room, Eva took one look at me and said to her daughter (who was visiting), "Oh, no...it's her again. It's just disgusting. She's here every day for 3-4 hours at a time."
I was astonished. I'm usually there twice a week for an hour at a time and I always try to take her off to the library where we can visit and read books together in peace. Oy!
And here I thought that my days of trying to keep the peace between kids was over. Guess I'd better dust off my copy of Dr. Spock and try some of those old techniques on Mom and her roommate.
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