Day 4 of G-ma watch

So the G-ma moved in on Monday night. And I guess it is time for an update.

Since we don’t want her to be alone as much as possible but we are all working - or at least earnestly looking for work - adults, we have taken to a rotating schedule.

Dad leaves really early in the morning, so mom gets G-ma up and prepares breakfast for her. Mom leaves for work around 7:15 and I take over, having finished my morning absolutions. I help G-ma finish breakfast and help her get up from the table and over to the place she wants to sit all day, either the couch or my dad’s armchair. From there, I answer her questions, get things for her, dial the phone for her, whathaveyou. Around 9, I get my bro to come downstairs and I take off for work. The big bro takes care of G-ma for a of couple hours until my dad gets home and he takes over until around 5:30 (oh yeah, and sometime in there he makes dinner and cleans up around the house). Mom gets home and she takes care of G-ma for the rest of the night.

Pretty much the same thing every morning. She’s a stubborn lady and it is hard to convince her that she can no longer live alone in a second story one bedroom apartment in No Ho. On Tuesday morning, mom laid it on the line, either move to Carolina (I can’t remember which one - too tired) with her son (my uncle) or we start shopping for an old folks home. One or the other, that’s it.

For a while, after mom leaves for work, G-ma says that moving in with my uncle is a good idea. After all, he has a big bedroom for her and his second wife’s mother is there and she has her own room with a big screen TV (not really a big screen but when you are almost blind, I guess anything bigger that a 15 inch screen looks big) and they let her eat what ever she wants. Then in the very next breath, she is talking about how the state gives her 22 hours a week in assistance. She asks me how many hours a day that is and because of previous conversations I have had, I don’t do the math but just tell her that it is 2 ½ hours a day (close enough). She mumbles, she doesn’t know why they won’t give her more hours. Fool that I am, I answer her.

“They probably don’t have enough people to give you more hours Grandma.”

Quick to answer, “Sure they do, they have a whole list of people that I can pick from.”

Let me back up a second here. My grandmother has had a helper coming in a couple times a week for the last couple of years. And if this tells you anything about what we are dealing with here, she starts disliking the helpers for no apparent reason and fires them. Regularly. So her case worker will present her with a list and she can pick a new helper. Think I am making this up? Let me give you an example. Two helpers ago, the woman would speak to my grandmother in Spanish (which she is fluent in) and my grandmother didn’t like it so she would ignore her and then fired her. G-ma can be…difficult. And we have the additional problem that, A. All these women know each other and B. a couple of them have tried to con my G-ma out of money. And her only income is her social security, which barely pays the rent and what ever my parents give her. But I stray from the topic on hand. Back to the conversation

“Grandma, you probably aren’t the only person that the caretaker helps out. They probably have more than one person they help out with and that is why they can’t give you more hours.”

“Oh.”

I’m kind of glad that G-ma can’t see, it at least means I can roll my eyes after these conversations.

I’m going to hell. I’m just not a good person.