“The treacheries of these souls were denials of love (which is God) and of all human warmth. Only the remorseless dead center of the ice will serve to express their natures. As they denied God’s love, so are they furthest removed from the light and warmth of His Sun. As they denied all human ties, so are they bound only by the unyielding ice.”
– John Ciardi, Inferno, notes on Canto XXXII, p. 248 – Source: Wikipedia
I know some of these stories are out of order, but they are major events that occurred during during the time Hurricane Meg stalled over North Georgia that made me really regret the decision to have my mother move in with us.
The Valentine’s Day Massacre
We always asked my mother to join us whenever we went somewhere. That was a constant complaint I heard from her about my brother; she whined that he did not include her in outings he had with his girlfriend and her kids. It was a constant compliant I heard from her, and I didn’t want to hear that she was doing the same thing to us. Sometimes she came with us, sometimes she didn’t, but we always asked.
The one time we didn’t ask was on Valentine’s Day. Having my mother living with us was pushing my husband, Ron, and I apart. Any time we showed affection towards each other, she would sneer and/or give us dirty looks. Later, Ron told me he felt she treated us more like brother and sister than husband and wife. She was always around, and Ron and I wanted some time alone together. Plus, we were going to a winery up in the mountains and when we had gone there previously with her, she had a really hard time getting around.
We had such a nice time; we were happy and in a good mood when we arrived home. But she made sure that didn’t last long. When I went to check on her, she was laying on the bed in her room with her back to me. I let her know we were home and asked how she was doing. I could tell she was pouting by her response. When I asked what was wrong, she said that she doesn’t feel included, and no one talks to her.
My jaw hit the ground. One day, just one day, I wanted a few hours alone with my husband!
I tried to explain this to her and that during the day I had to work. Sure, I was at home, but if I went into an office, she would be home alone all day, right? And I never ignored her all the time, even when I was working. I think she just wanted my constant attention or be the center of it.
Burning Down the House
As we always did, we asked my mother if she wanted to go to Ron’s brother and sister-in-law’s annual St. Paddy’s Day party. She said no, she was going to stay home and make some chicken for dinner.
We left our two dogs at home, like we normally would if she hadn’t been living with us and headed out for the party. They were always good boys whenever we were away and never gave us a bit of problems.
Halfway to their house, which is only a 15-minute ride, we got alerts on both our phones that the fire alarm had gone off. I tried calling my mother repeatedly, but she never answered. We had no idea what could be happening. Was the house on fire? Were her and the dogs trapped inside? When the alarm system company called to confirm – we told them to send the fire department. We immediately turned around to go back home. After a seven-minute nail-biting ride; we got there, the fire department was already on the scene and had the situation under control. When Ron talked with the fire chief, he said it was burnt chicken in the broiler that set the alarm off.
Ron was so angry as only a New Jersey Italian could be!
When I went inside, she was sitting at the kitchen table with a blank stare on her face and gave us the excuse that one of our dogs, Jack, had gotten through the baby gate and was eating the cat food. It wasn’t her fault. Ok…Jack hadn’t gotten into that area since we put the baby gate up, unless someone left it opened. As usual, nothing was her fault, and she had a childish excuse for everything.
Now we can’t even leave her home alone. That’s worse than the dogs!!
Battle on the Beach
When we bought our beach house in 2016, we made a vow to let any of our family and friend stay at our beach house for free any time they want.
As long as it wasn’t when we plan to be down there, and the MUST rule is they needed to leave it the way they found it. We even have a list posted on the refrigerator of the thing to do to open and close the house, so there would be no excuses on that they didn’t know. Given that, when my mom asked if my cousin’s wife and her friend could come down and take her to the beach house for a long weekend, we said no problem. Just make sure you leave it the way you found it.
A few months after they went down and came back, Ron and I wanted to take a break at the beach. (And yes, if you were wondering, we got my mother a babysitter.) When we walked into the house, I was horrified. The dishwasher was wide open with dishes still in it…were they clean or not?
To be safe, I ran it again.
The coffee pot was full of grinds that had gone moldy. GROSS!!
To top it off, there was a set of expensive coral-colored sheets balled up in the dryer with a dark green t-shirt that ran color throughout the sheets, ruining the entire set.
I was so mad, and I knew the reason why the house was left like that. The night before they were to return, mom had fallen by her bed. They called an ambulance to pick her up and take her to the hospital to get checked out and make sure nothing was broken. My cousin’s wife had to go with my mom to the hospital, so that left only her friend to make sure the house was in order before they left that morning. They couldn’t stay any extra because it was at least a seven-hour drive, with minimal breaks, back to our house to drop my mother off in North of Atlanta. Then they had to get back down to the Atlanta airport, which is far south of town, to catch a flight early the next morning.
My mother strikes again.
Money Grab
I was outraged! My own mother accused my husband of stealing from her. Ron would never even consider doing anything remotely close to stealing and to think that your own daughter would be a party to that or even marry a man who could do that to her family was unthinkable to me.
She accused Ron of trying to steal $15,000 dollars that she owed us on the balance of the loan he gave her to build the addition. I think in her mind, since she wasn’t staying with us, she didn’t need to re-pay us and tried to flip it back on us as stealing. We never wanted the addition, in fact, is has cost us more money in the long run since our taxes went up because of the extra square footage added to the house. We didn’t need to steal her money; we had plenty of our own, probably more than she had. We just wanted what was promised to us in the beginning.
Maybe if she had been nice about it, saying that she really couldn’t afford to give us the money, we might have considered letting her not pay it right then, or at all. But to go and make an accusation like she did, that wasn’t going to happen.
To make matters worse, when we confronted her about it later, she denied ever saying anything remotely close to accusing Ron of stealing money from her; even though there were two witnesses to that fact. That was her standard M.O., whenever she said something she probably shouldn’t; deny, deny, deny. I was brought up to always think about what I was going to say before I said it. Apparently, she didn’t follow her own advice.
Enough Was Never Enough
No matter what I did; it didn’t seem to be enough for her. She kept pushing for me to do more and more for her until I just had no more left in me. When that moment came, she said that she probably should move back to Michigan. I didn’t have any more fight in me and told her that it was probably for the best.
I was done, I wasn’t going to help any longer. She called my cousin’s wife, who gathered some other family together and planned the whole thing. I watch them pack up all her things into another U-Haul, just the same as the one we moved her down here just nine months ago; and drove off in the car that she had to bring down here but never drove.
That was the last time I physically saw my mother.
That doesn’t mean though that she is gone from my home. All the walls, door trim, and baseboards are gouged and banged up from her walker and falls. The floors are laminate and coming up from the times she flooded the bathroom. The new sofa, we just bought a year earlier, has a broken armrest that she used to pull herself up or lean on. There is a rip in the fabric of that sofa where she caught her walker. All the new living room tables have chips and dings. The back screen door is hanging from the hinges where she leaned on the door to get in and out of the garage and a big hole in the screen where she would push the door open instead of using the wood slat. We are missing a paring knife and eight pieces of silverware from my kitchen set. It cost me over $100 dollars to replace what was missing from what was originally a $40 set from an auction. And the list goes on and on.
The house has been destroyed and I don’t have the desire to fix it up any longer. It’s not my home anymore.
Ron never really believed me when I told him stories about growing up with my mother. He thought something happened, but I was exaggerating a bit. Now he knows the truth – he has had to live through it too.
It is amazing to me all the chaos and destruction one person can do in less than a year. But finally, I can rest, relax, and reflect on what just happened and get my life back on track.
Or so I thought…