NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS

"How's your mother doing?" asks everyone, whomever I run into or speak to. Or perhaps "How are things the other side of the pond?"

"Same." 

My favourite answer. I could go into Peg's latest medical report from her GP (fine), latest health obsession (watery eyes and jelly legs), latest opinion on sleeping alone in the house (wants the Staff to bugger off one day, grateful for them the next), latest worry about what I've "done with her stuff" (a not very interesting print of a circular bridge somewhere in Minnesota that used to be in my grandmother's bedroom and which Peg said I could have about 20 years ago and which is now framed and hanging in my upstairs hallway, not sure why because I don't much care for it, but don't hate it enough to schlep it back across the Atlantic so Peg can say "That's nice, what is it?" 

I could talk about the latest collie news. That Spurn Me Not alias Piper Angel Honeybear who cost Peg $2000 and was returned to the breeders last May because she was peeing all over the house not to mention was a waste of space as a canine companion since you couldn't get near her--is pregnant. The original Dog Deal, which Peg says she was "forced" to sign and that Dawn, who used to work for Peg, "put her hand over" the part that said Spurn was to be returned to the breeder if and when she came into heat and that Peg would get the proceeds from one of the puppies, and that this was to happen twice, after which Peg would have  the dog for keeps--still stands. Meaning, if the pups are alive and well, Peg get about $1000 from the sale of one. Peg, you can be sure, is already thinking she gets a puppy, not the money from the sale of one. I can see this turning into, shall we say, an issue.

I could also tell people about how I try and put Everything Becket out of my mind while I'm here dealing with Everything England. Or that I would go crazy. And that I sometimes do anyway. When suddenly my List seems so endless that I am going to run out of pages on the steno pad, when I can't get a simple piece of information through Peg's head, when DK suddenly says I never asked HIM what HE thought about bringing Peg over here to live, that I just went ahead and made plans, when Alex keeps doing fuck all about his future and I try to come to terms with him being a bartender his entire life, when the dog won't stop barking at pigeons in the big pine tree she doesn't have a hope of reaching but tries to climb up to nevertheless, gradually reducing my carefully-tended lace-cap hydrangea to a bunch of broken sticks. The hydrangea I planted because Daddy put one on the tree outside the front door in Becket and I love it and I wanted one so I can look at it and think of him. And that is when, roughly,  I lose it. And rant and rave and let off steam and DK retreats to this office and Alex thinks I'm crying over "some dumb plant" and Mabel--keeps barking at the pigeons. This lasts about ten minutes, after which I am fine again. Until it hits me how scared I am, how out of my depth I feel, having to build a house and sell a house and move a 98 year old and fill out 3 million forms to hopefully get her on the National Health and find a companion here for her and how my heart starts beating faster and faster and--I feel sick most of the time. Seriously nauseous and not hungry. 

I could furthermore mention how pissed off I am that for all this stress on my plate, I don't appear to be losing any weight. And this pisses me off almost as much as Peg, out of the blue, telling me not to have a face lift done in England because that you "can't trust them" here, and that there's a very good "eye man" in Springfield. 

"Mother, no one has mentioned face lifts. I don't want a face lift. Honest!"

"Oh go on! I'll pay for it." 

Fuck me, I think--on top of everything else I need a face lift!

So really, you see, when someone asks me how Peg is, it's really just easier to say "Same." 

GREAT MEDICAL MINDS DEPT.

Peg's Ear, Nose and Throat guy has put her mind at rest in regards to her growing inability to taste or smell her food: she does not have nose cancer. The bad news though, for her, is that neither does she does have polyps. For the past five years at least we have been hearing nothing but "I have GOT to do something about these damned polyps in my nose! They're just driving me crazy! No one wants to operate, they say I'm too old!" Meaning somewhere along the line a doctor either misdiagnosed her or suggested she might have polyps or she decided it for herself after reading some scary article in the Mayo Clinic Health Letter News or whatever it's called that she keeps renewing her subscription to, for reasons I don't understand because it's not like she's going to change her eating habits at 97 or start sprinkling a teaspoon of turmeric onto her cereal or suddenly being jogging to the mailbox. The ENT guy suggested that Peg's lack of taste is most likely due to age and to the fact that she wears dentures, both of which I suggested, years ago, but she didn't want to hear, any more than I liked hearing the other day that I suffer from something called "Senior Rhinitis" (please!) and Peg is now no doubt looking around for another ENT doctor, the kind who can diagnose nasal polyps better.

However, this guy did have other good news: Peg's hoarseness, another on-going complaint, is not due to anything sinister either, she does not have throat cancer. What she has is--and here the guy starts treading on thin ice again--old vocal chords. Vocal chords, as they age, stretch, it seems, and this could indeed explain the hoarseness.  Since Peg is unduly concerned about her voice and sounding okay for interviews, what he suggests, this doctor, is Speech Therapy. Speech therapy. For a woman who hasn't stopped talking in almost 98 years and has never to my knowledge had any trouble making herself understood either in front of a mike or across a crowded supermarket. And in fact might occasionally benefit from Gaffers Tape Across The Mouth Therapy.

Anyhow, she cancelled her first appointment. (Raining.)
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STAFF ON CALL: all four of them, all the time, or so it seems, even doing overnights when Peg has cousins from California visiting overnight. I keep thinking I need to go over, and fast. But then do the math, no small feat, and by the time you add up airfare and getting to and from airports and possibly a car rental, I'm spending MORE in 3 weeks than having Terri and Dominick continue with their overnights. So then I have to figure out, again why am I going? And the answer is to keep Peg company and of course annoy her and "take over" and "throw out" her "life" and other daughterly duties. And I think, well, maybe this can wait. Maybe I can get her here for a visit instead. Maybe I can find accomodation, maybe I can sort out air miles, maybe I can find a way so she doesn't have to fly at night which she hates (London via Vladivostok perhaps), maybe Bonnie would be able to bring her for Thanksgiving after all, maybe she can change her plans. Except now Peg's saying she doesn't want to come--correction, she does want to come but her "legs are like jelly", she can't get up by herself anymore without help, she says to me yesterday.

"Where are you right now, Mother?"

"At the butcher block."

"Where's Dominick?"

"Still asleep upstairs. It's early."

"So--how'd you get up out of bed and into the kitchen?"

"With my walker, why?"

"You just said you couldn't get up anymore by yourself, your legs are like jelly."

[PAUSE] "They are! And--I had to really brace myself against the side of the bed and PUSH, then FINALLY managed to HAUL myself up."

At which point she changed the subject instantly to her new iPad, which she calls "the thing you got", and I then tried long distance to guide her to the ON button and finally decided the thing needed to be charged, which I doubt anyone has thought to do since I left in September. And which in fact turned out to be the case. But now Old Jelly Legs knows how to do that. AND find the ON button. Maybe.

TREADING WATER

Going mad. Too little progress being made, on all fronts. Plus days get shorter as you get older. And as Buddha says, although I don't often quite from him, in fact never have before: 

"The trouble is, you think you have time."

I am starting to feel as though there's one of DK's metronomes ticking, all day long. Den wants me to go take a T M  course. Trancendental Meditation. He meditates every day, or tries to. It must be outstandingly beneficial, T M, I think Holland or maybe it's Denmark where they cut your medical bills by a third or even a half if you do T M. So it undoubtedly has something going for it. My problem is when Den took his course, years ago back in London, they told him to bring a small piece of white cloth and a flower to his first session. There is no way in hell I could do this with a straight face. Which means I am destined no doubt to die of a heart attack brought on by stress. I reckon I have about two days, at the rate my pulse is going.

And it turns out I did not after all have my final phone conversation with Peg.

ME: "Hi Mother. [PAUSE] It's me." The very fact I have to add "it's me" sets me off. Who does she think is calling her 'mother'? She has only one child, it's not like there's five of us.

PEG: "Oh. Hi dear. I've had NO SLEEP,  NONE! I'm SO TIRED. [VOICE BREAKS] I need a DOG! I need something to cuddle!"

ME: "Did Cousin Ruth arrive from California? Is is fun seeing her?"

PEG: "We had curried chicken salad."

ME: "Good. I was just making sure you give Terri a couple of nights off. You don't need anyone staying over if Ruth is there."

PEG: "Terri's doing my Blue Books for me!"

ME: "Good idea. But not at night. She needs a break. And we need to save money, Mama. Two nights of no Terri, that's a hundred dollars you save."

PEG: "How are you? Are you getting enough sleep?"

ME:  "Yes. I just wanted you to know I talked to Bonnie and we told Terri she could have the night off tonight. You have Ruth there."

PEG: "Honey, don't worry about ME! AT ALL! I am fine, just fine. I'm sleeping well and--"

ME: "I thought you just said you were getting no sleep and were exhausted."

PEG: [PAUSE] "That was the night BEFORE last. Last night I slept wonderfully!"

That conversation of an hour ago is the least of it. I still need to get a builder for the new "Hytte" (Little Peg House) at the bottom of the garden, but still no sign of planning permission from Suffolk Council. I need to get a PR firm that I like and trust on board to promote Den's memoirs, I need to find someone to help me turn them into an eBook without slitting my wrists because the technology is bloody defeating me, I need to know if my cousin who is supposed to be designing the cover image has died because I can't think of any other reason he hasn't been in touch and the launch date is LOOMING LARGE, I need the painters who are doing the outside trim to arrive when they say they will, so far no success here, I need someone to help me design new cupboards in the living room because although this is my field I feel every artistic bone in my body has been sat on by a couple of steamrollers, I need to figure out when I'm getting on a plane to Becket again, why the dog keeps throwing up, and where my brand new $$$ Clinique face illuminator, shade #1 (Light, for winter use) has gone, I brought it back from the States, it was ON my dressing table last week and I can only think it rolled off into the wastebasket.

Plus one of my son's best friends has gone into rehab in Scotland, the hope being he will kick his newly-acquired heroin habit. I had the mother on the phone for over an hour.

Tomorrow will be better. I keep telling myself. And I have just gone through the huge garbage bin outside of disgustin recycled stuff looking for that Clinique. No fucking sign. But, as I said, tomorrow will be better.

EYES WIDE OPEN

11:00 PM  

I was happily nodding of in front of "Joe Columbo - The Mob's Greatest Hits" until Peg rang to tell me how much she loves me and how she thinks of me every second of every day and always has and that I am not to be at all concerned about her, everything is fine over there, she is being well looked after, everyone is lovely to her, I shouldn't fret, I should concentrate on my family here and just have fun for a change and above all I should get some sleep. 

I am now wide awake, worrying that's the last conversation I will ever have with her, she sounded so sort of--final. 

And will of course not sleep now, with these Daughter Antennae waving about. 

A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR

..makes the medicine go down. Apparently. 

Except in my mother's case, who's convinced she possesses an abnormally small throat and will therefore choke to death if she tries to take a pill, sugar or not (she lets aspirin dissolve in her mouth, for instance). Despite there being no medical evidence to support her Teeny Gullet Theory, Peg remains convinced, obsessed would be a better word, the result being that whenever she has to take a pill, which is every day, she covers the butcherblock in what looks like some chemisty experiment at a food-tasting factory, a little of this--cottage cheese and peaches, peanut butter, a bite of roast chicken stuffing--a little of that--taramasalata on a cracker, salted cashews, a glass of milk--anything to help make the pills slide down more easily.

The pills themselves she then tips out of the green plastic day-to-day medication sorter in which Bonnie places them diligently every week. Peg then inspects each one, frowning occasionally, before decanting the entire pill pile into another little butter-pat-size dish, after which she counts them about fifteen million times before finally ending up with three piles, two in butter pat dishes and one straight on the countertop, a pile which tends to disperse almost immediately when she reaches across the butcherblock and her sleeve swipes come of the pills into the sink, an event which, when pointed out,  necessitates some fast replacements being flown in from the desk in the (former) dining room. This is followed by yet another recount and more frowning, with much close scrutiny now of the pill bottles themselves as she attempts to match each pill with the right bottle, and invariably finds herself either one pill short or having one extra and holding up one she claims never to have seen before but which she has been taking for five years. This is where, if you're still watching all this palaver without having yet slit your wrists and been returned to England in a body bag,  you say "For God's sakes, Mother, just take the bloody things! You act like we're all trying to slip you cyanide or something!"

Finally, once all the pills have been yet again re-sorted and re-counted and retrieved from the floor, the Pill Taking Procedure itself can start. Each pill has a particular food item that "goes with it", something I have no idea how you determine, being more of a chuck it down with water type of girl myself rather than instinctively knowing that applesauce, say, is a lovely accompaniment to Allopurinol. 

About a year later, during which time you can go wash and dry your hair and answer emails about Boundary Disputes and Norwegian Pension claims or anything that takes your fancy---Peg will have managed to actually get down perhaps three out of her fourteen pills, gagged on a few others, spat some out, knocked over a glass of milk into the two little butter pat dishes full of pills, and used up a roll of paper towels and a box of Kleenex.  

The morning gone, it will then be time for her nap. 

She will wake up a few hours later not knowing what time it is, what day it is, or if it's morning or night, but one hundred percent sure she has taken her pills, all of them, that day and every day, and launches waspishly into anyone who dares suggest otherwise.

Bonnie worries. She has just written to ask if I can please please think of any way to get all Peg's pills down her, she and Terri have tried everything short of tying my mother to the kitchen chair, tipping her head back, and shovelling. 

My feeling about all this? Not sure. Easy to say, at a distance but well--if she takes them, she takes them. If not, well. So be it. The gout will start acting up and her bladder spasms will surely return, among other things. Does one wait until that happens, then just hope she'll learn? And start making a concerted effort? At 97? Don't think so. Have suggested Terri takes the two really important ones, crushes them, and hides them in Peg's dinner. Peg says she can't taste anything anyway. Might work. 

But then again, the big question--how well does meatloaf really go with Oxybutynin?? There's fuck all in The Joy of Cooking about this.

DEPRESSION, DEMENTIA AND DENIAL

Sitting in the kitchen in Suffolk while the TV blares in the other room. Shades of Becket, except over there the TV is in the room. And at least DK is not glued to The Weather Channel. Although hearing golf commentary, have to say, is only marginally more interesting. 

A day trip to London for DK's memoirs, soon out, and returned, tired, to ringing phone. Bonnie. Peg upset because she can't find all her records or her record player, do I know where they are? I do, as it happens. Record player on the landing, where it's been for three years, and the nine million mostly cracked or scratched to buggery and generally un-playable LPs--gone. Having not sold one at the Famous Tag Sale in Hinsdale in August, they went to Goodwill. Peg and I had gone over them all last summer, keeping out a small pile of ones she loved that I said we would replace on CD when she felt the need. Tom Lehrer, Bob Newhart, Nichols & May, and so on. The classicals she already has on CD.

So then Peg comes on the phone.

Needless to say, she's forgotten we ever had this Important Record Conversation, and was about to launch into How I Throw Everything That Matters to Her Out--when, with no warning, like suddenly swerving off an exit on I- 95 from the fast lane--she says:

"Daddy's death certificate says he died of Esophageal Cancer! I didn't know he had cancer. Why didn't anyone tell me!"

You know those pauses where you're so at a loss for the right words that you need to take a deep breath to try and hold your temper? Well it wasn't one of those. It was more of a "FUCK ME, IS SHE CRAZY? pause, after which I suggested this to her. 

It seems she has no recollection whatsoever of the biopsy my father had a year ago August, or that it was malignant--slow-growing, the doctor said, but malignant--and we were given three options, radiation, surgery, and "do nothing", no recollection that she was beside herself trying to figure out the best course of action, or that she wanted to prevent Odd knowing he had cancer at all costs so it wouldn't worry him, or that the situation was discussed at length, or that there'd been a conference call with me over here in England AND the doctor AND Peg AND Bonnie AND a social worker. No recollection that the upshot was that we would NOT put Daddy through surgery especially since the doctor said at 96 it was dangerous, that we would NOT put him through 4 months of radiation, and that we would, since the malignancy was "slow-growing", DO NOTHING. And let nature take its course. We would get Daddy OUT of the nursing home and back home where he'd be happier. And that because of this cancer diagnosis, coupled with his dementia diagnosis, he qualified for Hospice Care at home, and that is when they came on board and P.S. thank God they did.

I have just filled the past hour going through old emails to forward to Peg via Bonnie to prove all this. Because Peg is having none of it. She says this is the first she has heard about any diagnosis of cancer.

One hour twenty three minutes I spent on the phone, Denis brining me wine and rolling his eyes and muttering. 

My mother remains convinced the oncologist either lied to her when he said Odd had no cancer. I remain convinced the oncologist never said any such thing. 

Peg thinks we are all part of some Grand Conspiracy package, a "big goddamned scam!" 

"A scam," I said. PAUSING. But not for TOO long. "Jesus Christ, Mother. Stop doing this to me. What in hell are you talking about? A scam?? In what way? What for?"

"MONEY!" she says. 

Money. For whom? She didn't say. Oh God. Finally I asked, softly (well, with marginally less irritation in my voice), what was wrong, what was it that was really really upsetting her? And she broke down, and kept saying if she'd known Daddy had had cancer she would have taken him to a specialist in New York. I had to assure her that that wouldn't have solved anything, that we did the best thing for him, that Hospice was magnificent, that he only suffered for a week, tops. Assure her that she couldn't have saved him. 

I promised that as soon as I had finished my work here, I'd come over. 

Again. 

Although, gee, might be needed here. This just in: my son, currently at work behind the bar at the Anchor down the road despite having had no sleep because he stayed up half the night watching some dumb thing on his laptop and eating too much fried stuff too late--just informed me via text that he feels "very hot and a bit dizzy" and "faint" and has just had to go to the loo there and "splash a lot of cold water" on his face because "Mum, I think I might have Ebola. I'm serious." 

How did I turn out so--vaguely normal? Sandwiched between these two.

DEATH - THREE MONTHS ON

"I never realised how much I'd miss him!"

Peg. Almost every phone call. I remind her, again, that she spent almost 65 years with the man, why should it come as a surprise that she misses him. What she misses most of course is not just companionship, it's that he babied her, she says this herself. And I do know what she means. And it's nice. DK does the same to me. The type of men to stand in the drive waving goodbye even if we're just off to get gas, having gone out earlier to get the car started and warmed up for us. My father was devoted with a capital D, Peg's biggest fan. She was his everything. The finality of the loss of attention is I believe what's sinking in, realising that no one will ever replace Odd Knut. Well. Let us but hope. Am half poised for the email from Bonnie saying "Your mother wants to drive to Vegas with the Culligan delivery man's grandfather and his four Irish Wolfhounds in his RV, are you OK with this?"
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"Bob and Terri and I finally got the bookcases moved she wanted changed. Whew! I think we can safely say that your mom is now done with rearranging heavy furniture!"

Bonnie. Last week. Momentarily deranged. Which could be the only possible explanation for believing my mother will ever be happy for more than two seconds with any current arrangement in her full-to-overflowing-can't-swing-a-collie-in quarters. 
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"I'm sending Annie a key to the house."

Peg. Out of the blue, apropos of nothing. Three days ago. Momentarily or possibly more than momentarily deranged, thinking my friend, two hours away, and currently not speaking to me, would: a) ever in a million years need it; or b) want it. Besides which, anyone really really wanting access to the house can crawl in the dog door, burglars and axe murderers take note (and suck in your stomach). "Any particular reason?" I asked. "So she knows she's welcome here if she wants a vacation!" Am trying to get past the idea of anyone anywhere thinking Hawaii? Italy? Fuck no, let's head to Becket! and that my mother is sliding off her rocker faster than I thought.

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"This is what's left of my father's life. Christ."

Me. To myself. A lot. Looking at two wooden 8 x 10 out-trays on the counter, the final resting place for The Last of Daddy's Things. A school report. Ration card from the war. Release from prison camp, in German. Membership in the Norwegian Underground. A few photos. A postcard. Boy Scout badge. Three hand written speeches on graph paper. That's about it. A cigar cutter. The sum total of a year spent going though the attic and his office and his desk and his closets. One man's life, now in two small scratched up wooden boxes. 

NICE THING

Peg's Pot Roast Dinner for Six Homosexuals a roaring success, she reports, as did Bonnie. Peg indeed makes great pot roast. You want chuck, incidentally, in a big 3 inch slab. She gets a couple of these, browns them, then cooks them for about 5 hours in the oven. What's been happening though, I notice, as she gets older, is that she gets the meat done all right, but doesn't remember any of the other stuff that goes with it, such as vegetables, or potatoes, or dessert, or wine, or dinner party stuff to nibble on beforehand. Although she does remember to do gravy. Very thick, stand a spoon up in thick gravy flavoured with dill, but still. With, as I said, no potatoes or veg to put it on. Fortunately I had primed both Terri and Bonnie beforehand and they cobbled the rest of the meal together. Even though it was Terri's day off.  Peg had rung her in a panic about 4 PM saying, for reasons that escape me, "I don't think I should be using the stove all by myself!" (Where was Bonnie?)

I can't keep anyone's schedules straight anymore, at this distance.

What I do know is that Peg, having said "I'm fine, I'm fine, it doesn't matter if no one's here for three or four hours, I am FINE!" has now decided she is not fine and Staff are now finding themselves there more than ever. Just as we are trying to cut down. Ka-ching, and double ka-ching.
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ODD KNUT ESTATE UPDATE:

All shares sold and all paperwork done and all three cheques deposited safely in newly formed O K R estate account with me as executor. Cheques which would maybe cover 3 round trip airfares to JFK, tops, Economy, so no fireworks here, but at least DONE. So--check! Re the cheques.

PEG LYNCH WEBSITE UPDATE:

Major magazine interested. Other queries coming in, fan mail, requests, including can they do her stuff and then film it at the Motion Pictures Actor's home in LA, all done by residents, old actors, directors, cameramen and so on. I suggested flying Peg out there to perform her sketches herself. They love this. This would of course mean me having to go to LA too, so what possessed me to say this, I don't know, it's not like it's just down the road. I guess I figure if I say yes to everything, none of it will happen (as usual, in this business) and I can finish painting the cupboards in the piano room.
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THE NICE THING:

Many moons ago, two extremely good gay friends not just of mine but Peg and Odd's--not the Pot Roast Gays, other ones--and such good friends they were considered family--used to come visit from Boston almost every weekend, with their dogs, who played with Peg's dogs, and they'd bring lobsters, or pies, or flowers or all three and everyone had a fine time and Peg and Odd looked forward to these visits, especially as they got older. 

Then, one day, about ten years ago, soon after I had arrived from England for Thanksgiving, thinking we three were going OUT, as requested, I discovered we were NOT going out, Peg forgot, Peg had instead invited 12 people to celebrate chez us meaning I had to throw myself with two days notice into this major meal plus none of the shopping had been done. This, granted, didn't put me in the best of moods, but I flew into action and the night before the big day, Peg comes into the kitchen to say she had just spoken to Gay Friend #1 and they were suddenly not coming, having decided to go to Gay Frinend #2's uncle's on the Cape or somewhere instead. This annoyed me: a) because they were bringing three other people which meant I had a turkey way bigger than I needed; and b) they were also bringing the pies. So, I rang #1 back, and when I found out he'd known they weren't coming for a week but hadn't let us know until now--got pissed off. As you do, when you've just got off a plane and been up to your elbows in giblets and corn bread stuffing and Waldorf Salad with Turkey Nine Thousand Ways to look forward to for the next year plus no desserts for anyone and no canned pumpkin in the house. Our phone conversation swiftly deteriorated, during which heated words were exchanged after I was accused of being a negligent daughter living so far away going to parties while my poor aged parents struggled with storm windows three thousands miles away and #1 was told to fuck off and stop being a silly drama queen. I might have said "old" drama queen.

Anyhow he never spoke to me again. This good friend I'd known since I was 19. Not only did he not speak to me, he "punished" me by never speaking or going to visit Peg and Odd from then on. His partner, #2, I should mention, was devastated, and has spent the past ten years trying to make #1, a hot-headed Italian, see reason. As have I. But, no dice. 

So. The Nice Thing. Is that #2, dear man, has finally succeeded, and the happy couple both went to visit Peg, with their dog, last weekend. And it was--like old times. She reports. 

Except that, of course, my father missed the homecoming, didn't he. Which he would have enjoyed. Daddy thought the world of them both, and would have welcomed them as warmly and heartily as he had always done, as if no time had passed. Ever the gentleman, always polite. No grudges. Except possibly for the Germans who imprisoned him for two years during the war and treated him--not very nicely.

I am missing Odd Knut more and more each day.
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TO END ON A HAPPY NOTE:

Peg's visit to the urologist went swimmingly. After all that fuss.