A decade ago, my grandmother, then 82, broke her hip. Her recovery involved a month in the hospital while she learned to walk comfortably again, a month that drove my mother, my grandmother’s sole caretaker, to the brink of insanity.
“I can’t go on,” she’d moan. “Calgon, take me away.”
Such was her constant refrain, and this was owing to the fact my grandmother’s behavior while infirm was impossible. Every half-hour my mother fielded a phone call from the hospital: “Bring me my robe! Different hand soap! Scotch tape!” she’d demand.
She’d be angry with a nurse or the limited food selection in the cafeteria, and the constant catering to such needs without nary a please or thank you? It was too much for one woman, my mother, to bear. Keep reading »
