Our mothers (Ron's and mine)

Normally I get angry/frustrated/sad when I wake up and find Ron totally drunk, slumped in his wheelchair in the kitchen, at 7:30 in the morning.  I find it pathetic and sad. 

But it's mother's day. 

Now, you have, by now heard a lot about my own mother situation.  My birth mother planned my pregnancy after losing my infant brother, to meningitis.  They carefully planned intercourse, used a thermometer, logged her periods, etc. 

She got pregnant.  With me.  Then she began (or continued, I don't know) binge-drinking every day, at least a fifth a day, 750 ml a day of the hard stuff.  She gave birth.  I was induced, and a couple days overdue. 

I'm sure that wasn't a pleasant delivery.  I have heard those induction hormones are pretty harsh.  So, I'm born.  She neglected me so severely that child services got involved and they gave my Dad custody in the 70's, when fathers never got custody.   It took me years to catch up on the growth charts. 

For today's purposes, I will just focus on my birth mother.  My whole life I knew that my birth mother, while she "loved" me, basically threw me away to feed her own dramas.  That's been pretty painful.  It is also hard to accept she willingly chose to disable me for my entire life.  She had to know that much alcohol was bad for the baby.  She was warned it was bad for the baby (per my sister). . She kept drinking. 

So, I'm left with, yet again "Alcohol is more important than my love for you".  Hard. 

Ron couldn't really understand what I was going through.  He had a very good relationship with his mother, called her "girlfriend", confided in her, etc.  He may not have called her often, but when he did they had long conversations. 

He knew she loved him, he was her baby.  They were close. 

Then the accident.  I noticed it first, she was disabled and had some aches and pains.  Whenever we talked about Ron in the waiting room, she would start talking about her aches and pains, trying to one-up whatever Ron was going through.  OK, I can live with that.  She decided she didn't want to visit anymore, because it was too hard for her husband to push "all that meat" (his words) in the wheelchair from the free parking building.  OK.  I can live with that.  She was kind of a downer anyway. 

While I was planning Ron's recovery, Ron's family was plotting to put him in a nursing home.  When he woke up with head injury dementia his fate, as they saw it, was sealed.  However, Ron didn't have Medicare at the time (long story).  So, much as they wanted, they couldn't put Ron in a nursing home until the Medicare kicked in.  They were adamant I had to get that going, I did.  After all, we would need a disability check to live on.  They plotted in front of him, thinking he was too confused to remember. 

They just had to get rid of me, somehow. 

They finally picked the perfect method, and it would have worked.  Ron and I were not legally married, so his parents had "custody" of him.  I didn't get to say where he went, one reason I am adamant you shouldn't live with someone unless you are married.  This is what happens, if you don't listen. 

They would move me, and Ron, into his parents house.  I would be responsible for not one disabled person in need of assistance, but three.  His mother needed a full-time caregiver just on her own.  I would be trapped, literally, in the ghetto, with no way out.  I would be the unpaid slave caregiver for Ron and his parents until I burned out, which, they hoped, would coincide with the resumption of Ron's Medicaid.  Then they could blame me for running out on him and put him in the nursing home. 

Ron had a lucid moment, though, and realized what was happening.  He called his Dad to come visit him.  Dad showed.  Ron explained to his Dad: he really wanted to go home with me.  If Dad loved him, he would let that happen.  Dad would be free to visit but Ron couldn't put "the weight" on his parents like that.  Please, sign the forms so Heather can take me home to my cat. 

That was the other thing, I was supposed to let myself get evicted and lose my cats, so I could "take care of" Ron.  You know how I love my cats. 

Ron begged his Dad, and his Dad realized Ron really had the right idea, so he "let" me have Ron.  His brother and sister were very upset. 

His brother kidnapped me and tried to take me to Social Security to "prove" I had "done everything right".  I tried to explain, they don't take walk-ins. 

I ended up having to resort to blackmail.  Ron had told me his brother was having an affair.  I let his brother know I knew and I had his wife's cell phone number.  Unless he wanted "his secrets" coming out, he had better take me back to the hospital. 

He did. 

Then his sister showed up, screaming at Ron.  I actually walked out of the room.  She got very angry at me, but I quoted an old movie at her "You have no power over me".  Actually, I said "I was nice to you on the chance you would help us.  But you're clearly not so I don't care what you think of me anymore.  You have no power over me."  Then I walked out.  I hate bullies. 

She was so horrible the hospital threw her out.  They actually (one of the nurses) followed me to make sure I didn't just leave altogether.  That's how awful she was. 

That's not who I am, though.  I am tenacious as a tick and stubborn as a mule when it comes to those I love.  That is a good thing, and a bad one. 

So, the next day I finally got to take Ron home.  Ron's Dad would visit every day or so and watch Ron while I took a shower.  Sometimes he brought fast food for Ron.  One day I caught him feeding French fries to my cat.  I didn't mind.  They were all having a good time. 

Ron made a slow recovery, but a steady one.  But when he really came back his Dad stopped visiting.  Dad even repossessed a dead relative's commode they had "loaned" us because "they needed it" (they already had one).  I assume the other kids had something to do with it.  Ron had been fixing up his brother's computer when he got hurt, his brother demanded the computer back.  Ron and I finished fixing it and sent it back with his Dad. 

In the meantime, Ron heard very little from his mother.  He called her one day and asked her why they had tried to put him in a nursing home.  She denied it.  He told her he heard them, while he appeared to be in a coma and "out of it" after he woke up, he had heard them discussing it.  She denied it again. 

Ron just wanted an apology for trying to put him in a nursing home.  He never got it.  They cut off contact, stopped taking his calls, and when we went to visit told us not to come back "without calling" but they weren't taking our calls!  Ron called them once on my cell phone, right after I got it, because it was a different number.  Sure enough, they picked up.  They talked for a little bit and "had to go".  Then, the next time he called on my phone, they didn't pick up. 

And that was that.  Ron's "Girlfriend" didn't want him any more.  She just threw him out over some petty bullshit. 

I think, at the end of it, no one in Ron's family assumed he would make any kind of meaningful recovery, so they just wrote him off.  But he did recover.  He does spreadsheets and P&L's now.  I think they are embarrassed they were so quick to write him off, when the "crazy white girl" (me), didn't. 

When we bought the house Ron called his mother and told her she would have a place in our home, if she wanted it, as long as she kept the diabetic diet.  She was very bad about staying on her eating plan.  She thanked him, but hung up. 

They never called us, even though I gave his Dad a photo of Ron with the cell phone number on the back.  I made it as easy as possible. 

Eventually Ron gave up trying to get ahold of his parents.  We were told, by a nephew (I am FB friends with a  nephew and a cousin) they had been placed in a nursing home, which I found ironic.  His Dad died of dementia last year.  I do miss him, he was a kind man (to me). 

His mother is still alive.  I have asked Ron, periodically, if he wants to try to get her phone number.  He could call her and see if she would like a visit.  Then we could go visit.  Ron said no. 

That's his decision.  I think, though, he is very sad he doesn't have a mother today.  For all intents and purposes, she died 14 years ago. 

No wonder he got drunk at 7 in the morning.