My mother doesn’t like most people, and that includes me, her only surviving child. We agree better on the phone than in person. Although I call her often, I don’t talk to her every day.
She is 98 years old, her hearing ability is almost non-existent, and she rarely hears either of her two phones ringing.
If she does make it through the call, she will spend most of the time pressing the buttons on her phone to turn up the volume, as she doesn’t understand that it’s as loud as it gets.
She refuses to use hearing aids, but that doesn’t stop her from yelling at me for not calling more. She must be happy when I call her at all because talking to her is not on my list of fun activities.
A few years ago, when she was still relatively healthy, my mother asked me not to visit her, that she wanted our interactions to be limited to phone calls only.
She didn’t feel the need to have a relationship with me or anyone in our family, and now she criticizes us for not volunteering to care for her.
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My mother was a terrible, narcissistic, misogynistic mother. Imagine the opposite of a cool granny type and this is her.
At the end of her life, she is dealing not only with dementia but with late-stage mental illness. Although it has not been confirmed, she may suffer from schizophrenia as my brother did.
She has many symptoms of schizophrenia such as paranoia, delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized speech.
Most conversations with my mother consist of screaming, expressing irrational fears, and delivering hate-filled monologues that reveal her racism, sexism, and paranoia. She spends a lot of time complaining about me, her caregivers, her family, and anyone else who makes her angry.
I hear the same things over and over again.
“The government controls the weather, and there will be flooding only on my street.”
“This is a terrible time. I have lived too long.”
“I want someone who speaks good English, not those around me who don’t know anything.”
If I disagreed with anything she said or said anything she didn’t like, she hung up on me.
At this point, every call ends with a disconnection.
Despite everything, she still had some memory and an iron will. If you decide on something that has no basis in reality, there is no way to talk her out of it.
My mother spends the last years of her life at home, with her pets, and enjoying wonderful 24/7 care. Her every need is taken care of but instead of feeling grateful she focuses on everything wrong.
I feel sympathy for her. She had always been very independent, lived on her own, and walked everywhere until last year when she fell and everything changed.
When my partner Andrew and I visit, we stay in a hotel and never stay longer than a weekend. I have high blood pressure and my doctor recently described it as the cause.
Calling is better than visiting for my health.
A few days ago, I made a call to my mother who had not been at all in recent years.
I called her on her mobile phone, and she answered on the twelfth ring.
“Who is this?” She said in a low voice. I assumed she had me on speakerphone which would explain why she looked like she was in a tunnel or underground bunker.
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“It’s Kristin Schoenwald,” I said. I often say my full name as a way to add a little humor. She knows my voice, and in addition, my name appears on her phone, so she can read it.
“My daughter lives in Los Angeles,” she says. I assume she’s explaining who I am to her new caregiver.
“Yes, that’s right,” I say and start talking about my cat.
Animals are the only thing we have in common and it’s a neutral subject, there’s less chance she’ll get mad at me or start crying.
I tell some funny and touching stories about cats, like how my cat Carlo, who was feral, slept in my arms for a full 15 minutes, and it made me happy. My mother laughs, and we talk about her cats and her dog and all the outdoor birds and squirrels and skunks she feeds.
I’ve heard these stories before, but I’ve heard most of them before.
Sometimes I hear a story three or four times in the same conversation. Given her age and mental abilities, repeating stories is not unexpected, and she has become better at letting her talk without interrupting her.
However, there is something different about this phone call. I can’t put my finger on it – it just seems out of the ordinary. My mother seems cheerful and optimistic and laughs easily.
I swear there’s a smile on her face.
We talk like good friends. My mother and I were never close, but today, I see a side of my mother that I haven’t seen in at least twenty years—a happy, loving, accepting version of me.
After about 40 minutes, my mother told me it was lunch time and we ended the call.
“Thank you for calling, have a nice day,” she says.
Wow, that wasn’t terrible. For the first time in a long time, my mother wasn’t angry or mean. She didn’t complain or say anything shockingly inappropriate.
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Who is this woman and what did they do to my mother?
I hope this new version of my mother won’t be a one-off, I’ll talk to her again.
The next time I call my mother, she’s back to her old obnoxious self – whining, complaining, and spouting conspiracy theories that are not only ridiculous but capable of insulting anyone who dares to be happy in today’s world.
I prepare for her to hang up on me when she says something that solves the mystery of the previous lovely phone call.
“I didn’t realize I was talking to you the other day. I thought he was a friend of yours. I was impressed by how many details you knew about the family.”
“But I told you my name!”
“I didn’t hear that.”
No wonder we had such a nice conversation. My mother just loved to talk to me and was on my best behavior when she thought I was someone else.
There were many times when my mother thought I was her mother, which made me feel afraid and sad. I’m doing everything I can for her, but I don’t want to take on the responsibility of being her parent – I don’t want to be a terrible mother.
I’d rather be a family friend than an illusion.
“I’m not your mother,” I say.
“I know, but I forget that sometimes. Plus, you’re so old.” And we return to reality again.
I wonder if, for future phone calls, I should come up with some fake IDs – that way you’ll get the calls you crave, and we’ll have better, more enjoyable conversations.
