Coffee with Mom by Mike Glenn

Author:Mike Glenn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion/Christian Life/Family
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Published: 2019-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

Now I was making all the decisions. I was choosing her doctors. I was picking up her medications and talking to the pharmacist. I was talking to her caregivers at Morning Pointe and making sure her clothes were clean, and she had the personal products she needed. Not all these decisions are comfortable ones for a son to make for his mother, but I got used to making them.

Making all of the decisions meant it really was all my fault. All of it was my fault. I moved her to Nashville. I chose her retirement center, and I chose her church. Of course, I chose the church I pastor. This means I chose most of her friends.

According to everyone who met her, my mom was witty and funny, the life of the party. According to my mom, she was lonely, hated Nashville, and she wanted to go home.

And this was all my fault . . . and I was okay with that.

What Mom said was my fault, I began to see as my responsibility. In some ways, this was a privilege. I was honored to be able to take care of my mother.

For one, she was my mother. Who knew her better than me? Who knew her stories? Her triumphs and losses? Who knew what she had overcome? Who knew her great loves and dreams? I did, and right now, I was the only one in the world who did. Once I was able to get comfortable with this, I found a different kind of freedom. Yes, I was making all of the decisions because they were my decisions to make, and because no one in the world loved her more than I did.

It didn’t bother me what other people thought or what my mom said. I was the one responsible, and the blame was all mine. I knew I was the one who was going to pay the band, so I didn’t feel bad at all calling the tune.

So, the question changed. The question went from “Is Mom happy?” to “Am I okay with where we are?” This doesn’t mean I became totally self-centered—quite the opposite. I became the enforcer of the standard. In the time I had my dad in the hospital, he told me in no uncertain terms how he expected me to care for my mom. I was the only one who knew what my dad had said.

My mother brought this to my attention more than once. “Your father never mentioned any of this to me.” No, he didn’t. Mom would never let my dad talk about dying. She thought it was a sign of him giving up. But he talked about dying to me. He talked about dying, what would happen when he wasn’t here anymore, and how he expected me to take care of Mom.

According to Dad, it was all my responsibility. According to Mom, it was all my fault.

And you need to know, it’s all your fault too. The faster you come to grips with this, the better off you will be.

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