And thus and so

My next cube neighbor to the east has a son who is mentally challenged.  His impairment is pretty significant.  He will never live independently.  When he turned 18, she and her husband had to go before a judge to have him declared incompetent in order to legally remain his guardian.  Despite her firm belief that there was no other possible choice, she was terrified that the judge wouldn’t agree with her.  After they talked for a bit, the judge turned to her son and asked him what he wanted.  He smiled at the judge and said he wanted to go to McDonald’s and get some fries.

They were awarded guardianship.

He still attends the local high school, where he will remain until he is 21.  During vacations, he is allowed to stay home alone.  Now that we are into the summer, my next cube neighbor calls him at least twice a day: at 9:30 to remind him to eat breakfast and get dressed, and at 12:30 to remind him to eat lunch.  If she forgets to call, he forgets to eat.  The other morning she got very busy and around 11 I heard her panic, swear, and dial.  He had remembered to eat the breakfast she left in the fridge for him.  Of course, he also ate the lunch at the same time.

We laughed about his efficiency, about how he just wanted to get that part of his day out of the way.  We laugh about him a lot.  Not at him, mind you, just about his funny old man manners and the way he tends to swear prolifically when he thinks she can’t hear him.  About how he sometimes holds the phone upside down and then complains that she’s talking too quietly.  About how his last question before getting off the phone is always, “What are we having for dinner?”

For three years I have been listening to her remind her son to get dressed and eat and that they are having pizza for dinner.  I’ve never heard her angry with him.  I’ve never heard her annoyed.  I’ve never heard her frustrated.  I’ve never heard her speak to him with anything other than good-humored love, even when she must be screaming on the inside.

She is the best mother in the world.

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My next cube neighbor to the west has a mother who went into an assisted living facility about a year ago.  Recently her mother’s health declined again.  The facility where she is cannot handle her needs.  She has to find another facility that has an open Medicare spot.  There is a waiting list several months long.  Her mother has to be out of her current home in a  few weeks.

My coworker fields at least five phone calls a day.  Sometimes she is able to find an open office where she can take the call in private.  Sometimes she can’t and we all pretend we can’t hear her conversation.  Sometimes we hear her fighting with case workers all day long, because they won’t see that her mother is special and needs an exception.  It’s her mother.

She’s a very private person and doesn’t want to talk about it.  So I don’t ask.  I keep a stash of cute Buddha pictures on my computer and when she seems to be having a rough day, I e-mail her one.  She says it helps.

She never whines.  She never complains.  She never suggests that she wishes she didn’t have to deal with it.  She fights.

She is the best daughter in the world.

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Sometimes I listen to these women on the phone, women that I have little in common with besides our place of employment.  I listen to them and I think of my own daughter, smart and strong, and my little Kid Redux growing in there.  I think about how I assume, as all mothers do, that my little zygote will develop properly, will be born strong, will grow up.  About how I believe my kids will become good adults, will move out, will live their own lives.  I think about my own mother, still hale and hearty at 70.  I think about how it seems she will always be there, pestering me, redoing her house, climbing ladders to clean out her own gutters and rolling her eyes when I suggest she hire someone instead.  About how she relishes her three granddaughters, each and every one.

When I listen to my neighbors talk, I realize that it’s never going to get better than this.  That despite the money issues and the lack of time and the worry that I’m always doing something wrong, I am living in a precious bubble of time where everything is full of life and hope.  I am living in my own golden age.

And when I no longer am, I can only hope to live up to their examples.