So where we left off with the telephone tug of war (meaning, my sister wanting me to call mom, expecting me to call mom, and well, for one reason or another, I just haven't been able to do so), the telephone rang. It was Audrey.
"I missed hearing your voice, so I called to touch base."
She sounded surprisingly good, or at a minimum "together" during the chat, and even managed to ask me how I was doing, knowing my own pain issues.
We talked briefly about the array of aides or physical therapists and visiting nurses coming to her house, and no doubt all of that is interfering with her self-imposed solitude and isolation, but I pointed out that all the other reasons aside for them to be there, even on the level of in person human interaction, it serves a purpose. That to live as isolated as she is, it's not really healthy.
Pleasant enough of a call, but I'm ever mindful that anything I could possibly say has the potential to be twisted out of context and vomitted back at my sister (or whomever) in whichever way to render whatever desired effect Audrey desires.
I mentioned how my sister mentioned in passing that Audrey gave her car to my brother. I've always contended that her stuff is HER stuff to do with as she pleases. And yet, she pressed me to find out what my sister may have said about Audrey giving away her car. "She just mentioned it in passing, mom. No judgement. And on another note? It frees up the driveway so if an ambulance comes, or if someone comes to visit, they can park right in the driveway." She even detailed how it costs $50 to be transported by ambulance, and how it doesn't merit keeping the car, when you figure every time someone needs to use it to cart Audrey around, AAA has to be called for a jump, and invariably the battery gets replaced almost annually at this point. The alternator's been replaced a few times too. So not sure where the short or issue is with the car, but couple all that up with the cost of insuring the car for the year, economics wise, it doesn't pay to keep it.
Yet, in the back of my mind, I remember the point where I was shocked into realizing that dad was preparing for "the end," and it started a year before his passing, when he sold off his beloved pick up truck. It's not unrealistic to think that this could be a harbinger of things to come, especially given how precarious her overall health is.
So the one thing that gave her joy in life, reading, seems to be diminishing. She's either too distracted or it might be the macular degeneration, but she's not even reading anymore.
A few days before, I zapped my uncle (he-who-is-two-years older than I; aka the husband of Viking Warrior Aunt) to see how everything is going on their end. And despite what my sister had told me (that it looked like my aunt now has brain cancer), he seemed pretty optomistic about things. Worried, but optimistic. I asked how his mother-in-law was doing, given the sudden passing of Viking Warrior Aunt's father, and mother-in-law is doing well, coping very well. I mused openly about how I'm in awe of that, that no one in our family knows how to "do that." He and I talked about travel, and how out of all the places I've felt "at home," I've felt at home in Finland (everyone looks like me, with my bitchy resting face) and Paris (the locals act like me). He talked to me about how bad ass the Finns are. Again, an interesting conversation.
CLIFFNOTES:
I'm prattling. Audrey called. And wasn't a surly bitch to me.*
*Huge red fucking flag!
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