I just got back from spending the weekend with Gayle and her mom in Arlington. Now that her dad is in a home, I can visit. It's been somewhere around 6 years since I've been, and this was probably the first time ever that I've actually enjoyed being there.
Gayle's mom either sleeps, or sits in a rocker in the living room, watching Turner Classic Movies. She responded when I talked to her, but wouldn't even look at me when I walked through to the kitchen if I didn't speak to her first. As much as I've always said I'd like to live to be 100, I wouldn't want it to be like what either of my in-laws are living through. My father in law had to be placed in a nursing home with a lock down ward, as he kept trying to escape from the more open facilities, and my mother in law's entire world moves between 3 rooms in a house she never leaves. Dying at 80 with most of my faculties in place would be wildly preferable to that.
I'm planning on going to Arlington at lease 2 weekend a month, to help with things that need to be done (like cuttting back the holly bush that is now over the roofline and blocking a couple of windows). That also should make things easier on Gayle staying there, which she doesn't like doing. Sitting the elderly is much worse than baby sitting an infant...a baby you can plonk into a car seat and take with you, even it it's just a drive to get out of the house. The elderly can't and/or won't go, which effectively ties you to the house. At least the mother in law is pretty sedentary, and can be left alone for an hour or so, if necessary.
I'll also be going through the piles of stuff that Gayle's father has managed to collect over the years. He has a woodworking shop that is amazing...if you can figure out which of the 4 cordless drills work, or what is worth keeping in the many drawers and cabinets. I figure that the woodworking shop will be a major attraction when we hold the eventual estate sale.
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