The Sandwich Generation--My Kid and My Cat !?!

This morning, I took my 13 year old to middle school to go to their annual Colonial Convention where the 7th graders show off their work on colonial history, culture and society. It was a lot of fun--did my Mom heart proud. Then I took my elderly cat, Mr. Lucy--don't even ask why "Mr" Lucy, to the vet for another bout of Obsticipation--being plugged up beyond constipation--well enough of that. As my daughter would say--TMI (too much information). And so I laughed to myself and said who ever thought that I would be in The Sandwich Generation between my teen kid and my cat!

I escaped the sandwich between my mom and my kid, because my mom died before my kid came into my life. But even with only grad school and my mom, my health really suffered. My first year in grad school in 1989--after being out of college 22 years, I flew twice a month to NC from NJ to see to my mom Kate's needs as best I could.

I cooked two weeks worth of meals and packaged them as homemade frozen microwavables. I was keeping up with readings and papers, not to say just grasping an entirely new vocabularly, plus caring as best as I could for her, endeavoring to help her stay at home for as long as possible, arranging care--very unreliable that, relying on my cousins in the more and more frequent emergencies--bless them--fighting along with my brother with the government to retain title to our three generation family home in which my even older aunt was living still.

It was really tough. Things eased when my brother, bless him, was able to shoulder more of the work for Mom. Ultimately, he cared for--almost entirely by himself in home--our aunt and the remaining one of our uncles--the baby of the family.

Of all her 11 siblings, my mother was the only one who was in institutional care at the end of her life. This is something I still have not entirely reconciled. This in one of those it's not the right thing to do--not the right way to treat your elders values I hold. But it was the only practical thing to do.  She reasoned with me.."What am I going to do all day at your house? Sit there by myself? At least at The Oaks, I know everybody." Indeed she did know most of the residents and almost all the employees. She had taught most of them or was a friend to the others. Ever practical, she said as we were crying together preparing to go to her last home here on this earth and the legacy institution of the hospital that my grandmother had founded and my grandparents had donated farmland for,  "Oh, honey, I never thought I would end up in a place like this...Pack my bags, let's go." And so we did and so she did.

It broke my heart, but my health revived somewhat because now I was going to visit only. I was not flying down for a marathon shopping and cooking, looking for the next caregiver--who would be there who knew how long. I didn't need to call my cousin Bobby in the middle of the night to go get Mom up off the bathroom floor where she had fallen from another TIA.  Or check with my other cousins about her groceries--they had their own elderly parents to see to also. Now my cousins Donelle and Kitty could go visit and watch the latest Tarheels basketball game with her. They could sit and chat and be close.

If I had been truely a Sandwich Generation participant...if I had had to care for her long distance, AND take care of an infant, go to grad school--commuting an hour or more each way, and teach parttime, do my share of the domestic chores, maintain some sort of marital and social life, I think, NO I know, I would have had not only a nervous breakdown but a physical one as well. I came pretty damn close to it as it was. My brother, Frederick's copy writing business suffered greatly. He was a hair's breath away from a heart attack. (Less than a decade later I got a true taste of The Sandwich as I helped my Ex with his parents.)

But thousands and thousands of boomers aren't as lucky as we were. They don't have the extended family that we had at the time. They didn't grow up in a little town where everyone knew each other and stopped by to visit her at home and at The Home. They are smack dab in the middle of the Sandwich Generation between teens and elders and they are suffering while they endevor to do the right thing. I don't have the answers.

There are lots of people working on this so difficult issue. But I do say to you all in the long run it's worth it. I treasure every minute I spent cooking for Mom or wiping up the bathroom floor after her. I count myself lucky that I had enough money to fly down to NC so often to allow me to sit on the end of her bed, reading French Deconstruction articles, while she caught up on the paper.

More than a decade later, I still miss her daily.  Her last days at The Oaks were as good as they could be. She, my model joyolgist, told me scatological nursing home jokes to lighten my heart. But I--I still don't feel right about how her last days ended. My Mom, however, would say differently to me. As is on her gravestone, she would say to me, "Do your best, honey."

Did I? Yes--given the circumstances. I guess that's all we can do in the long run.