Life with Mom #1

After the passing away of Dad I must say Mom lost much of her verve and vitality. Diagnosed a diabetic in her fifth decade of existence she wasn't in the pink of health anyway.Most of the time she breaks down, lamenting her being left behind. Her insecurities have increased and she is showing behaviors that are not her wont. Mom and her Sis (our aunt) were living together in my aunt’s own home, while our own Gautamnagar home was let out on rent as noted in My Nostalgic Trip to Bolarum. Our aunt had gotten into debt by borrowing to help people- her neighbors through their, hard times. They had given her a hard time in return, by defaulting on the return of the loan. She had retired as a teacher form government service. She had just a decent pension to live on. Yet she borrowed money to lend a helping hand to her neighbors. The money was much beyond her means to service the interest payments, much less return the principal. After trying every trick in the world to persuade the neighbors to return the sum she took the extreme step of selling her house to wipe off all the standing loans, and still be left with a tidy sum to live by for the rest of her life which she has gambled would not be very long. She is 76 now. Ever since my aunt disposed the house off my mom has become very insecure. Nowadays she insists on having her belongings in physical proximity to her. Ah! Recently they moved house as they had to hand over the keys of the house they sold, to the new owners. The house they have moved into is smaller, so the first problem was to accommodate their possessions in that space. Now, neither mom nor my aunt would want to throw away any of the items they hoarded. Not that those things really were that useful. But both of them are touchy about relinquishing any of those mostly worthless stuff. My sis told me just the mere suggestion of throwing away of any of those things that mattered least is enough for either of them to go off into a tantrum where they would start saying, “We have also become dispensable. Throw us away then.” My sis has since been silent about such ideas. I saw this myself when I went to Hyderabad to help them with the job of moving house. It took three days to set the new house in order after the major items were moved. Some of the items used were moved by physically carrying them long after the movers had left with their truck. The very process was so quick that we had to take recourse to moving things by ourselves. When we picked up these sundry items, I couldn’t help suggesting their removal by either simply throwing them in the dustbin or disposing them off at whatever price they go for. My mom and Aunt simply heard me and tended to agree. My sis confided, had the suggestion been from her there would have been scenes!So, I learnt that my Mom at 74 needed all those things that had little relevance to their lives to feel reassured that everything is going fine. Mom was then worried about the rent payments to the landlord. That was a genuine concern. The rent was pretty high. They could ill- afford a drain on their finances. The landlord for his part needed assurance of monthly rent payments from someone he could have reason to trust. I gave him my mobile number, my sis’ house was visited by him. He made a mental note of the fact that it was an own house my sis lived in. He told me that as regards rent receipts he would only contact my sister. I assured my mom and my aunt that my brother and I would take care of the rent payments. My sister would be the administrator. IOW assurances were not only required by the landlord for he wasn't trusting the mere retirement pensions of two persons would guarantee his monthly income, they were required by my Mom and my aunt [to a lesser extent] for they weren't sure how we seriously we would service this obligation!
This condition of their minds is pathetic but a reflection of the old world order crumbling. The culture in India was that sons were supposed to take personal care of parents and other elders. It is yielding place to more old aged finding shelters in Old Age Homes.To the classically trained minds of ours this was nothing short of ignominy ! To them it was a bad turn from Providence. They-especially my Mom had done their best, in caring for their own in-laws. In return, they weren't welcome to live with the fast-paced current generation!