Way back in 2000 when I first wrote about helping the elderly as an important part of homeschool socialization, I didn’t realize it would be good for moms, too. Silly me.
Last week we went and helped Mabel with her lawn. It was horrible. Everything was dead or dying or overgrown. You know there’s issues when the hollyhocks are only 2 feet tall. Apparently the day they got water was a good one, because they have flowers. Mabel’s sprinkler system has no pressure, so the entire 1/2 acre must be watered with one of eight hoses, each with a gentle mist that has a 2 ft radius at the most. If they’re all running at once, the radius goes down to 1 foot. The nice thing about that is that when the sprinkler is on you can pick it up and move it without getting wet.
After our work was done last week, I stopped in to introduce myself. I was with a 4H group and just wanted to say hello and wash my hands. Mowing the half-dead lawn for 3 hours made them kind of icky. I was horrified to see the mess inside the house. I guess falling down the stairs makes it kind of hard to manage a house. I offered to come back and help her in the kitchen. She declined, stating that the Health Nurse would do it. I asked her “When?” and she said “well, they keep telling me….” and I gave her my phone number and re-offered, just in case the nurse didn’t do it.
Last week I get a call saying that she’s got a few tasks she’d like help with.
After a horrible morning with my kids (fighting, mess-making, leaving-doors-open-with-the-air-on-repeatedly, spilling stuff, ruining stuff, all before noon) and the kids weren’t the only horrible thing about it. I work for a website and somehow everything I did last week disappeared. No matter; it’s just a quarter of my monthly income but I digress. And I will one more time to say look at what I did last night until 2am.
Anyhow; I’m over at Mabel’s house. Mabel raised 9 kids. The one in the middle was a girl. All the rest were boys. Mabel doesn’t take shit from anyone. The lady I went with brought her two boys. I don’t have boys, so I really don’t know what’s normal and what isn’t. My girls don’t remember to close the door when the air is on, and neither did these boys. I felt a twisted sense of joy hearing Mabel yell at them to close the door. I started to love her for it. Their mother is the “Don’t-mess-with-my-kid” type, so I’m sure I’ll hear more about this later. It brought me joy, though. Listen to your Aunty Mabel and Shut the frigging door the air is on.
It was somewhat surreal, this one old lady living in a house with fifty thousand leftover cool-whip containers. I washed them, dried them and put them away. Stacked neatly in the cupboard with the leftover country crock tubs, used but washed disposable silverware, metal tins from TV Dinners, plastic trays from microwave meals, and infinitely more throwaway items that could be re-used but aren’t because it’s impossible for one person to ever need them all.
She also had several months worth of newspapers. Everywhere. Thank godness she doesn’t have cats. I forgot to intercept the Sunday coupons, darnit. Forgive me, Nicole. I’ve reserved future publications, though. She’s going to save them for me. We helped her bag up several pounds worth of aluminum cans. She saves them for her daughter. Her daughter who should have been helping her since she lives around the corner. Her daughter who won’t even move the sprinkler for her.
Every cardboard box that’s come into her house since forever was in her kitchen, all over the place. She wants to recycle these things. We told her we were recycling them, but I have a sneaking suspicion the lady I was with actually dumped them at the dump. At some point I decided not to care.
There’s still more work to be done. I’ll be spending my Tuesdays with Mabel for a while. I have no aging family members in town to take care of and frankly, Mabel might be more fun. I don’t know if my friend will be bringing her boys back or not. I hope she does. There’s something fun about putting other people’s kids to work at someone else’s house and then hearing the old lady yell at them for making common-sense mistakes. Mabel raised 8 boys, she knows her stuff. She has 30 grandchildren and 30 great-grandchildren. Why on earth none of them are helping her now is beyond me and frankly, I don’t care. I will help. If my mother needs help somewhere, I hope someone does the same. She’ll yell at their kids, too. I hope they appreciate it.
Lotsa crazy crud going down at the Hannigan house. Don’t miss another post,
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