My Family Feud and the Coronavirus: A Cautionary Tale.
All families have histories with different degrees of drama.
As a shrink, I hear hard to believe stories all the time.
So, to find myself in the middle of my own family situation – one that feels so irrational that I don’t have a frame of reference for how to make sense of it – came as a surprise. Second only to the primary surprise of the situation itself.
About three weeks ago, my mother fell and broke her hip. For the second time in two years.
The first time she fell and broke her hip she was 86-years old. Which would prompt most siblings to prioritize the moral imperative of notifying their sister that her mother had had a near fatal fall over maintaining a feud.
That is not what my brothers did.
They authorized my mother to have surgery, then arranged to send her to a rehabilitation facility without deigning to tell me that she’d had an accident. Had it not been for a distant cousin who emailed me three days after her fall, I may have learned of my mother’s condition when my inability to reach her by phone propelled me to go to her house – my childhood home – where I’d learn that my brothers had sold the home and sent my mother to live in an assisted living facility.
In the two years since, my mother’s had additional falls. And earlier this winter her assisted living facility had an outbreak of the flu, prompting administrators to lock down the residents in quarantine. I learned of each of her falls after she’d been discharged from the hospital, and in the case of her flu this winter, when a family friend awkwardly phoned to tell me that my mother had caught the flu and was in isolation in a hospital.
So, it came as a surprise to me when, three weeks ago, one of my brothers texted to tell me about my mother’s second hip fracture.
In the weeks since, he and I have managed to set aside our differences to communicate about my mother’s condition, her inability to receive visitors, and the COVID outbreak in her facility that propelled them to test her for the coronavirus last week.
Her test result came back Monday morning. It was negative. But it was more than a week old. And since the day of her COVID test, they’ve housed her on a unit with the 7 residents who tested positive for coronavirus, awaiting her test result.
To be clear: My mother is 88 years old. If she’s lucky, she’ll be 89 in July. She’s smoked since age 11, although since moving into the assisted living facility she’s transitioned from Marlboro Lights 100’s to vaping. And she’s had COPD for years. She’s a fatality in waiting.
Which is why, despite the fact that she’s done things to me that I’ve never heard of a parent doing to a child, the least of which was making 2 of her 3 children her Power of Attorney (guess which one I am?), I offered to take her – to bring her to live with me in New York City through this pandemic.
Because if she manages to skirt death / this virus, she’ll be discharged to her assisted living facility where she’ll be in lockdown for what could be months, sans visitors.
I had it all worked out:
I’d sublet my neighbor’s apartment who fled the city a month ago and put her in his apartment with a nurse’s aid for 14-days to confirm she’s negative. During that time, she’d get to see me, if only from a six-foot distance and in my version of a hazmat suit, but she’d get to eat my food, and I’d be sure she was getting medicated on time and not waiting 2-3 hours for pain relief the way she often does now. As soon as possible, she’d move into my apartment.
Would it be fun?
No.
Living together during this pandemic means working together, and it’s extra tight in Manhattan. The forced proximity and isolation is causing people who have good relationships to fight daily, and for the past fifteen years, my relationship with my mother has been very not good, perpetually looping through 5-stages:
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She hurts me.
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I address my feelings, and then step away from her, because there’s no changing her.
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She character-assassinates me to anyone who’ll listen.
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She contacts me, crying confusion, claiming not to know why I stepped away from her.
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I feel guilty and reconnect.
I knew it was a long shot.
I haven’t spoken to my oldest brother since he was a no-show at my wedding – not because he’s homophobic, but because he’s a prick. Before my wedding, he no-showed at both my PhD graduation and my engagement party. The wedding was it.
And the other one – the one who essentially raised me – he stopped speaking to me about eight years ago when he demanded that I sign a legal document and I said No.
I’m assuming they’ve bonded over their anger for me. Though I don’t really have anything to base that on since we have no interactions.
Other than during the last three weeks.
Even though it was a long shot, I thought maybe they’d do it out of love and concern for my mother, and because it was either Me or the Corona Rehab, since neither of them raised a hand to offer to take my mother in.
You know the answer. They said No. Though to give them credit, it was, “No, Thank you.”
The explanation I got was a version of:
If she leaves rehab before she’s fully able to walk, she may be in a wheelchair for life.
My mother is almost 89-years old.
She’s walking with a walker.
And she won’t be walking under any conditions if she contracts this virus.
Intellectually, I get it. They can’t let me be the one to take her. It would make for very bad optics. Afterall, anyone 9-degrees of separation from my family knows the family narrative on me: How I betrayed the brother who raised me and how I’ve intermittently neglected my aging mother.
To be clear, the reasons for our grudges aren’t really about blowing off celebrations or an unwillingness to sign legal documents. Those are the conscious storylines we tell ourselves. The subtext is much darker, steeped in family lies, secrets, and the extent to which each of us has been willing to collude with them.
But this isn’t about my family’s feud. It’s about my mother’s life.
Though it’s also about the way our emotional intelligence or lack thereof informs the decisions we make. And how an unwillingness to drill down on our less obvious motivations can result in permanent consequences.
For my brothers, it seems they’d rather be right than happy, if happy means my mother being alive. Or her having companionship in what could be her last months. Or both.
And that’s it. I have to tolerate the fact that I have no authority over decisions regarding my mother’s care, and ironically, it was her choice that renders me powerless to help her. The End.
Here’s the cautionary tale:
As you go through this pandemic and you make decisions – some big and some seemingly small ones – consider using this as your litmus test:
If the absolute worst case scenario emerged as the outcome of your decision, could you live with that?
I can.
I just hope my mother can.