Courage at Twilight: Do I?

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“Close these blinds, will you?” Mom asked.  Her habit has always been to stand, lean over her recliner, and push the slats closed with an old wooden yardstick.  But now she waits for me to stand up from the couch or to enter the room, and asks me to do little things she no longer feels like doing.  “Bring your Dad’s medicine, will you?”  “Put your Dad’s checkbook in his office, will you?”  My opinion is that I should not being doing for her things she is perfectly capable of doing for herself.  Do I draw that boundary and risk hurting her feelings?  No, I guess not, at least not tonight.  Dad takes his turn, too: “Lucille, would you get my checkbook from my office?”  I interpret “Lucille” as meaning “Lucille, Roger, anyone?”  It is true that Dad obtaining the checkbook (or anything else) for himself is nearly impossible.  “Your hair is beautiful,” Mom called to me after I delivered the checkbook to Dad.  “That’s not possible, Mom,” I hissed.  “I don’t have any hair.”  She guffawed, “Yes, you do!  And anyway, it’s the shape of your head that’s beautiful.  I just love the shape of your head.”  She cannot see my eyes rolling inside that beautiful hairless head, or my jaw muscles working in my face, or the energy it takes for me not to growl and bark.  More and more I’m her perfect first-begotten bald baby boy in some weird Benjamin Button skit.  On the counter lay a bag of moldy bread, which I threw into the kitchen garbage can.  Throwing something else away later in the evening, I noticed the moldy loaf but not the plastic bag.  Mom had salvaged the bread bag to recycle at Smith’s grocery with the blue newspaper bags and the brown shopping sacs and packing bubble-wrap and various other bits of bag plastic.  Another day I discarded several mold farms growing on the forgotten cheese inside quart-size baggies hiding at the bottom of the cheese bin.  And again I later found the molding cheese swimming bagless in the garbage can.  Do I tell her how insulting it feels to have an old lady following after me and digging in my garbage, implying I should not have thrown this and that away, that I ought to be a more diligent recycler, that I should do things differently?  Do I tell her Smith’s grocery does not want our moldy bread and cheese bags, our greasy leftover pizza zip-locks, our frozen vegetable bags?  Do I point out how many gallons of heated treated water she uses to wash the bags out with dish detergent, the cost of the water far outweighing the damage of a sandwich baggie in the city dump?  Do I tell her how annoying it is having all these wet washed baggies doing their damn best to dry scattered on the kitchen counters?  Do I tell her the moldy cheese bag was in the garbage because I wanted it in the garbage, not because I’m lazy or apathetic or belligerent?   I guess not.  It should be easy for me to swallow that much pride, to let an old lady have her little quirks, for Mom to be cheered at the thought of helping to rescue the planet from plastic.  I have drawn the line, however, at the gallon-size baggies that held raw chicken and raw fish and raw beef.  “Mom.  It’s just not possible to sanitize them,” I insisted.  “Smith’s doesn’t want our raw-meat bags.  Nobody wants them.  And we might kill some innocent store clerk with salmonella-infested bags.”  She reluctantly agreed to leave the raw meat bags where they belong, in the trash can, her feelings mostly intact.

13 thoughts on “Courage at Twilight: Do I?”

  2. Dawn

    I get it. I get it. How can you be so comical about it, though? Truth, the truth is the funniest AND the most painful and/or irritating. Maybe that’s it, I don’t know. I’ve had such my own share of comedic woes that I don’t know if Iale perfect sense or an just a tad

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  4. spanishwoods

    Roger…….it’s a lot. And it’s a very different situation—taking care of a young child vs taking care of older parents. This line: “though I always tried to be a good boy” you know what I’m thinking? Sometimes it’s ok to not be so good. Sometimes being good can be #@$%^&* exhausting.

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    1. Roger Baker-Utah Post author

      Well, Sylvia, I’ll be 60 next month, so maybe my bad-boy-ness is better off behind me. I’m not good at being bad, anyway. For me, being good is much more fun and rewarding than being bad. But why am I doing it? To conform? To avoid shame and punishment? Duty? Hopefully, I am who I am because of acting from my own core values, not from shoulds or oughts or guilts…. Anyway, thank you for being a support!

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      1. Anonymous

        Me too Roger, long behind me. And I know you are right in what you’ve said. Sometimes, I feel resentful and want very much to be a different person (maybe one who isn’t concerned so much with being good), but then I feel guilty and somewhat ridiculous. Those are the times I realize I have to be careful with my own tender soul too because looking out for others’ is a very kind thing, but looking out for ourselves isn’t selfish it’s an important part of “looking out for others”. I’m sure you are WELL aware of this as you talk about hiking and such. But I need constant reminders of such common sense.

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      2. Roger Baker-Utah Post author

        I am aware, but only recently, of the importance of self-care as I care for others. I’m a slow learner! Constant reminders are a good thing to nudge us in the direction of health.

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      4. Roger Baker-Utah Post author

        I hope my response didn’t come across as pious or proud. I get plenty angry, too, and frustrated and resentful and depressed. It’s part of life, and I’m just a student of life and love, hoping always to grow.

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