it's official

The Geriatric Care Manager has been in touch with me recently, saying that my mother's wishes that any information about her status not be communicated through the GCM (to any of her three children) are simply unworkable. The GCM will try to get my mother to change the working understanding so that we can have some idea (not filtered through my mother's point of view) of what is actually going on. Legally, at this point, she can only give us the vaguest overview of what's been going on. (Summary: not much).

The GCM's ongoing frustration and amazement at the sheer "difficulty of the case" is interesting for me to hear. As I've mentioned before, it's something of a validation and a reality check for me that she is, indeed, just *that* difficult to deal with.

The next plan is to go around my mother entirely, prepare her 2006 taxes with her accountant, and present them to her for her signature. I have all of her tax forms, etc. here at my place. If she won't sign, then the GCM says it would be excellent grounds for applying for a conservatorship (which is a lot more straightforward than guardianship, and a lot more appropriate in this situation).

Meanwhile, the silence from my mother has continued. She used to give all kinds of lip service to the high quality of our "mother/daughter relationship" around her friends (it was always normal for her to refer to things in her life in a clinical manner, mostly talking *about* it rather than attending to it. I have no idea how often she did it when I wasn't around, but when I was, she made a point of my hearing it, loud and clear. Talking about relationships, and triangulating in a negative way about relationships with others who weren't present, was always the goal. Anything to avoid just talking and *having* a relationship). Now that I've made it clear that I'm no longer her lapdog or her doormat, she appears to be no longer interested. I'd expected to hear from her in some way by now (in the absence, of course, of any apology for her atrocious behaviour during late 2005), and in fact had been steeling myself for just such an occurrence.

The quiet is somewhat unsettling (as I know she really is suffering, as usual, and has no real friends left), but at the same time it is luxuriously clarifying and energizing for me.

My brother J. went on vacation to the southwest with my nephew for three weeks, starting last month. Before he left, he asked me if I would be willing to be the person she'd call if she had some sort of crisis in his absence (seems that person, lately, has been him. Much more frequently, it's more about his trying to reach her, and getting a call back from her for every 10-20 calls he makes to her). He said that she generally doesn't call him, but knowing that he was about to go away on vacation, she'd ramped up her call frequency sharply. My husband Rob has noted that she's particularly good at disrupting others' vacations with her vicious-cycle problems that she'll never allow to be addressed, much less solved. I told him it was all rather academic; she wasn't likely to call me for any reason, at this point, but...sure, tell her that she can call me (even though a call to the GCM would be far more appropriate; the GCM is more qualified to deal with an emergency, as well as far closer to Cambridge).

Well, there it is...the non-update update!