I am a late child of my parents, I was born when they were in their forties. I guess that age difference had its effect. As soon as I had a chance to leave, I did so. Life with my peers attracted me more, and I did not want to be a burden to my aging parents.
I can’t say that we had any problems with my mother, no, on the contrary, she was very sensitive to me, but she was quite bossy and I didn’t always like her pressure. Distance drove us even further apart. We called each other sometimes. When my father passed away and my mother was alone, I stayed with her for a month, so as not to leave her alone. It was good that I could work remotely for a while. It was strange to watch her, elderly, ghostly wandering around the empty house. She was taking Dad’s death very hard, after all, and almost sixty years together.
I consulted with my family and together we made the decision to take Mom to our place. Leaving her in the suburbs in a lonely house seemed an awful sacrilege. I talked to her, reassured her. At first she didn’t want to move, but then she made up her mind. Now I understand that she just wanted to please us so we wouldn’t have to worry.
The house sold very quickly, I put all the money into a deposit account, and there I added my mother’s small pension, figuring that I would be able to fully provide for her myself. My eldest daughter Masha was sent to the college dormitory, especially since she had long wanted to, and my mother was placed in her room. It would seem that what problems could arise? However, everything that happened in her mother’s life affected her too much. Her homesickness did not go away, and she became cranky. I understand that she wanted what was best, but failed to realize in time how hard the bitterness of loss would be. Neither did I.
Soon my mother began to feel that she had been snatched from her home and now I was forcibly keeping her here. She started complaining that her things were disappearing, blaming my wife, my children, myself. She claimed that I had taken away her home and now she was forced to sit in her room, like in a prison. At first we didn’t pay much attention to this, but later the real scandals began.
The professionals sadly informed us that we were facing irreversible processes and that it was likely that Mom would continue to behave in this way. It would have happened anyway, even if we hadn’t taken her in and sold the house. On the contrary, they praised us for being so caring. After all, a lot of people refuse custody. Those guys jinxed us. The situation was getting worse every day.
Needless to say, I didn’t limit my mother or lock her up. And one day when we were all at work, she came out of the apartment into the yard and began to call for help. Who was the criminal that she needed to be protected from? Me, her own son. She accused me of mistreating her, taking her pension and stealing everything from her.
It didn’t take long for the guardianship authorities to deal with them, I had to show them the conditions in which my mother lived, to show documents that all her money and pension were in place, and she was fully supported by us. They told us directly that it was better to put mother in a home for the elderly, to give her a chance to live normally under the care of doctors. And we ourselves would breathe a sigh of relief.
To my shame and under pressure from my wife, I agreed, and a few days later my elderly mother went to a nursing home. She looked at me longingly, and there was pain in her eyes at my betrayal. But what could I do?
