When cards are not enough

A bird, wings outspread, flies into the clouds on the Swiss 1.90 CHF stamp, the one I use for airmail. I put it on a pink envelope to mail to my stepmom. The card has a photo of pink rose that was taken and made by my housemate. Yesterday I mailed a card with St. Bernard puppies, tomorrow it will be a grey kitten. I do this anywhere from three to five times a week.

Cards have flowers, animals, scenes of Geneva, Argelès, Valais. On them I write short messages reminding her of things in the past: her German Shepherds Duchess and Nikki, how she wiped me out at Gin Rummy, her visit to Switzerland, anything that might bring her back for a few minutes.

I don’t phone her, leaving me both guilt ridden and relieved. The last time she could not remember the word for flower. When I do call, she forgets I have telephoned or offers to come get me, forgetting she no longer has her car and it would not cross an ocean. Once she asked me to ask Donna-Lane to call if I saw her.

The cards are both a guilt-reliever and something I can still do for her.

She always loved cards, had an account at the Hallmark store near her house, found perfect messages to send for any occasion.

When her granddaughter sent her a card from Edinburgh where she’s in school, my stepmom showed it over and over to a neighbour. Her caretaker says that she carries my cards around with her.

The caretaker is now there daily but can’t be there the 24/7 as my mom needs. It has been two years since we asked the Veteran’s Administration for help and one year since we appealed their decision that her $1200 monthly income was much too high to warrant the assistance that could increase the caretaker’s hours. So far nothing.

She’s on the waiting list for three Veteran’s nursing homes. She was in the Navy, part of the Greatest Generation.

Thus I write the cheques for as much as I can afford and tell myself that she didn’t move here when I asked her ten years ago so I could take care of her in old age. At the time she understood that I’d never move to Florida and my options in helping her would be limited with an ocean between us. 

I remind myself I’ve earned my own old age. Sometimes, the guilt gets a little smaller, but the worry never does.