I don't want to keep you waiting

So, I promised you this story about the @#! doll and my sister, Carrie. Brother, after 9 years of dealing with care centers and retirement homes with our mother we have had it. I can't count how many times we have had to go into her apartment in the retirement home to clean and organize it from top to bottom. The usual drill is that Suzanne and I spend 1 or 2 days of this-while Carrie takes Mom to her house and keeps her entertained for the night. I don't know which is the worst job. Suzanne and I have laughed ourselves to death (our defense mechanism) but it really is the pits!

Anyone that has gone through this can tell you that it's a case of you try, then you try, then you try some more, and more but you still can't make things work. It is SO stressful. I bet every 6 months we have had to reevaluate it all (should we move her? she might die! should we keep her here? she will burn down the building! let's keep her here? she loves it! let's just not think about it today....too depressing).

So, you are looking at a very stressed group of individuals....namely Suzanne, Carrie, my brother, John and I. We try so hard to get things figured out but it's hard. Everyone tries in their own way to make it work but John lives out of state and Carrie is far away. Sometimes we get a little crabby.

That's what I'm leading up to. Now our mother has to stay in a long term care facility (old time nursing care made to sound sweet). We are faced with all this stuff AGAIN that we have to go through but it has to really be pared down to, like, almost nothing. Add to that that we have been constantly faced with the fact that we're the grownups now. It's sad to go through the old pictures and realize that things really will never be the same again.

I was quite put upon and grumpy the last time the 3 of us did the pack, sort, etc. Carrie got there first and I snapped. She snapped. We cried, hugged and then decided that we'd had it. Just handy, right then, was the @#! doll. We took out our frustrations and vengeance on it. It was very satisfying but after about a week we decided to take it down. It really doesn't look good for the manager to show the apartment when there's a murdered doll on the wall.

So, I have to admit that I have felt at times that a bolt of lightening is going to strike us all down because we deserve it for being naughty like kids. But for those of you that might judge us as rotten children try to go through this without losing your mind occasionally. We learned early on in life, through our childhood trials, that laughter gets you through and sometimes (+#@! doll ) it proves to be a great healer. Okay....old cliche here..."Laughter is the BEST medicine". We do that a lot and believe me there is PLENTY to laugh about in this situation.