We’ve been living with my mom for 5 months now. While I feel like we’ve worked through a lot of the kinks (like the time she threatened to burn down the house because she didn’t like that I wasn’t letting her blow her little bit of income at the slot machines), I still would like a break from my mom. The trouble is that we have no other family in the area. And being my mom’s only child, I can’t really pawn her off onto a sibling (my half-brother wants nothing to do with her).
My mom doesn’t have any real hobbies outside of slot machines and smoking. She doesn’t have many friends in the area that don’t just go to the slots (& I’m really discouraging her from going right now as we try to straighten her finances). She doesn’t belong to a church. She won’t join any Korean senior citizen groups.
She’s been in a bit of a depression these last few years and stopped speaking with her family. I have no idea what happened but she just started refusing and ignoring phone calls. Since I moved in, I stopped letting her ignore her sisters. I didn’t think it was healthy.
Recently, I managed to convince her to visit her sisters in Alaska. My mom put up a fight claiming that she hated flying. I think the real reason was that she was afraid to travel alone. Regardless, I convinced her to go saying that this would probably be the only time she would see her sisters. My uncle bought the ticket and my mom would be going for 2 weeks at the end of this month. I was throwing a party in my head and preparing for how nice it would be for us to have a break from each other. (side note – when I mentioned that my uncle had purchased the ticket, my mom was confused. She had completely forgotten that she had spoken to her sister and agreed to go.)
On Saturday I got a call from my cousin. My imo was near death. Her heart had stopped and she was in the hospital. On Sunday, my uncle called to say that she wasn’t going to be waking up and that they would be ceasing life support.
And all I could think is, “are you serious, universe?!”
We were so close to getting them together and then this happened. I am beyond heartbroken. My imo was an adorable and sweet woman. And, as expected, my mom does not want to go to Alaska anymore (despite being able to visit with her other sister and nieces). I can’t say that I blame her. She’s still mourning the loss of my dad. I don’t think she wants to be around death and sadness anymore.
My mom, being very deep, said to me, “What can I say? Everyone’s dying.” I’m thinking about turning that into a nice sympathy card. She continued, “Someone dies every year. First your grandma. Then grandpa. Then your dad. Now my sister. Maybe I’m next.” I didn’t feel like correcting her about my grandparents’ deaths – my grandma died in 2004 and my grandpa died 7 years later. We had a good 7 years of relatives all living. But I’ve learned that my mom really has a hard time remembering dates of specific events. A few months ago we actually argued over when my dad died. She insisted he died in April (he died in June).
Will my mom remember that she was going to go to Alaska? Will she remember why she ended up not going? Is she just pretending so as to not talk about it or deal with it? Who knows. I told J to shoot me when I reach the point in life where I can’t remember these types of things.
Just call me Kim... because that's my name 