We all have an angle. No matter what we say or what we admit, we all have an angle. Some of us end up with more of an agenda or a mission, which I’d say are more hardy than angles, but even if we do, they all start off as angles. And, sometimes it’s obvious what the angle is. Sometimes it’s not.
But, sometimes it all just makes no sense. At all. And, though you wish it weren’t so, you realize that it’s never going to make sense. This is the story of an angle that caught everyone by surprise, went around the corner, and kept on going. This is the story of two people who met in the last years of their lives in a retirement community -- essentially a geriatric dormitory, where wheelchairs rule the corridors, friendships are made, and enemies are earned.
Old people are complex. Yes, we’re all someday hopefully going to become old people, but they’re, you know, tough sometimes. And, being the adult child of an old person introduces you to this unwitting and unpledged fraternity. Being the adult child of a particularly difficult old person is something particularly unique.
A few years ago, when my mother had been ill for a number of months and in in-patient rehab for much of that time, it became apparent (because the community where she’d chosen to make her retirement last stand kicked her out for being too ill) that it was time to find a new community -- one that would be willing and able to both handle her up and down health and deal with her uniquely difficult nature. I met with the executive director of a new retirement community over lunch and had a very good and open conversation about a number of topics, including her “life demeanor.” The executive director looked me square in the eyes and, with the most earnest of expressions and tone, did his utmost to inform me that he’d been doing this for many years and knew well how to deal with difficult senior citizens. “You don’t understand,” came my reply. He just smiled in return, knowing in his heart of hearts that I was the one who didn’t understand his many decades of experience. He was (and is) a great, fair, and down to earth guy, and I grew to consider him a friend, during the time my mother was a resident in the community of which he was the executive director.
Flash forward about a year or so. The office of the executive director had glass doors and an interior window to a corridor through which one traveled from the parking lot to the lobby, so he was able to capture a good view of what was going on in the facility. This one day, he saw me and with a certain amount of urgency waved me into his office. It wasn’t unusual for us to catch up with each other every now and then, but I’d never previously been beckoned like this.
He was eager to talk.
“You know, when I first met you, you told me that your mother was difficult,” he led off. That little internal groan started to go off in my gut. “Oh, boy. What did she do?” I thought. He continued, “But, I really didn’t understand. I’d thought I did, but I really didn’t understand. Your mother is tough. And, some people here think she’s sort of mean. In fact, a lot of our residents think she’s the second meanest person here.”
I paused for a moment, and just said the first thing that honestly popped into my head, because no degree of self-editing was going to stop me, apparently. “I’m not sure if she’d be more upset that people think she’s mean or that she came in second.”
It turns out that a fellow resident, whom I call Edith, came in first. And, though it was obvious that my mother was in second place, it was apparently very obvious to all that Edith took the gold medal. . . and the blue ribbon. . . and whatever else she could take from you. Edith was the proverbial witch on wheels -- quite literally, because she scooted around the place in a motorized wheelchair. And, she had a tendency to “accidentally” roll into and over people with a bit too much frequency and moderated delight.
Flash forward another half year or so, and I get a rather frantic call from my mother. Apparently at dinner that evening, in the communal dining room where meals were eaten and stories about grandchildren were shared, my mother was in the midst of her meal when Edith decided to go all Dale Earnhardt and careen her wheelchair into the back of my mother’s chair, thereby driving my mother into the table, where she sort of flailed like a fish out of water for a few moments. My mother was mildly injured, and it was a highly unpleasant moment, but remember. . . Edith came in first.
Yes, it was now official. My mother had a real and true mortal enemy. Game on!
It all spiraled downward from there. The details aren’t important, but suffice it to say that my mother had a new spark in her eyes with a true enemy in her life. She became somewhat enlivened by the whole thing -- in a victim / superhero kind of way.
My mother died a few months later. No, Edith didn’t kill her; in fact, I’d say that Edith probably extended her life by giving her a new sense of purpose and a reason to get up in the morning to fight another day. But, then something surprising and just plain weird happened. Yes, the angle. The unforeseen angle. The angle that none of us will truly ever understand.
Apparently, when a resident of the place where my mother spent the last years of her life dies the contact information for the next of kin is provided to the residents. My mother had made a number of friends of various degrees during her residency there; Edith was not one of them. At all.
But, here’s the thing. I received one -- and only one -- condolence card from any of my mother’s fellow residents. Yes, it was from Edith. It was a brief but lovely note written in a card of condolence. I laughed for days. What was her angle? I really can never know for sure, as -- and I swear this is true -- Edith was shortly thereafter kicked out of the residence for being, well, Edith.
The best answer is the one I really hope is the true one. That in my mother’s death, Edith had succeeded. She no longer had a challenger for Meanest Resident. She no longer had to be concerned about being dethroned or having her motives challenged. She was now the undisputed Meanest. And she was proud of it.
I’m pretty sure that was her angle. And, I’m pretty sure Edith won.