Ruminations on the Life of an Elderly Aunt

Aunt Amy was my father's younger sister.  She was sophisticated and aloof, and, although slightly pinched-face, was good-looking in her elegant jewelry and designer clothes.  We were never close.  She was from the rich side of the family.  I was from the working-class side.  She lived in Encino, I lived in Huntington Beach.  We rarely saw each other.

 She called me after the 1975 earthquake.  She was in her sixties then.  

"I'm homeless," she said.  "My apartment was squashed and I might have to live in my car."

"Come here," I said.

"I'm fine," she said and hung up.

She called me a few years later.  Twenty, to be exact.  

"I fell and broke my wrist, but I can still play the piano," she said and hung up.

  Her only daughter had died by then and she had no grandchildren.  She was obviously reaching out to me.

I invited her to a 4th of July party at my house.
  

She didn't show.    

I called her that night to ask what had happened.     

"I got lost," she said.  "I had to keep stopping to ask directions, so I turned around and went home."

"I think it would be good if you moved closer to me," I said.  "I have a friend who lives in Leisure World in Irvine.  You can buy your own apartment, and you'll be only fifteen minutes away from me." 

She surprised me by taking my advice.

I helped her move into a large condo in Leisure World.  It had a bucolic view of the Irvine hills.  There was a nurse on duty in the building and breakfast and lunch were available in the dining room.  I took her shopping once a week, and Duke and I had dinner with her several times a month.

She had been an avid bridge player.  I arranged for her to join a bridge club.

"No one will play with her," the organizer of the club told me.  "She can't remember the cards.  She insults the other players."

She wanted a computer.  "Everyone has a computer," she said.  "A person is left out if they don't have a computer."

Duke got her one, and showed her how to use it.  She couldn't remember what he told her.  There were endless calls to Duke complaining that the computer was broken, it was no good, it didn't work.

She couldn't hear the telephone ring.  Duke bought her an answering machine.  She couldn't remember how to play back her phone messages.

I called a registry and hired a caregiver to be with her during the day.  No one lasted more than a week. As each one departed, she would curse them and try to bar the door.

She lived in her condo in Leisure World for thirteen years.  She didn't lose reality all at once.  It happened a bit at a time.  It was like the sun going down.  Inexorable.  Unstoppable.

I found a board and care home for her near where I live.  I would take her for a walk in the afternoon, and afterward she would sit in a chair and sleep until dinnertime.  She lost her contankerousness.  She turned sweet.  She let me kiss her.  She smiled at me.  She said she was going to vote for Obama.

We had a small party for her on her hundredth birthday.  She didn't recognize anyone, but she seemed happy.  She held the greeting card from President Obama in her hand until it was frosting-spotted and creased.

She died six months later.  She went peacefully.  No arguments.  No curses.  No deathbed scenes.  She just left.  

 I had always thought someone else would end up with Aunt Amy's care.  Her daughter probably, or my mother.  But they were both gone.  I could say my connection to this difficult, enraging, and sometimes endearing woman was a fated, better-late-than-never, gentle twining of two hearts.  Maybe it was, but it was also a valuable pull-the-mask-away peek into a future that awaits us all.