Mom & Me Three Archive

    I talked to MCS today. Great conversation, in which I also remembered to ask her for the death dates for all Mom's immediate family (prior to starting her own family). I'm posting them here (without names but with relative identification and, if I'm aware of them, a few details) as reference for me and anyone else in our family who might be interested:

• Mom's Dad:  3/19/1980
  • 95 at death (9 months shy of 96th birthday on 11/3)
  • died at Scottsdale Memorial Hospital, Scottsdale, AZ, of "natural causes" due to "old age" (not per death certificate; per relatives)
• Mom's Mom:  5/24/1987
  • 93 at death (two weeks shy of 94th birthday on 6/7)
  • died in nursing home, Mesa, AZ, of complications of Alzheimer's disease (not per death certificate; per relatives)
• Mom's Husband:  2/18/1985
  • 68 at death
  • died at Phoenix Veteran's Hospital, Phoenix, AZ of burst abdominal aneurysm
• Mom's Brother:  6/13/1977
  • 62 at death
  • died at Mesa General Hospital, Mesa, AZ of heart failure
• Mom's sister:  6/14/1998
  • 72 at death
  • died in nursing home in Scottsdale, AZ, of heart failure
• Mom's brother-in-law:  12/6/1999
  • 74 at death
  • died at home in Scottsdale, AZ, of heart failure
• Mom's maternal grandfather:  1/21/47
  • 85 at death
  • not sure of what he died (also, unsure of whether he died in 1946 or 1947; I'm using the latter date on a hunch)
• Mom's maternal uncle:  some time between 1987 and 1990
  • somewhere between 85 and 89 at death
  • unsure where he died

    I mentioned how shy her parents were of their next birthday because I have been under the impression that they were 96 and 94 at death and have been telling people this. They were actually 95 and 93.
    Both Mom's siblings' deaths were precipitated by long, long term, advanced alcoholism that, in her brother's case, continued up to the night of his death. Her sister's alcoholism was arrested by a variety of physical problems which manifested a couple of years before her death including: Severe digestive problems which culminated in a colostomy; dementia that was first (and probably most accurately) diagnosed as a result of long term malnutrition due to alcoholism, then diagnosed as Alzheimer's.
    None of the diagnoses of Alzheimer's were confirmed with autopsies. My experience with my relatives' dementia and what little research I've done on the subject leads me to consider that my grandmother may very well have suffered from the peculiar type of dementia called Alzheimer's and that my aunt's dementia was not Alzheimer's.

...or, at least, Mom watched them while I saw a little here and there (the only win I remember is for the song category, "Al Otro Lado Del Rio"; I remember this because I saw the song performed by Santana and Banderas (I was impressed that Banderas sang so well and passionately) and, later, noted that the presenter (I think it was Halle Berry, but I wouldn't swear to it), mispronounced the title of the song without stumbling, which I thought was really funny and telling, considering that Spanish is practically the U.S.'s second language now (thank the gods we're finally beginning to slip toward national multi-linguality). We ended up watching the Oscars because, when we settled down to watch a little TV in the evening I surfed through our many cable stations and the only thing that caught Mom's eye was the glittering presentation of the Oscars. I told her what it was and she said, "It looks interesting, lets stay on this channel and see how it goes. We can switch [to what, I wondered] if we don't like it. I've never seen the Oscars." She seemed to enjoy it. I watched off and on among preparing dinner, finishing up the day's chores and putting the house in order for today.
    I also caught parts of Rock's routine, most notably when he interviewed people coming out of the Magic Johnson theater about their favorite movies of the year and whether they'd seen any of the Oscar contenders, and William's routine about the promotion of homosexuality by Hollywood, both of which I thought were funny and daring for a show, such as the Oscars, which I've imagined is quite staid and traditional, but I have nothing with which to compare them so I don't know if they were any more or less funny and daring than previous Oscar presentation routines.
    Yesterday was, overall, a good day. Mom awoke early, didn't sleep much throughout the day, ate well, felt good, moved a fair amount, enjoyed herself and went to bed fairly late. Today, though, much to my surprise, she's sleeping in. I'm letting her, under the assumption that her body knows, after the last several days, that she needs it. Ahhh, I hear her reconnaissance cough. I guess she's rousing.
    Later.