another 'I hate Catholic priests' tale

Around the year 2002, maybe 2003, my baby brother bought a house in Berwyn. Our mom had been living with him in his previous, much bigger house. When Dave and his longtime life partner broke up, they sold the house to split the equity, which was not entirely fair because my mom had bought that house, given them the downstroke, a huge downstroke. Tom, Dave's now departed ex who became his ex before he died, unfortunately (so after helping Tom build up his estate, Dave got zippity do dah and Tom's heirs got equity my mom's assets had built up for Tom.

Life is often unfair, eh?

So Dave downsizes and, of course, takes mom with him.

Mom was isolated. Dave worked all day. And Dave parties a lot. Mom had no friends in the new neighborhood, not that our mom was every much of a social butterfly. she usually had at least a couple friends. But when Dave moved her to Berwyn, just as memory issues set in and she lost a meaningful capacity to form bonds, she was suddenly living alone almost all the time. Between work and dating, because Dave vigorously enjoyed his new found freedom for unlimited zipless fucks, our mom spent virtually all her life alone in the house, sometimes venturing out into the yard.

The poor thing regularly locked herself out of the house, by mistake. Then she'd get the young housewife next door to shimmy into the basement through an unlocked window and let mom in. Thank goddess that neighbor let her in, eh? Otherwise mom would have been adrift all day, no phone, her memory to addlepated to remember she had two other sons, multiple grandchildren, friends, and, push comes to shove, police and firemen to help her. The neighbor's help helped a lot.

Two houses away from where Mom and Dave lived, there was a YMCA building that was used for a senior day care center. One did not have to be enrolled full time either. One could just drop in, like most senior centers. We tried, as hard as I could 'try' from California or my sister from Kuwait, to get mom to check out that senior center. When we visited her in person, we'd go over there with her.

The center was not quite a day care center. It was a senior center to give seniors a space for socializing, with various classes.

Dave knew, and so did I, that by the time he had moved her to Berwyn, mom's memory was pretty far gone. She couldn't find her two two doors down to that senior center, much less make friends.

That unhappy situation for my mother continued for several years. My sister, by then, had moved back to thet states (altho she now lives in Shanghai!) and settled into Urbana, IL to get her PhD, which she got a couple years ago and left the country. by then, our mother had died.

One day, sis told bro that she was taking mom down to Urbana for a weekend. Then sis dropped mom off at a nursing home in Urbana, asked them to evaluate mom and mom was found to have such serious memory issues that she could no longer be alone. Mom had to have one of her children take legal responsibility for mom or else the court would appoint a guardian ad litem. Sweet sis would not accept responsibility. I tried to explain to sis and another brother that being legally responsible did not put my sister at any risk financially. It was about making decisions. The court wouldn't accept Dave to be mom's power of attorney because he had not been giving her all of her multitude of prescribed meds. I actually supported the choice not to give her the shitload of meds she was prescribed. But I was in CA and my mom and siblings duked out how mom would spend her final years in an arena in which I had no voice. And I was grateful.

But it was wicked hard on Dave. One day he lived with his mother, as he had for fiffteen years ore more and one day she was gone. If she had been put in a nursing home near where Dave was, he would have visited her once a week for the rst of her life. He didn't own a car so he could not drive to Urbana.

Once our mom was in the nursing home system as a ward of the state with an attorney makig decisions, mom got shuffled around to several nursing homes, each one further from Chicagoland than the last. She died in a nursing home that was a four-hour drive each way for Dave to visit. Sometimes he could get a boyfriend to drive him, make a day of it. And every time Dave visited her, which, dear fellow, he doggedly did as often as he could which was not a lot but it was something, the nursing home always said Dave was the only visitor our mom ever had.

Now I lived in CA and did not have airfare to fly to Chicago to see a mother who could no longer recognize me. And I had my own tenderness about Chicago, which is where Rosie had settled after college, after doing the NYC tour many college grads do. Chicago used to feel like an endless wound that I had to avoid.

So bitch sissy moved mom downstate. Initially mom lived a few blocks from sissy and even then, sissy, her husband and grandchildren, never visited our mother once. Not once.

I think sissy had kidnapped mom under the mistaken belief mom had assets sis could use. Oh, sis would have fed and clothed mom but then, I believe, she was imagining a little boost in income. Sis' family had some tight years when she was in grad school and her "artist" French husband was unemployed.

Families. What got me started? Catholic priests.

Before the depth of mom's dementia had fully bloomed, I went to the Catholic Church just a block or two from Dave's house in Berwyn.  I went to a mass with my mom.

I scorn the Catholic Church but my mom remained a devout Catholic always. True, she did divorce and remarry, which is technically a sin but, geez, go into any Catholic church for any Sunday mass and throw a ball at the congragation and it will bounce on at least several divorced and remarried Catholics who did not, by the way, seek annulments from Rome.

So I had my wandering mom with me after going to one mass with her. She was happy to be in a Catholic Church. They almost all have the same vibe, ya know? She felt that vibe. Then I waited to talk to a priest. One bombastic blowhard priest saw me, saw I was waiting to talk to him and he deliberately kept me waiting, turning repeatedly to talk to others that came up to him after i had. I suppose they were parishioners so he knew them, but geez, don't churches welcome newcomers, new potential, um parishioners?

That priest was a dick before I said more than hello, father, I'd like to talk to you.

Then I explained that my mother was a lifelong devout Catholic, that I lived in CA and although mom lived with my brother, he worked on /sundays and did not have a car anyway. Could the parish find a parishioner/neighbor to take my mom to church?

Now this priest knew bupkiss about any memory loss issues with my mom. I had escorted her out to the car because standing for long stretches bothered her. In fact, I had finally interrupted that pompous gas bag and said "Father, I need to talk to you and my mom is elderly and waiting, I only need a minute." Finally, the twat talked. Well, listened. Then he told me the parish did not want to be liable for any possible harm to my mother.

"For real?" I exclaimed. "Are you seriously telling me, and I was raised Catholic, going to a Catholic school just like the one this parish has so I know how Catholic parishes work, I know you have an Alter Guild Society that does just the kind of thing I am asking for. You have absolutely no foundation for refusing my mom. You've never spoken to her."

He said to call the parish, maybe someone could help my mom get to Sunday mass, which would have meant a very great deal to my mom. She may have been slipping but she was not yet slipped out of reality. And she loved the Catholic Church and all of its tenets.

I never called the parish. That gasbag had reminded me that the Church had nothing to offer my mom. I suspected the priest didn't want to help my mom get to church because he, rightly, suspected that an old lady living with her son was not likely to put a lot of money into the collection basket.

That's the thing. My mom would have given that church money. Many's the time when we were growing up, when maybe dad had gambled his paycheck on the  ponies (which my dear old dad loved to do and his behavior caused much heartache for my mom), mom still paid into the Sunday offering. The parish I grew up in required every household to meet with a church staffer, disclose tax returns and settle on what each household would pay. My mom filled up the weekly offering envelopes, which were coded to each household, before she spent dime one on her family. So my mom might have had a hungry baby or two but the church got those filled envelopes (unless gamgling dad thought to steal those dollars for his beloved pass time, betting on horses).

Even if mom had never given dime one to that Berwyn parish, a real Church, a Church built on Christ's perfectly wonderful message to love, would have welcomed her. And found her a god damned ride.

I told that scummy priest that I was a lawyer and I saw no way the church would be liable if a parishioner, in their personal capacity, decided to make a Christ-like choice and be kind to an old lady.  He wasn't concerned about liability. He was just an asshole, as most priests in my childhood had been, although in my childhood, I worshipped all priests as above mere mortals like purely innocent little girls such as I had been.