by Nita Frazier

Created on: September 07, 2008   Last Updated: November 01, 2008

When my mother was in the sandwich; trapped between the needs of her aging parents and her adult children I really didn't understand her problems. I thought of myself as her child, therefore I should come first. My mother felt obligated to put her aging and needy parents first.

The shoe is on my foot now. I am in the sandwich. It is an uncomfortable place to be.

I worry too much about everybody.

How is my mother really handling my father's death? Is she lonely? Is she seeing her friends as much as she did before she became a widow?

I worry about my grandchildren being raised by a single mother.

I worry about my daughter raising those children alone.

Then, there is my son who still lives at home at 26 and is not working.

They all look to me for money.

Thank God, my mother is drawing enough social security that she can stay in her house and live well.

I create "jobs" for my daughter: cleaning out the utility room, ripping out the carpet in the office, etc. These are chores that need to be done; chores I don't want to do. I don't mind paying her to do them.

The odious chores get finished, my daughter earns extra money to feed and clothe the grandkids, and I can stop obsessing about that stinky carpet.

My mother and her sister are different problems. My mother is a strong woman and relatively healthy. I don't want to cripple her efforts to carve a new life for herself; a life without my father.

I call her every Sunday without fail, more often if there is a crisis going on. Otherwise I try not to bother her. She knows that I will come if she needs me.

She is proud, too, and will not accept money unless there is an urgent need. To get around this, I give her money for Christmas and her birthday rather than gifts. She says she has too much "stuff" in the house as it is.
I don't care what she does with the money. I just care that she has it. She loves to watch the hummingbirds and cardinals that visit her live oak trees. So I slip her an extra ten dollars every so often "for the birds" just as I did when my father was alive;whenever they didn't have the money to buy birdseed.

We don't talk much about the past as ghat makes both of us cry. We talk about our daily lives, my grandchildren or my brother's new grandchild.

I try to visit my mother and her sister, who lives in the same community, at least once a month. Sometimes I bring my grandkids. I want the grandkids to know their great-grandmother, although it is difficult for me to think of her as a great-grandmother.

The visits create memories that I know will be bittersweet for me, but bittersweet is better than no memory at all.

My aunt is a problem I am not dealing with very effectively. She was a surprise baby and is only a few years older than I am. Her son is not as dutiful to her as I think he should be, yet there is a half generation gap in our ages. I really can't talk to him. I let my younger sister handle that.

I do,though, let my aunt know that she should stand on her own feet and not be a burden to my mother. That has caused some hard feelings, but I stand by my words," My mother first, then my grandchildren, followed by by adult children." That puts my aunt last on the list. We'll have to learn to live with that.

I have health issues of my own which are aggravated by the stress of being in th sandwich. I handle that stress by staying on my medication, daily exercise, prayer, and reading. I always have a book open. I stay open to new experiences and laugh often. Some days the only laughtr I can find is on a joke page on the internet. That's fine. It's better than not laughing at all.
Every nightI list my blessings: my mother, my aunt, my husband,our two children and two grandchildren, the dog and the cat.

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