Caregiving Daughter

Mom woke up from her nap around 9:30 p.m. (sometimes her sleeping schedule gets thrown off).  She was sitting in the recliner studying her mail from the day.  She looked up at me and asked, “Did you cancel my car insurance?”  Surprised, I told her that I did not.  She held up the cancellation notice that she received from the insurance company.  “I know I paid them!  I’m trying to find my check copy.”  “Mom,” I sighed, “the copy from your checkbook only proves that you wrote the check, not that they received it.”  She looked at me with a bewildered look on her face, “Well I don’t understand.  It seems like someone is trying to mess me up.”  “No one is trying to mess you up,” I explained, “Maybe you just forgot to mail it.”  “Oh no,” she insisted, “I always get all my bills ready and give them to you to mail.”  “And I ALWAYS mail them for you,” I said (with an edge to my voice). 

She found the copy of the check and it was dated about three weeks earlier.  I got on the computer and checked her bank account to make sure the check had not cleared, and then I set up the insurance company for online bill pay.  I submitted the payment so it would be received prior to the final cancellation date.  I suggested that we do all her bills like this so we will know they are paid and we wouldn’t have to worry if they were mailed.   She seemed satisfied, but I knew it still bothered her a great deal that something had happened to the check she wrote.  I knew I had mailed everything she had given me.  Mom is afraid that someone will steal from our mailbox, so she insists that I take her bills to work to mail from there.  I always stick them in my purse, and then place them with the company mail when I get to the office.  What did happen to her check?  Was it somewhere in her room?  Did it get lost in the mail?  Surely, it was not buried somewhere in my purse, or was it…  I had a sick feeling that maybe I COULD have stuck it in my purse and forgotten about it. 

I quietly went into the kitchen, and started looking through my purse to reassure myself that I had not taken it and forgotten to mail it.  I frantically looked through the papers and miscellaneous junk that end up collecting in there.  I got to the bottom of my purse, and I couldn’t believe it.  There it was.  Her envelope all stamped and ready to go to pay her car insurance.  Now I’ll admit, for a second I thought about not telling her that I had found it.  I knew she would be furious with me.  But, I also knew it would make her feel better knowing that this time she did everything right, and I was the one who messed up.  So, I swallowed my pride and told her.  Yes, she was upset with me, but I could tell she was also relieved that she had not completely lost her mind.  I, on the other hand, felt very discouraged and felt like I was beginning to lose mine…

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