Family Drama

Most of this week has been a series of phone calls to my sister-in-law and my mother. They are trying to coordinate her care and it has become apparent, as my mother's home is again so filthy that it is uninhabitable, she really needs more help physically with the day-to-day tasks like cleaning, laundry, cooking and - yes - driving. The two west highland terriers that my mother has need to be rehomed, preferably together. Part of the reason the house is in such a horrible state is because she can not walk them and they are no longer (if they ever were previously) house broken. Every bit of rug is urine stained again and the garage floor is covered in old newspaper and feces. The dogs have to go.

My sister-in-law has done the necessary research to find a Westie rescue group who can take them. Hopefully, the dogs can go to a much better place together - a place with a yard and/or with humans who can take them for walks and keep them groomed.

Meanwhile, my mother has phoned asking me to come to Kennesaw, Georgia, obviously leaving everything and MonsterMustDie behind to take care of her dogs for the remainder of the month she is in rehab and beyond. A house far away from anything and anyone that now would be even more isolated than here in High Point where I at least have internet service and working computers and WiFi. I have been thinking of how I could help her in a realistic method. The best I can come up with is to come down to her place, spend a couple of days at a time cleaning while staying somewhere else like a friend's place an hour away, and taking the dogs back to North Carolina with me. We have a house cat and no fence and the dogs are not house broken, so they would have to stay on leads in the back yard during the day and I could crate them in kennels at night. That might work out for them for a while. Maybe I could eventually housebreak them. Maybe we could eventually get some sort of pen or fence for the dogs to hang out in. My mother actually wants me to live with her in a sort of Grey Gardens scenario. Not going to happen. There is no way to make it work.

I phoned my sister-in-law to tell her about this. As it turns out, the idea to have me live with my mother came from my sister-in-law. I said she probably should have have thought that one through before she spoke.

Later, she phoned me back to say my brother finally spoke with my mother. That is a huge step for him. He really does not speak to anyone in the family and, according to his wife, has nearly as hard a time dealing with our mother as I do. He told her I could not move down to live in her house and the dogs needed to be rehomed. "You're probably out of the Will now, but we'll take care of you."

I phoned my mother last night to talk with her, dreading the conversation I was expecting.  Oddly enough, there was no mention of the dogs. She only talked about how awful the rehab facility was. Then she ended the conversation with "Take care of yourself." and hung up on me.
That went better than I thought it would.


UPDATE:
My uncle has now phoned my sister-in-law to say that the dogs must stay living with my mother. He is on board with her in the idea that I should be living alone with her in her flat to take care of the dogs indefinitely.  This can not happen but both of them will not accept that. This will be an interesting Labor Day weekend coming up. Now, she is keeping the dogs and the younger family members are expected to take care of her and the dogs at home.