Tag: aging

On
Jean Mueller

Visiting agency services

Q I am the only family member involved in my mother’s care.

She lives in an apartment and has a service agency visiting daily to help her get up, prepare meals, and to be there for companionship.

Since my mother is not receiving much of a monthly income, I pay for this service. I have repeatedly asked this agency to keep me informed of their activities. It seems all they are interested in is sending me the monthly bill.

I hear about things second hand or well after the event has occurred. I am talking about missed visits as well as observations the staff has about my mother and her overall health and well being. Since I pay for her care, shouldn’t I be able to get all the details? (A concerned son in Columbus).

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Audrey Mettel Fixmer

Learning to cook with ‘appeal’

Grandmom column by Audrey Fixmer

My late husband taught me two important lessons about cooking.

When I confessed to him a few weeks before our wedding that I knew nothing about cooking (zilch!), he advised me in his typical philosophical manner, “There are two ways to look upon the challenge of cooking: one as an art, which requires creative talent, and the other as a science, which requires a cookbook. Get a cookbook.”

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Audrey Mettel Fixmer

Catholic education provided for generations

Grandmom column by Audrey Fixmer

“Don’t you want to be a teacher?” asked my friend Joan just weeks before we were to graduate from Madonna High School in Aurora, Ill.

This was the all-girls’ class of 1945, where we were taught by Franciscans Sisters. We had both been accepted by St. Ben’s in Minnesota, where we would be taught by Benedictines.

I was confused. “What do you mean, a teacher? I don’t want to be a nun, you know.”

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Audrey Mettel Fixmer

‘Vision’ becomes better with age

Grand Mom column by Audrey Mettel Fixmer

One of the benefits of aging is that our vision improves so much.

What? You say you have more trouble reading the fine print on prescription bottles? And you need stronger light bulbs and magnifying glasses?

Oh, sure, but that’s not the kind of vision I’m thinking about. I’m thinking of hindsight. You know, they always say that hindsight is 20-20.

So here’s what’s so great about it. We have perspective now. We can look back at the things that drove us crazy with worry, like a messy house when guests arrived. But now we know that it was never the picture-perfect house that mattered, but the warmth of our hospitality.

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On
Jean Mueller

Family should step up

Q My dad has been living with me for the past three years and while I love him and have entered into this arrangement willingly, I am feeling more and more resentful of my siblings. I have a brother and a sister, both live close to me and neither one of them offer to give me a break. I don’t understand how they can just go on with their lives and leave me here to do all of the caregiving. I am afraid I will unintentionally take out my frustration on dad. What should I do? (From a daughter in Janesville).

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