Merriam-Webster’s definition of “guttersnipe”:
1.  A homeless vagabond and especially an outcast, boy or girl in the streets of a city.

2.  A person of the lowest moral or economic station.

From an early age I was schooled in the art of burying my feelings.  My job was to take care of mom and not let anyone know she was crazy.  The shame lived deep under my skin.  Mom was eccentric, not mentally ill.  In 1969 she started taking Valium to sleep.  She stayed up all night and went to bed when my brother Rick and I sat down for our morning cereal that she laid out for us on the plastic-coated placemats with bowls and spoons. 

A few years after the divorce mom moved from Jackson Heights (“JH”) to Greensboro, NC (“NC”) to live near her sister Rony.  Nothing was ever the same.

She never had a proper home after that.  The only home she ever had, so she says, was the one in JH, what she used to refer to as the “family home.”  That’s when life was good. 

In the past thirty years, mom has moved from JH to NC to the Bronx, then to NC, then to Queens.  I got her on a waiting list at a building for low-income people and those with special needs called Goodwill Terrace in Astoria in 1996.  I was living in Astoria at the time so it gave me a chance to be closer to her.  She loved it at first, but within three months everything went to hell.  That’s when the Puerto Rican Conspiracy began.  She said the upstairs tenant was leaching chemicals through the ceiling to poison her.  She lit a fire with newspaper in front of his door one day, and called the Fire Department and the EPA.  She said the entire Puerto Rican community was out to get her.  Within a year or two it was back to NC, then back to the Bronx.  She got evicted wherever she went.  The cycle was endless and exhausting.

Now she is back in the Bronx, in the Riverdale section, at Park Gardens Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.  She never asks about her prior residence, although she sometimes mentions the family home, “when life was good.”

When I spoke to dad on Sunday he said that Pat (my stepmother) was visiting her mom Thelma, who is 102 (egad!) years old and recently broke her hip.  Thelma is as sharp as a tack and resides at an assisted living facility near LA.  He said that he, Pat and my stepsister Alicia took turns visiting Thelma during the week.  “How delightful,” I thought.

I said to dad, “I wish I wasn’t the only one visiting mom,” and “Nancy [my childhood friend] thinks Rick isn’t strong enough to see her.”

Dad said, “She might be right,” followed by, “Does she still know who you are?”

“Yes,” I replied, as if that made a difference.  He always ask me the same question when we speak on the phone.

It took a day to sink in but the conversation stung me.  I was depressed all day Monday and angry all day Tuesday; the reality of the situation sunk in.

Mom was abandoned years ago.  I envied Pat for having a coterie of family and friends to visit her sick mother.  I envied the fact that she and dad could take vacations and have other people look in on Thelma.

I, too, have been abandoned.  I am a guttersnipe in a modern Dickens novel, begging for assistance from relatives—alms for the poor, visiting the sick—with grubby hands outstretched, always coming up empty.

Now that mom has Alzheimer’s disease, she seems more “legit” to a lot of people.  She’s not just that crazy woman on 89^th Street anymore, leaving the door ajar at 3:00 a.m. while she does laundry in the basement or vacuums under her children’s beds.

Like a gypsy, I have travelled with her; we have been allies, fellow urchins, struggling to survive.

Judy Garland and Fred Astaire in Easter Parade singing “We Are a Couple of Swells.”

I am actively grieving since mom transitioned from semi-independent apartment living to institutionalization.  However cared for and comfortable she might be, she is now a ward of the state.  She doesn't have the choices Thelma has.  It comes down to social strata, dollars and cents, the haves and the have-nots.  Alzheimer’s has robbed her of the dignity of choice, of planning a retirement.  There will be no “golden” years.  Her meager social security check goes into her account at Park Gardens, to be used for visits to the hair salon, clothing and possibly, funeral expenses.

My apologies for the grim nature of this piece.  It’s been a rough week.

Me, mom and Rick, re-enacting the Dutch Masters Cigar commercial,
our cat Mitzi in the background, circa 1964.