The hard part of the vacation is done. →[More:] We left my mom's house in Buffalo this morning, escaping without a major incident... I think.

You can never tell with Mom, because she is apt to make up stories and you never know whether you will be the victim or the villain. (In all her stories, she is the hero.)

We are now staying at my sis-in-law's house in Albany for a few days, which is a little odd since she and her family are not here (only her college-age daughter, who couldn't go to the cabin with them because she's working).

The whole point of the trip is to celebrate my mother- and father-in-law's 50th wedding anniversary with a party this Sunday. There are preparations to be made and stuff, but that is mostly my wife, her sister and her neice to do. So this is my vacation.

...

Every time we see my mom, things get worse. She is in her 70s and although she hasn't been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, dementia, or another like that, there is something definitely going on.

She has always been the "in control" person in our family. Growing up, she was the oldest of 7 kids, so she helped my grandmother raise her siblings, so she was in charge, in a sense, right from the start. Then she raised the three of us; my father's mother lived with us so my mom seemed to frequently struggle with her for control of raising us. Then she got a job as the coordinator at a senior citizen center in town, growing it from nothing in an old schoolhouse to a purpose-built building where hundreds of seniors visited daily, so she was in charge there. After Dad died and she retired, she sold the house I grew up in and bought a different house out in the suburbs and my grandma moved in with her, so she was in charge there. She has a late-in-life boyfriend who is a sweet guy and a total doormat, so Mom is in charge of him, too.

When we visit, she manipulates things so that she controls everything we do. Where we go for the day, what we do for dinner, etc., she determines. It's hard to relax around her.

And then there are the stories. Here's an example:

"So I was in the shopping plaza a little while ago, and four girls were outside the hair salon smoking- they were the hair dressers. And I went up to them and I said, 'You girls shouldn't be smoking. It will make you look old before your time and if you don't quit it will kill you. I have a brother with lung cancer and he's just fading away. You don't want to die a death like that. I know it's hard to quit; I tried five times but I finally quit. If I can do it, you can.'

"Then a month later when I was in the shopping plaza, this girl came up and hugged me and said, 'Thank you!' And I said, 'Who are you?' And she said, 'I work at the hair salon, and last month you talked us about smoking, and I decided right then and there to quit and it's been a month since my last cigarette.' So that made me feel so happy that I was able to saver her life."

She constantly tells stories like that, where there is a poor victim that needs help and she swoops in and saves the day. Sometimes if you ask for clarification she will go on and if she talks long enough she realizes she's getting to a point that can be verified (or not) and she will back pedal to make everything vague. (For instance, if you asked to meet the hair dresser, my mom would come up with an excuse why we couldn't meet her.)

It's okay if she tells stories about anonymous people I guess, but she ends up telling exaggerations and outright lies about friends and relatives as well. Last summer when she visited us for my son's graduation, my wife's parents were also there. I found out that upon returning home, she told the story of how my father-in-law was practically abusing my mother-in-law and she had to step in between them and make him back off and apologize. This is so far off from what he's really like, that even my wife's brother recognized it as BS and flat out said she didn't believe my mom (which we appreciated).

I think what happens is that, in the case of the hairdressers for example, she saw them outside the shop smoking and the rest of the story is what she imagines she should have done and how it should have turned out, and she tells the story like that even though she knows it didn't really happen (which is why she back pedals if pressed for details).

My brother and his wife lives a mile from my mom and they are slowly trying to get more involved with my mom and her doctor visits to see what really is going on and what they can do to help. Living 1400 miles away, there isn't too much we can do directly.

My brother says he wishes Mom could be the mom she was ten years ago. Back then, even though she liked to control things, you could still reason with her and she didn't tell stories out of her fantasy world. I agree. I feel kind of helpless having to watch her go from the mother I love, that raised me, to someone so totally different.

I know we all have our issues we have to deal with and many of you have worse issues to deal with than I do, but I like to think that at least here I can air some of this stuff out among supportive friends.

And at this point I suppose I'm just babbling... so time to hit Post.