Sandwiched

Last night I cried because there was no "chicken salad on wheat" in the take-out bin of my favorite deli.

Ordinarily, that wouldn't be a big deal. I would just ask them to make me one or choose a substitute.

But on this particular night, I had just left my mother's hospital bedside, where all 95 pounds of her lay like some exoskeleton of her former life. Her stomach hurts. She can't eat. And we don't know why. The doctors do their thing, but there's an air of: She's 74, what can you expect?

They don't know this miserable, complaining woman is typically fairly upbeat for someone who has never had much more than "a pot to piss in and a window to throw it out of."

For more than a month now, my dad has done his best to cajole her to eat and to take care of housework, all the while staying in her line of vision lest she begin a mantra of "Don't leave me."

The only daughter between two sons, I should be the helpmate. Yet oddly enough, I'm the one with the better income and most likely to be tapped to help pay for long-term care.

Meanwhile, I've got one kid in college, a senior in high school and my own fears about whether I'll outlive my money.

Sigh. Sandwich generation. I get it now.