Mother Goose, she is not.

My grandmother is 90. She thinks this is unfair, as if she is better than age. It is okay that time cripples those around her, but unspeakably awful when another prescription is added to the three medications she already takes. She has aortic stenosis (a hardening of the pipe leading into her heart - irony of ironies), and was given six months to live, six months ago. She is on borrowed time. Unfortunately, her awareness of this focuses and then dissipates, kind of like Alzheimer's. One day she's grateful for all she has been blessed with in life, and the next day, she turns back into herself.

On her "off" days, when she's not feeling especially well, she gets nicer. Mom, Doug, and I have been discussing the possibility of her needing to move soon, into an assisted living, or...perhaps in with me. She would benefit from a little extra help, tying her shoes in the morning, making her bed (which is stupid, as she gets up at 8 and takes her first nap of the day at 10), and with some meal preparation. She complains incessantly about the food at her retirement home. She complains incessantly about the other people that live there.

"I swear, she's just so lazy! She forgets everything!"
"She's not lazy," mom tries to explain. "She's ill."
"Well, whatever. Her elevator certainly doesn't go to the top floor anymore, that's for sure."

Bottom line, Grandma is afraid to die alone. Understandable. When she feels well, it is also understandable as to why that might just happen.

"I just can't stand the housekeepers where I live."
"Why not?" my mom asks, paying more attention to washing the dishes than to her griping mother.
"This girl. Ugh. She vaccuumed her way INTO my apartment. The other girl, she starts in the closet and vaccums her way OUT of the apartment."
My mom narrowed her eyes at grandma. "I don't see what difference that makes..."
Grandma sighed. "I suppose it doesn't make any difference. It's just...I like it done the other way. And the refrigerator door! She started to leave my apartment, and I said, 'Aren't you going to wipe down the door of the refrigerator?' She looked at me like it was the rudest request."
I said, "Maybe if you had asked her nicer, Grandma."
Grandma said, "I did! What do you call, 'Aren't you going to wipe down the door of the refrigerator?'"
I looked at Mom and said one word.
"No."

We'll reevaluate Grandma's living situation when and if she gets a little more consistent with her "off" days and is thus possible to be around for extended periods of time. In the interim, she wants one of those "Life Alert" things. She signed a DNR, so I have no idea why she wants one. I suggested to mom that she just rig up a necklace with a garage door opener on it - Grandma would never know the difference.