Yesterday, I had the opportunity to have lunch with a dear friend and colleague. Like me, she too has a 98 year-old mother. She cares for her mother at their home and has given up her entire life to caregiving. We spent lunch comparing notes on our parent. It is a challenge no matter […]
Like that old song said, it’s slip-sliding away. The mind is certainly a strange and wondrous thing. But for Mom, her mind is slowly becoming a sieve that leaks facts and knowledge and the ability to function. For me, dealing with her daily has become a puzzling conundrum. What is confusing to me is that […]
The problem is healing. The smallest cut or scrape can open a wound that will take weeks to heal. I’m no doctor. At least not that kind of doctor. I don’t know whether to leave the wound open to dry out or cover it with anti-bacterial ointment and a bandaid. If the Retirement community had […]
I am back from my wanderings and my 98 year-old mother has not wandered off with her husband, Al, much as she might like to. He is still in Virginia and will not return until October if then. Or so he told my sister. There is little doubt now that Mom has reached the point […]
It must be the nights that are the worst. To be alone in the dark. No snuffling, snoring, irritating presence in the bed beside her. No one to speak to. No one to complain to. No one after forty years of someone. She feels so superior to many others at the Retirement Community. Superior to […]
Why is it so difficult to talk to a deaf or almost deaf person? Recently I was sitting in a lovely garden, purple bougainvillea falling over an orange wall, blue and yellow flowers nodding in the breeze, palm fronds rattling in a soft whisper overhead. I was working away on my laptop when my attention […]
“I don’t know why my daughter is so worried about me,” Mom said to her table-mate, Diana. I was leaving for a week-long trip. I had reminded her I was going, wrote it on her large wall calendar, left notes around her room and let the staff of the Retirement Community know that I would […]
“Again?” my 98 year-old mother says, with considerable irritation, as I walk into the dining room of the retirement community. One daren’t call them nursing homes anymore. “I thought you were gone on your trip,” she says, angry now. “What are you doing here?” It’s true. I was supposed to be gone. First a week-long […]
The complaints are legion. With nothing else to do but worry about those around them, it is not surprising that Retirement Communities are rife with bickering, quarreling, and back-biting complaints. Fortunately, the Facility Mom is in is relatively peaceful. The complaints, when they come, and they always do, are expressed quietly, by note or in […]
Yesterday I took Mom with me to the Library where I did a presentation on Maximilian and Carlota for the library’s Brown Bag Luncheon. Blessings on the librarians, they do a wonderful job of advertising and we had a nice crowd. I was worried about Mom not being able to hear. Fortunately, I know that […]