Tag Archives: adult child of a parent

Blessings

Posted in December by

One day last week I was sitting in the parking lot of CVS waiting for Miss Cathy to come back from buying a disposable camera. We were on our way to her girlfriend’s house for a holiday visit when she decided that she wanted to take pictures of Adele’s newly renovated kitchen. She’d been in here the store awhile so I was giving her another 15 minutes before I went in to check whether or not she was lost in one of the aisles or passed out from finally getting some exercise outside of the apartment.

When she finally returned to the car and was buckled up she told what had taken so long. Apparently she walked to the back of the store to the Pharmacy department thinking that’s where the photo center was (it’s actually located just inside the door on the right, beside the registers). She stood in line waiting to ask for the photo center location when she found herself in conversation with the lady in line ahead of her.

They got to talking about prescription drugs and how expensive they were. The woman told mom that she was distressed because her prescriptions (even though they were generic) were almost $100.00 a month and she didn’t know if she had enough money for this month’s supply.

Hearing her story Miss Cathy decided to offer the lady ten of the twenty dollars that she brought to purchase the disposable camera. The lady refused saying that she couldn’t possibly take her money and that she didn’t want mom to think that she told her plight to illicit money.

Miss Cathy assured her that wasn’t the case, simply that hearing her story made her realize how blessed she was in her life and all that she’d been given. She told the lady that she had great insurance and didn’t need to worry about her prescription costs like so many and she’d been blessed with great children and then she told her new friend about Tony and me.

In the car mom told me how years ago a woman had offered her some money when she was running short and she’d always remembered the kindness of that stranger and wanted to so the same for someone else. She said that the ten dollars wasn’t much but it was half of what she had so she offered it.

I listened to her, thinking that she’d never seen the movie or heard the expression, “pay it forward” but that was indeed what she was doing. I forget that underneath her bluster and the anger that the disease seems to taking over her personality that she’s a sweet person with a good heart.

She insisted that the woman take the money. True to form Miss Cathy told me that at that very moment she was thinking, “You betta take this money lady-I don’t offer money often-and never to strangers.”

What she said to the lady was, “please take the money, you never know where your blessings are going to come from so you should never refuse them when they present themselves.”

Grateful and touched, the lady took the money and Miss Cathy toddled off to the front of the store after the cashier told her where to go. She made her purchase and off we went to visit Adele to give her the Christmas wreath I’d made and to see her new kitchen and holiday decorations.

Bed(time) Story

Posted in December by

One day last week I was walking from the laundry room when I spied Miss Cathy pulling the sheets off her bed. Seeing me she asked, ”Do you have anything you want to go in the wash?”

“Isn’t that funny” I said, “Great minds think alike. I just took my bed things in to wash.”

I told her that I was going to do my laundry the day before but kept putting it off, leaving it till the traditional “wash-day” of old.

“I don’t think about what day it is to wash my things”, she said,” I just do laundry whenever I get ready. It used to be when I had a utility bill when we lived in the house that I would think about things like when it was cheaper to run water but now that I’m in a condo I just run water when I like.”

“Yeah, I know”, I say having heard what was coming a thousand times before, so I started walking again, “I wasn’t subscribing to any particular day to wash -I was just talking.”

“I use the water whenever I want because I pay my condo fees and there’s people here that don’t.” (At this point I could feel a rant coming on….)

“Makes me sick that people can do that! How can they do that and get away with it?” (And …there’s she goes….)

She went off on a tear about people who didn’t pay their faire share to the condominium association and how it made it hard on everybody else. So, to insure that she was NOT taken advantage of and got her monies worth she leaves lights on in rooms she’s not in and runs water without a thought to conservation-Miss Cathy logic.

Thankfully I had reached the laundry room and (small space that it is in a not very large apartment) it wasn’t far enough away so I could still hear her. I turned on the washer and the rushing water drowned out the sound of her negativity as it filled the machine with just enough water to clean my clothes (somebody around here has to be conscious of natural resources).

After the laundry was washed and dried I’d laid her linens back on her bed. Later that same morning on my way to my room to work I looked in on her in her room and saw her standing over the bed, thinking she was going to make the bed I went in to help.

“Where are you going?” I asked puzzled when she took the fitted sheet out of my hand. She’d gathered everything up was about to walk past me out of the room, “Don’t you want to make your bed while the sheets are still warm from the dryer?”

“Oh”, she said startled and confused, “I’m so crazy, I was headed for the laundry room. I thought I still needed to wash them.”

She came back into the room and I made the bed for her while she went into the living room to sit and watch television for a little while. It wasn’t much later than noon but I knew she’d be back and ready to lie down for a nap soon.

Blowin’ in the wind

Posted in December by

Thanksgiving was over a week ago but a conversation I had with my sister-in-law, Suemi still lingers in my mind-like so much leftover turkey you don’t know what to do with.

We found ourselves alone in the kitchen the morning after the holiday, everyone else was still passed out from turkey overdose, so we had a chance to have a private chat.

“Mom surprised me,” she said.

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve seen her and she looks so old, I’m surprised that she’s still walking so slow and using a cane. She doesn’t seem sure of her balance, always reaching out to grab onto something, like she thinks she’s going to fall. She’s how old? Seventy-three? Wow, by the way she walks and acts she looks ten years older.”

“It’s not only that”, she continued, “I can tell that she’s not the same, she’s not as confident as she used to be. I can see when I look into her face that something has changed.”

I listened, well aware of her metamorphosis into an “old lady”. Just a few years ago-before her diagnosis, she was active, independent and fearless, people were surprised when they found out how old she was. I listened, remembering who she was and quietly judging myself and wondering if I was being judged for her decline.

Suemi was surprised when I told her ho much Miss Cathy slept.

“Oh wow, that’s a lot!” she said eyes wide with amazement, “she can live another twenty years like that……just sleep, no work, no stress. A lot of old people live a long time that way.”

“Believe me I know,” I said nodding that I felt the same, “she’s like a bear hibernating through the rest of her life.”

But, she’s not completely stress free I reminded her, she still has her temper. Then I regaled my sister-in-law with some of the highlights of Miss Cathy’s rants against enemies and evils real and imagined.

I was kind of surprised that Suemi had seen so much change in Miss Cathy in just the space of three or four months.

She reminded me of the reason why I started this blog in the first place. I was very aware when I moved here that it was important to record the progression of her disease. I knew that change when come when I was busy tending to her and before I knew it ‘who she is’ would be the new normal and l would have forgotten how she ‘used to be’.

Tough as it is, these are the Halcyon days of Alzheimer’s, she’s still stage one dementia but the curtain can lift on stage two at any time and those challenges will make the previous diagnosis seem ‘quaint’ so I wanted to be sure to write it all down so that I could remind myself that it wasn’t all bad.

With caregivers, it seems that you deal with the person as they are “that day” and quickly you forget how it’s different from yesterday’s issues and challenges.

Some things, like the love you feel for them-and they for you are constant but everything else is kinda up for grabs. But knowing that, hell, and even writing about it doesn’t prepare you for an outsider’s observation (an outsider being anyone that isn’t their caregiver and hasn’t seen your loved one for awhile-be they friend or family) that validates your purpose.

Suemi held up a mirror so that I could see Miss Cathy (and myself) and it hit me that Thanksgiving this year is yet another marker of change in our family. We’re not a particularly sentimental bunch (well, I am but I’ve long maintained that someone made a scramble with the babies when I was born and I was left with the wrong people-all evidence and my striking familial resemblance to the clan aside).

Anyway, Thanksgiving became important to us as a family back in1997. It was the last time my pop was healthy enough to celebrate the holiday before cancer took him away the following spring. He’d been in the hospital just days before and the doctors weren’t holding out hope that he’d ever leave (alive) but he proved them wrong buy not only getting better, he sat at his place at Tony’s holiday table and ate like a man half his age and filled the room with his deep Barry White baritone and laughter. Since then we’ve made it a point to get together on the last Thursday in November.

And now, after not being at Tony’s last year because Miss Cathy just didn’t want to go we were all together this year but it’s different now. Not only do we have the memory of pop at the thanksgiving table to top our list of thanks, this year we add Miss Cathy’s joy and spontaneous “Star spangled banner”.

We will come together next here but the reality is that she probably won’t be the same but who knows, maybe she’ll surprise us and sing her favorite Bob Dylan song:

“How many roads must a man walk down before they call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?
How many times must the canon balls fly before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind”.

Turkey Hash

Posted in November by

I was in the car driving Miss Cathy over to my brother’s for Thanksgiving; it was quiet so I turned on the radio to pass the time. NPR was in the middle of an interview with an author (I didn’t catch his name or the title of his book) who was from a family of ten children and even though they grew up in great poverty each child went to college, became successful and distinguished themselves in many different fields.

The radio host, Diane Reims asked to what did he attribute his and his siblings’ dedication to education and life accomplishments. The author said that their mother, a woman who had very little schooling herself instilled in them a passion for learning and was the reason they were all so successful.

Upon hearing this I looked at Miss Cathy seated in the backseat through the rearview mirror and said, “Hey, they could be talking about you.”

To which she responded, “Well, where was the daddy?” “Doesn’t he deserve any of the credit?” “Makes me sick how it’s always the mother that gets all the praise.”

“Oh my, the dealer passes”, I thought to myself. Instigating a rant about how fathers don’t get enough credit for their offspring’s success was not my intent. Listening to the author reminded me how much my brother and I owe Miss Cathy. I was just trying to pay the old bird a compliment as we were stuck in traffic on our way to eat a bird of the Butterball variety.

I tried to interrupt to remind her that I trying to give her a compliment but it was too late; she was already in full career. But, like so many conversations I have with her these days you never know what she’s going to say or how long she’s going to stay on topic.

I have learned that her ‘’default’ response is something negative (see exchange above for proof). I took a detour off t Interstate 95 (it can take you from Maine to Florida to see grandma and that’s apparently what everyone was doing that Thanksgiving morning).

The rest of the ride was pleasant; I’d switched to the classical station for the duration of the drive to avoid any further conversation.

Thanksgiving dinner at my brother’s had become a tradition for years after my Pop died as it was the last time the entire family had been together before he died in 1998. We didn’t come over last year because Miss Cathy just didn’t want to leave home so it was nice to all be together again, even if it was just for a couple of days.

As always, my sister-in-law, Suemi set a beautiful table worthy of a photo spread in Food &Wine magazine. We all took our usual places at the table, assigned long ago; Tony and Suemi at the ends, Nile across from me and Zachary across from Miss Cathy with Tony on her right. After the prayer led by my mother we began the meal. The meal started and we’d all begun to fill our plates and bellies with all the traditional goodies in front of us. We were chattering along, nothing memorable or of great consequence, just the typical conversations families engage in when they’re all together for a holiday when all of a sudden Miss Cathy started to sing,” what so proudly we hail from the twilight’s last gleaming”.

When she got to the end of the stanza she wasn’t sure of the next line so I started singing along, feeding her the words, encouraging her to continue. So she sang on, this time louder and with more confidence, her voice clear and surprisingly melodic.

Tony joined in and soon the three of us were singing as the other looked on smiling. Tony nodded for Zach and Nile to join in and Suemi did as well, the entire family singing what we remembered of he Star Spangled Banner:

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming

And the rockers’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air
Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there

O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave

When we finished I led the applause. It was a wonderful, corny, spontaneous movie moment, out of nowhere and out of context. A lot like my life living with Miss Cathy; unexpected and full of surprised-just without the singing usually.

This ‘n that lll

Posted in November by

I just returned from a week off. It was my first break since going to New York to teach for a few days every other week for a while last summer.

I had committed to taking a week for myself every three months but that had fallen by the wayside. For whatever reason I felt I didn’t need the time away (could that mean that I’m actually starting to ‘like it’ here-naw). But months ago after Chad’s visit here I’d spontaneously decided to go back to Kansas City to spend a week with him.

Since Miss Cathy has been doing so well I didn’t feel bad about leaving her alone in the apartment and as is my rule I didn’t tell her about the trip till one week before my departure. She took the news in stride and there wasn’t the usual daily peppering of questions that have seasoned past trips.

Her only response when I told her my plans was, ”Oh, well I’ve gotten used to you being around so I don’t feel like I really need a break from you.”

“Okay.” I thought to myself, “these little getaways aren’t really for you” but said nothing and smiled, not wanting to take the focus off of her.

I gotta say, it was easier being away this time. A few days before my departure I made a run to the grocery store to make sure she’d have all her favorite foods and reminded Ron (her ‘other son’ from upstairs) to check in on her as well as reminding her other biological son, Tony.

While I was gone I didn’t worry (much) and called every other day, hearing from her only once or twice and it was good that when she did call she told me that she’d gone out with her girlfriend once (she actually left the apartment) in addition to the usual ranting about ‘relatives of unknown origin’.

My only concern when we talked was when she told me that one day there was a knock at the door and when she asked who it was the person said, “Is your son at home?” (this is worrying because I don’t have any ‘friends’ in the area that would just drop by unannounced) but she only talked to him through the door and didn’t give the stranger any information that would lead him to think she was alone.

She call Ron immediately after and he suggest that she leave the alarm system on even while she’s in the house during the day and not just at night when she goes to bed.

The other thing that concerned me was that she didn’t sound as if she was eating enough vegetables (which are usually a mainstay in her diet) but I was relieved to hear that most of what she was making to eat didn’t involve a lot of cooking on the stove.

Tony came on the weekend to hang out with her and then (to my surprise) took her to Charlestown Races so she could gamble (which for her means sitting at a nickel or quarter slot machine and pulling the arm until her shekels ran out-one of her favorite past-times).

I left last Sunday morning and arrived back here last night a week later. Ron picked me up at the airport and reported that all was well and Tony was going to be bringing Miss Cathy back sometime Monday morning.

So, thanks to my brother(s) I’ve got a few moments to myself to unpack and ease back into life here.

Oh, spoke too soon….I see them pulling up outside. Time to go to work………

People who need people

Posted in November by

One day last week I was listening while Miss Cathy was talking-there’s really no other way to describe a ‘conversation’ with her really. She was telling me that she’d decided against having a girlfriend drop by for a visit. I listened as she complained about how this particular friend was someone who hated to be alone and how she constantly needed to be around someone. Mom made a point of “not” empathizing with her friend’s personality trait, saying that she didn’t understand people ‘like that’ because she was perfectly fine to be on her own.

“I get tired of her calling all the time, she’s so persistent”, she fumed, “wanting to come over here or for me to go over there. Stay home, I’m tired, entertain your own damn self.”

Exactly what she was ‘tired’ from I had no idea-a long hard day of watching TV perhaps. Frankly, I’d have thought she’d relish the opportunity to talk to someone (anyone), lord knows the two of us don’t do much of that anymore, we’re like that old married couple that’s heard each other’s stories and jokes one (or six hundred and twenty-eight) times to many-at least I feel that way.

I know it all sounds a little harsh but what do I know, they’re her friends and she’s got a right to have whatever feelings she wants to have about them. I just worry that one day she’s going to wake up and realize that she’s alienated them all and there’ll be no friends left to rail against.

She becomes quite agitated when she’s talking about something that’s happened between them. She gets herself wound up like a clock and her face becomes flush with emotion. I’ve warned time and again that she’s going to give herself an aneurism investing so much emotion in telling her tales. I try to remind her to just ‘tell the story’ and not to ‘re-live’ it-she’d have been a great Method actor.

Besides, the girlfriend she’s talking about is the very person that helped find her after she’d had her fall last year. If it wasn’t for the ‘persistence’ of this friend there’s no telling if or when anybody would have found her on her bathroom floor.

That fact alone would give that person a lifetime pass (in my book anyway) to come over or have me do whatever they wanted (you want to go to the Piggly Wiggly-no problem, I’ll push the grocery cart. Drop by at seven a.m. for a chat-I’ll put the kettle on). But hey, that’s just me.

I know she’s grateful and I know that she loves her friend but lately I’m noticing a shift toward the negative.

She’s also full of contractions, I know for a fact that as much as she rails against her friends and family she can work herself up into a panic if a few days pass and she hasn’t heard from one of them on the telephone. And telephone she does, morning noon and night, I hear her on the phone talking but that’s not how you maintain relationships (especially one’s that are within a ten-mile radius).

Besides, isn’t it better to have something to look forward to-even if it’s a visit from a friend you’re not particularly crazy about (that day) instead of just watching TV and napping until it’s time to go to bed at night? I worry that at the rate she’s going all she’ll have is the past because there’ll be no future (friendships anyway).

Maybe she has some variation of ‘survivor’s guilt’. While she’s grateful to her friend for helping to save her life maybe it’s hard to be around her now because her friend reminds her of that day and her diagnosis. I don’t know, I’m not ‘in’ their friendship. I just know that Miss Cathy seems to have less time in her day for people and the irony is that all she has is time.

Sometimes I wonder if being ornery is because of her age or her diagnosis, it’s hard to separate sometimes. Unfortunately, It’s not like I have a ‘quote, un-quote’ ‘normal’ seventy-three year in a closet somewhere that I can pull out as a control group-you know, some old person that I can gauge their reactions against hers.

No, all I have is Miss Cathy, she’s my ‘people’ and cranky or not, consistent or not, I’m still one of the luckiest people in the world because I do need her (although some days I’d just like a less chatty, nicer version of ‘her’).

Food for thought

Posted in November by

Food seemed to be a recurring theme this week, specifically the “new” and the “mistaken”.

One of the perks of my part-time job working in catering is the occasional food that I get to bring home, less so these days as I bartend more than serve but I worked an event last Saturday and I was able to bring a few things home to share with Miss Cathy. She always calls these unexpected goodies “a special treat” and lights up like a Christmas tree at the sight of them.

She joined me in the kitchen and settled herself on one of the bar-chairs as I told her that one of the things that I brought for her was a small tin of caviar. Well, the lights went out faster than you could say “ Bah humbug” and she let out a little squeal.

“Oh nooo! I can’t stand that fishy stuff,” she said, making a face like Lucille Ball whenever she found that she’d stepped in it on “I Love Lucy”. “No thanks buddy, you can have that, I don’t want any of it!”

“Caviar,” she mocked, dragging out the syllables as if she were pulling snakes out of a hole, “ it’s suppose to be some expensive delicacy-big deal.”

“Oh, you’ve had it before?” I asked, already knowing the answer to the question.

“You can keep that stinky mess, it smells just as bad as what poor people eat down south, umm, what-is-that-called? Oh yeah, chitlins…it smells just as funky.”

“Umm, okay,” I said, amused, “so, that’s what you think, now answer my question, have you ever eaten caviar-yes or no?”

“No,” came the reply, “and I’m not going to start now, I’m not eating raw fish eggs, that’s what it is right?” “I don’t eat things raw, I don’t like sushi (another word wrestled out of her mouth as if saying it were the same as consuming it) and I don’t like caviar, ut uh!”

Her logic and stubbornness reminded me of a four year old so I treated her like one. For some reason I got a perverse kick out of this exchange and it suddenly became very important to me that she taste the caviar.

“How can you say you don’t like something if you’ve never tries it?” I reasoned as I prepared a cracker with sour cream and topped it of with some of the salty, little black pearls.” “Well, it seems to me that you have to try something at least once before you can render an opinion

“Aww! No I don’t,” came the petulant replay.

I walked the cracker round the table to where she sat and said, “Oh come on, just try it.”

“Let me smell it.” She said by way of negotiating as I lifted the hors d’ oeuvre closer to her mouth.

“Don’t smell it, just take a small bite, then that way you can say you’ve tried it and you don’t like it.”

She scrunched up her face as if she was about to be spoon-fed castor oil but to my surprise she opened her mouth and took a little bite.

“Now, that wasn’t so bad,” I said, pleased with myself that I got her to try something new.” What did that taste like?”

She looked at me and said, “Nothing, I didn’t taste anything but the sour cream.”

I took that as the go-ahead to load up the remainder of the cracker with more caviar. She took another bite and again she was un-impressed.

“See, much ado over nothing.” “Well, now you can say that you’ve tasted caviar and you’ll know what you’re talking about when you dismiss it-and you can stop saying how bad it smells because it doesn’t.”

She shrugged, ready to move on to something more appetizing. She was much happier eating the shrimp and cocktail sauce, it was familiar and more in keeping with what she’d call “a special treat”.

A little later that same night I started to make some dinner for myself. While I was out working Miss Cathy had made salmon cakes (just this side of “not” being burned, loaded with salt and a motley mix of spices, onions and garlic) and peas (with a generous amount of butter). Some of the salmon patties didn’t quite hold their shape so she’d put the cooked excess in a bowl beside the stove. I took one look in the bowl and re-named it “Who-hash” (named for the fantastical food that appears on the banquet table at the end of classic cartoon “The Grinch that stole Christmas”). Despite how it looked it tasted pretty good so I decided to put it over some rice I’d made the day before along with the peas and some diced jalapeno (Miss Cathy’s not the only one that can concoct a very a meal for a very discerning palette).

I left my concoction in the kitchen while I made a phone call in my bedroom to my ex, Chad. As I was saying goodbye I opened my door and heard Miss Cathy say, “Ut oh, I think I picked up the wrong bowl.”

I walked past her door, not taking the time to focus on what she was saying because I was still talking on the phone. It wasn’t until I entered the kitchen that her words made sense to me. I looked on the counter for my bowl and it was gone, next to the microwave sat an identical bowl and when I looked inside it only contained a spoonfull of the “Who-hash”.

I told Chad about the mix-up and promptly got off the phone. I went into Miss Cathy’s bedroom where she was sitting on the side of her bed eating my dinner to straighten out the “hash-up”.

“Why are you eating my dinner?” I queried.

“Oh,” she said putting the fork back into the bowl. ”I thought it was strange that there was so much food in my bowl, it just didn’t look right but I just added some sour cream then I put it in the microwave and started eating it.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said, once again amused by Miss Cathy and food,” you saw the bowl, knew there was something “not” right about it but you took it anyway AND you started eating it knowing that you didn’t make it?”

“It didn’t dawn on you that maybe somebody else, namely me, might have put that together?”

“Well, I knew there was something not right but..”

“…. But, you took it anyway, drowned it in sour cream and started eating it.” I said, finishing her thought as we laughed together.

“Yeah, I guess, but this is too much for me, I don’t think I want all this.”

“Too bad”, I said, teasingly, taking the bowl from her, “you loaded it up with sour cream so now you’re gonna eat it. I’m going to put it in the fridge for you and you can have it tomorrow.”

So, it’s been a very interesting week-food wise, between the caviar and the “who’s” hash.

Word(s)

Posted in October by

I am someone who loves to talk, ask any of my friends and they will confirm this about me. I know that I inherited this trait from Miss Cathy, unlike my brother who is what I would call a ‘minimalist’ where conversation is concerned. My mother loves to talk and I grew up ‘loving’ to listen. There wasn’t a topic that was taboo; sex, politics, sexism, racism, feminism, growing up poor in the south and the world at large. There was little she didn’t have a strong opinion about and wasn’t afraid to express it.

I remember I would always volunteer to help her with the Sunday dinner, because I knew that it meant hours of uninterrupted entertainment. I was her eager sous chef, pressing an old jelly jar into dough to help make biscuits along with some other minor duties as she spun tales.

Nowadays things have changed and talking with Miss Cathy is not the same. Of course I’m not a child anymore and I’m no longer eager to learn about life through my mother’s stories. I’ve long since ventured out into the world and now have my own tales to tell.

Not that she’s any less entertaining or as insightful as she always was-she is, it’s just that since her diagnosis there has been a noticeable change in the rhythm and/or the course of her conversations.

I’ve noticed that over the past few months that each time you talk with her you don’t know if or when the conversation will go from the norm to a game of “what’s ‘that’ word I’m looking for?”

It doesn’t really matter what she’s talking about, usually she’s trying to get me interested in the latest bit of gossip about a relative of unknown origin (not that she doesn’t know who they are-believe me she does, it’s just that the blood lines are sometimes so convoluted that I stop listening, hence the title) and I’m about as interested in the conversation as a four-year old is in Nuclear Arms dismantlement.

But, you can’t ‘not’ listen, and somehow you get sucked in and just when I’m about to find out why Aunt Whoitz and Aunt Whatitz hate each other (this week) suddenly, without warning Miss Cathy would stop interrupt her own story and say, “Shoot, what’s that word I wanted to say?”

While she looks around the room as if the word is hiding behind a chair I start ‘free associating’, saying anything that comes to my mind, “uhh,.. move, blow my brains out, slap myself unconscious, move”

“No, no,” she’d say, “that’s not it. Darn, what was I talking about? Oh yes, now what was I trying to say?”

And so it goes, if she didn’t find her “word” we’d either move on to another topic (meaning another relative) or that would be my cue to escape to my room. Sometimes she’d actually find the word, sometimes in the moment and sometimes in the middle of another story.

Oftentimes though, the word is just…gone and her reaction is usually frustration and anger. I’ve found that her emotional reaction varies depending on her overall mood or the time of day. She’s not a “Sundowner”, a person with Alzheimer’s whose symptoms seem to deteriorate as day turns to night. No, it just seems to me that if she “loses” a word in the evening she’s more apt to be more upset because it’s the end of the day and she’s already tired.

Her stories may not fascinate me as they once did, but I still try to listen, even though I‘ve heard most of them more times than I care to remember but now that I think of it that could be a good thing because as she loses a word here or there I’m more apt to be able to pick it up and give it back to her.

So, her words may not be lost after all, she’s just didn’t realize that she gave them to me.

Ahh-choo

Posted in October by

I was sick with a cold most of last week and have just come back to the land of the living.

At the first sign of my cold Miss Cathy started to hover, trying to mother me but I shoo-ed her away with my best, “It’s only a cold”, telling her that I’d be fine once it’d run it’s course. After all, it was only just a cold. I’m lucky that I’m in reasonable health and not plagued by the usual maladies, aches and pains that a lot of my contemporaries have.
After all, I’m fifty-two and that is an age where the body starts to betray us if we’re not careful.

I’m used to living alone and this was the first time in a lonnnng time that someone has been around to witness every sniffle and see the trail of discarded, crumpled, pieces of toilet paper that I use to blow my nose and leave wadded up in my room on tabletops, the bed, the desk or any other surface I happen to be near at the time, stopping to picks them up much later when they look like faded, white flowers littering my bedroom.

Disgusting I know but that’s ‘single person’ behavior-when you live alone (no matter how fastidious, neat and tidy one might be otherwise) a cold is when (for me anyway) my inner “Oscar Madison” comes out (the slob half of Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple”).

I don’t think I’d been sick around my mother since I was a teenager so I’d forgotten how she behaves. In the last year I’d grown accustomed to my role of taking care of her so it was odd to be in a position where she was back in her role as caregiver to me.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with having Miss Cathy take care of me, what adult doesn’t like to return to childhood (if only for a moment) and be doted on by a parent, taking you back to the days when you didn’t have a care in the world and you knew because you were sick that whatever you wanted only had to be asked for.

But, life as I know it is now is focused on me taking care of her and (hopefully) making her days as carefree as possible.

Besides, what was okay at six or even sixteen isn’t as easy to accept on this side of life, that awkward age when at fifty-two you’re no longer middle aged (how many one hundred and four year olds do you know?) and you’re not quite “old” –yet, and your seventy three year old mother is futzing with your pillows and insisting that you eat and drink when all you want to do is curl up into a ball and die (in between blowing your brains out into toilet paper).

Add to that Miss Cathy bringing me concoctions like hot tea with orange juice. After I took a few sips of the god awful brew I asked her what was in the tea and she replied, “I didn’t have any lemons so I added the orange juice because you know, orange juice is good for you when you have a cold.”

Ye, I agree. But not together-hot!

Then there were the times that she woke me up-just to make sure that I was sleeping (as apposed too?….I know I’m her baby boy and everything but the possibility of me being a victim of SIDS is long past.)

And there was the trepidation I’d feel whenever she’d come into my room with a tray carrying a bowl of “Chicken soup”. I could never be quite sure what she may have added to the broth-it’s not like I was expecting dead rat over rice under the cloche like in “What ever happened to Baby Jane?” but still, there were some questionable ingredients in her soups-like whole cloves of garlic (to open up my sinuses or to ward off vampires I guess) and in the same bowl there might be noodles and rice-starch much?!

But, I drank her tea (or as much as I could stomach) and I ate the food that she brought me because I could see that she was enjoying the role-reversal-and believe me without her help I probably would have been sicker a lot longer. I think she felt good to be back in charge and not the person waiting for their pills, meals or to be helped in the bathroom.

For a few days she got to be who she used to be for me; my protector, provider and confidant and I gotta say, that was worth a few sniffles.

Out with the old-in with the (not quite) new

Posted in October by

One day I found myself standing in the small appliance aisle at Target shopping for an electric can-opener. We needed a new one (again) because Miss Cathy had gone through two since I’d moved in-not mention the two hand-held can-openers she’d also broken.

The latest malfunction occurred when she tried to open a can with a flip top lid. I was in my room working when I heard a horrific noise (it sounded like a couple of drunken cats singing through auto-tune). At first I ignored it but couldn’t the second time and went into the kitchen to investigate.

When I entered the room there she was, standing with the mutilated (and unopened) can in one hand and a perplexed expression on her face. I took the can from her, pulled the flip top lid and poured the contents into the waiting saucepan on the stove top.

“You can’t try to open cans with the electric can opener that already have a flip top,” I explained to her. “See, it’s even got a graphic on the top of the can. It’s a drawing of an opener inside a red circle with a line drawn through it to tell you not to use a can opener.””

“Oh, is that what that is” she said unfazed, stirring the sauce with a wood spoon,” I couldn’t tell what the was without my reading glasses on.”

“Well, that’s it for this can-opener.” I said as I unplugged it and threw it in the garbage can before going back to work in my room.

So, that’s how I came to be standing in this century’s version of “Woolworth’s” about to pay another $25.00 for a small kitchen appliance that had about as much chance of seeing in the New Year as an open bottle of good champagne.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, I found myself putting the Hamilton Beach product back on the shelf, leaving the store and driving to one of the second-hand stores that I scavenge for the occasional mid-century piece of furniture or object d’art.

It’d dawned on me standing at the register in Target that I’d spent about $75.00 on electric can openers since I’d moved here over a year ago (and I’d yet to replace the skillets and saucepans that Miss Cathy had decimated-usually by forgetting that the burner was on high and walking away, scorching the pan-not to mention burning whatever was in it. And there was the ruined Teflon surfaces that she’d scratched up using silverware or other metal to stir or turn the food in the pans).

I’d realized that it was getting pretty expensive to replace things around the apartment and if I’m here for the marathon I’d have to pace myself financially to go the distance.
The appliances, the cookware…. the telephone, it was all just more collateral damage of the disease.

That day in Target I’d come to realize that places like the Goodwill, Valu Village and other second-hand stores are gold mines for the things that I needed as well as the fun things that I wanted.

Why pay retail for things you know your loved one with dementia are going to break (eventually-but not intentionally) when there is a low-cost alternative for those with a discerning eye.

Of course one would have to be very selective about the things they bought but I’ve gotta say, a lot of the second-hand stores have merchandise that’s in very good condition and some even have brand new items from stores that are over-stock that they sell at a greatly reduced price.

I suggest finding second-hand and thrift stores in/around or near upscale neighborhoods (their cast-offs are usually always of a higher quality than those of people on lower-income brackets).

For example, instead of paying $20 to $35 dollars for a new can opener I bought one (that had been “gently used”) for $6.00 (and it was a Hamilton Beach appliance) and it works great. I got the same bargains for the cookware, too. I paid $5 and $10 dollars for pans that would easily cost $50.00 or more at Macy’s.

The way I see it, Miss Cathy still deserves the best-I’m just giving her the best that someone else had purchased first.

So now she can break and burn with abandon (because we all know it’s just a matter of time before it happens again) and the can-opener’s days are numbered but I don’t have to worry about counting because I know where to get a quality back up cheap.