Mom was fixated today on her name being Julia. Frances. Loyall.
She said it over and over, conversationally, for 15 minutes, until I got out my phone and looked up the version of "Julia" in which John Lennon sings alone with one guitar. I cranked up the sound and suddenly she was talking away.
But I couldn't understand her over the song.
I lowered the volume, and just like that she stopped talking.
Sunny has been telling me that the aides are putting Mom's dirty socks in the top drawer of her nightstand instead of the linen cart on the hall.
Sure enough, the top drawer was full of socks, some of which did not have partners.
Why? "They are lazy," Sunny said.
Monday, October 23, 2017
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Yellow Rose
Intelligent people don't stop being intelligent because they are demented, not in my experience.
My mother-in-law, during the dementia after her stroke that was worsened by Percocet and morphine, became playful and goofy, but she wasn't stupid.
And my dear Mom sometimes gives me her familiar acute glances that suggest she’s taking things in and thinking them over, putting two and two together with a grain of salt.
I brought her a vase of three yellow roses Sunday, and it led to a wonderful, happy visit in which we sang bits of the Yellow Rose of Texas, which, turns out, was originally a sad song about separated slaves, who knew? We certainly didn’t when we were little and it was fun to sing together.
I like singing with and for my mom. She is the most appreciative playmate of all.
There was a political talk show on AETN that she had been watching, and every so often she would toss words like "the uninsured" in with the lyrics of “Yellow Rose.” It was pretty odd but also suspiciously smart sounding, as though she was not just confused.
During this visit she kept asking if she was in her big black truck, or telling me that she was in her big black truck, until finally I got it: The big black truck is her big black bed. When she’s in her gerichair and she asks if she still has her big black truck, she means she wants to be back in her bed.
She absolutely loves the new soft blanket, which is gray and covered with pink and white flowers of some sort. I thought they were cherry blossoms, but they might be dogwood. She calls them her roses, and her embroidery. She laughs and holds the blanket up and says, “This is my embroidery. Oh God, I need a big box for it.” And she says, “This is my embroidery, it keeps me warm on a cold winter’s night.”
Stupid people do not talk about “a cold winter’s night.” That is some smart people talk, right there.
My mother-in-law, during the dementia after her stroke that was worsened by Percocet and morphine, became playful and goofy, but she wasn't stupid.And my dear Mom sometimes gives me her familiar acute glances that suggest she’s taking things in and thinking them over, putting two and two together with a grain of salt.
I brought her a vase of three yellow roses Sunday, and it led to a wonderful, happy visit in which we sang bits of the Yellow Rose of Texas, which, turns out, was originally a sad song about separated slaves, who knew? We certainly didn’t when we were little and it was fun to sing together.
I like singing with and for my mom. She is the most appreciative playmate of all.
There was a political talk show on AETN that she had been watching, and every so often she would toss words like "the uninsured" in with the lyrics of “Yellow Rose.” It was pretty odd but also suspiciously smart sounding, as though she was not just confused.
During this visit she kept asking if she was in her big black truck, or telling me that she was in her big black truck, until finally I got it: The big black truck is her big black bed. When she’s in her gerichair and she asks if she still has her big black truck, she means she wants to be back in her bed.
She absolutely loves the new soft blanket, which is gray and covered with pink and white flowers of some sort. I thought they were cherry blossoms, but they might be dogwood. She calls them her roses, and her embroidery. She laughs and holds the blanket up and says, “This is my embroidery. Oh God, I need a big box for it.” And she says, “This is my embroidery, it keeps me warm on a cold winter’s night.”
Stupid people do not talk about “a cold winter’s night.” That is some smart people talk, right there.
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Past time
It is Sunday morning.
I am drinking a green smoothie flavored with mint and flecked with darker green leafy bits. A smeared up persimmon is in there, too.
The National Public Radio team is interviewing people whose assumptions have been challenged by the mass murder in Las Vegas last week, including a gun dealer who sold that man one of his guns.
I had a bad dream last night in which the last of my co-workers had already left the paper and moved on to better paying jobs they liked much better, leaving me to ... what? Be the newspaper alone?
I have been sitting here working on my good attitude, trying to imagine what I might be asked in public Tuesday night about the 40 years of my one and only life that I have spent as a relatively unimportant and uninvolved and yet for some reason protected member of the statewide daily newspaper staff.
I have been trying to become calm.
It is past time for me to get in my clattering old car and drive the 35 minutes across the river to see my rigid mother in the nursing home.
God help me, I do not want to.
I am drinking a green smoothie flavored with mint and flecked with darker green leafy bits. A smeared up persimmon is in there, too.
The National Public Radio team is interviewing people whose assumptions have been challenged by the mass murder in Las Vegas last week, including a gun dealer who sold that man one of his guns.
I had a bad dream last night in which the last of my co-workers had already left the paper and moved on to better paying jobs they liked much better, leaving me to ... what? Be the newspaper alone?
I have been sitting here working on my good attitude, trying to imagine what I might be asked in public Tuesday night about the 40 years of my one and only life that I have spent as a relatively unimportant and uninvolved and yet for some reason protected member of the statewide daily newspaper staff.
I have been trying to become calm.
It is past time for me to get in my clattering old car and drive the 35 minutes across the river to see my rigid mother in the nursing home.
God help me, I do not want to.
Saturday, October 7, 2017
Reassurance
Song has inspired me into wearing a Fitbit, and it has been telling me helpful things.
For instance, I am getting more than 8 hours of sleep a night even though I often wake up for an hour and a half at 2 or 3:30.
I lie there fretting or weeping or day-dreaming pottery — whatever the spinning wheel lands upon — but eventually I drift back to sleep and don’t wake up again until 7 or so.
So that’s good.
For instance, I am getting more than 8 hours of sleep a night even though I often wake up for an hour and a half at 2 or 3:30.
I lie there fretting or weeping or day-dreaming pottery — whatever the spinning wheel lands upon — but eventually I drift back to sleep and don’t wake up again until 7 or so.
So that’s good.
Whoa
Apparently I have osteoporosis now. Mom had that. I remember her telling me that she had been diagnosed and what a bother it was. Her doctor had scolded her that she had the worst case of bone thinning he'd ever seen on someone without a fracture. He was just a child, she preferred her old doctor, his father. But she was going to go ahead and take the drug he wanted her to anyway, Fosamax.
She was on the other end of the phone, and I was tucked into Michael’s ratty royal blue La-Z-Boy in the corner in our piano room, away from the noise of the TV. I wanted to relax and enjoy chatting with her.
There was a period there when we did do that, after Dad died and Ben left. She would call me or sometimes I would call her and we’d talk for a long time. I remember vaguely worrying that she was doing more to keep our relationship alive than I was. Also, that she had a lot going on in her life. Also, that things must not have been terrible because when things were terrible, she did not call on the phone. When things were terrible, she fell silent.
I have gotten used to believing that was a really long time ago.
But then today, because apparently I have osteoporosis, I asked the girls (my nieces) if they remembered how old Mom was when she took the Fosamax. I was thinking it must have been soon after my father died, maybe even the year he died, 1988. But Song remembers that she was in high school, and so it would have been 2004. Maybe 2005.
That recently? Can it have been such a short time ago that Mom's voice was in my ear, telling me things I didn’t already know? And listening to me going on and on, listening to me not listening to her.
Set aside my alarm that if it truly was 2004 or so when she dealt with her bone density that means she made it into her late 70s or early 80s with decently functioning bones, while I am falling apart in my 61st year:
MOM HAS NOT BEEN GONE VERY LONG.
I can’t believe that. It feels like forever.
She was on the other end of the phone, and I was tucked into Michael’s ratty royal blue La-Z-Boy in the corner in our piano room, away from the noise of the TV. I wanted to relax and enjoy chatting with her.
There was a period there when we did do that, after Dad died and Ben left. She would call me or sometimes I would call her and we’d talk for a long time. I remember vaguely worrying that she was doing more to keep our relationship alive than I was. Also, that she had a lot going on in her life. Also, that things must not have been terrible because when things were terrible, she did not call on the phone. When things were terrible, she fell silent.
I have gotten used to believing that was a really long time ago.
But then today, because apparently I have osteoporosis, I asked the girls (my nieces) if they remembered how old Mom was when she took the Fosamax. I was thinking it must have been soon after my father died, maybe even the year he died, 1988. But Song remembers that she was in high school, and so it would have been 2004. Maybe 2005.
That recently? Can it have been such a short time ago that Mom's voice was in my ear, telling me things I didn’t already know? And listening to me going on and on, listening to me not listening to her.
Set aside my alarm that if it truly was 2004 or so when she dealt with her bone density that means she made it into her late 70s or early 80s with decently functioning bones, while I am falling apart in my 61st year:
MOM HAS NOT BEEN GONE VERY LONG.
I can’t believe that. It feels like forever.
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Thank you, earth.
Sunday I read Mom a children’s picture book, “Thank You Bees.”
Through a series of paired pages illustrated with bold and bright collages that feature a happy boy, it describes a gentle universe.
In each pair, the first two pages state a simple fact, like “Sun gives us light.” The second two pages respond: “Thank you, sun.”
Bees give us honey.
Thank you, bees.
Sheep give us wool.
Thank you, sheep.
Trees give us wood.
Thank you, trees.
Although she said nothing while I read it with her once, during the second time through, she murmured, "Bees, give us ... honey." And smiled with weak pleasure.
She said that phrase again another few times during the hour I was with her, and her eyes crinkled in what I am sure was, yes, pleasure.
Everyone should read this book! It’s a powerful little book.
Through a series of paired pages illustrated with bold and bright collages that feature a happy boy, it describes a gentle universe.
In each pair, the first two pages state a simple fact, like “Sun gives us light.” The second two pages respond: “Thank you, sun.”Bees give us honey.
Thank you, bees.
Sheep give us wool.
Thank you, sheep.
Trees give us wood.
Thank you, trees.
Although she said nothing while I read it with her once, during the second time through, she murmured, "Bees, give us ... honey." And smiled with weak pleasure.
She said that phrase again another few times during the hour I was with her, and her eyes crinkled in what I am sure was, yes, pleasure.
Everyone should read this book! It’s a powerful little book.
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