Ailantha - Blog

My Mom, Elizabeth Warren, And Me

1/22/2020

       What do my mom and Elizabeth Warren have in common? Can you tell from the above photos?
       In case you can't, the answer is great skin for their age. Elizabeth Warren is 70. My mom is pushing 100.
        Oh, my mom has a few wrinkles. But only a few. And again, she is ninety-nine and seven-twelfths.
        The thing is, my mom has always had beautiful skin - as apparently Elizabeth Warren has - with nary a visible bump or pore. And I don't know about Elizabeth Warren, but as far as I know my mother has never consulted a dermatologist, and the only skin care products she ever availed herself of were her bar of Ivory soap,

...as I recall it looking in my youth,

...and her jar of Ponds cold cream.

     My mother swore by washing her face morning and night with Ivory soap then slathering on the Ponds, and she preached this beauty regimen to anyone who'd listen, which wasn't me.
      "All you need is soap and water and Ponds," my mother preached to me from my bad-skinned teen-aged years on through my not-great skinned adult years.
       However I, heedless youngster that I was, had less than zero interest in being caught dead using what I considered to be my mother's greasy old lady goop from the 1930's.

      So, unlike my mother, I never used Ponds, and she gave up trying to convert me decades ago.
      Fast forward to last week when I was reading the Life & Arts section of the Columbus Dispatch and came across an article on an interview Elizabeth Warren did with Cosmopolitan magazine in which she revealed that the secret to her beautiful skin is...Pond's cold cream morning and night! Exclusively. Meaning she uses Ponds and only Ponds on her face. No soap. Elizabeth warren doesn't wash her face. Ever. Ponds in the morning and Ponds in the night. That's it.
      Which sounds to me like dermatological blasphemy and felonious face abuse.

And yet, there she is, with a face as smooth and dewy as a baby's elbow,

...and here I am, two years younger than she, with my face a field of wrinkles and age spots.

   A couple of years ago I saw a dermatologist for a suspicious-looking mole. She pronounced the mole as nothing, but suggested that I try a .5 ounce jar of $75 dollar cream to help with all the fine lines crisscrossing my sexagenarian punim.
      Back when I was young a large jar of Ponds cost about a dollar. Today a 6.5 oz jar costs $4.99.
      I really should have listened to my mother.

       Reference:
     https://www.dispatch.com/entertainment/20200117/would-elizabeth-warrens-skin-care-regimen-work-for-you

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A Dilemma

1/18/2020

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Back to my mother.
It's been a little over two months - though it feels indefinably longer - since my ninety-nine-year-old mother left her home in Seaford, Delaware for her new home at the Sunrise senior care facility in Gahanna, Ohio,

...and I became her guardian (See posts from 11/16/19 - 1/8/2020).

   From the time of her arrival at Sunrise I endeavored to do everything I could think of to make my mother comfortable and happy as she transitioned into her new home.
     Mayhaps I sometimes overdid it.
    My mother being a person who always liked to be out and about and still pretty energetic for pushing a hundred years, I figured that going out to eat would be an enjoyable, beneficial, and doable outing for her.
      Granted, taking mom out was an undertaking: bundling her into her coat, hat, scarf, and gloves; helping her into her wheelchair then tucking her in with a lap blanket; maneuvering her into the car then folding the wheelchair and hefting it into the back of the car; getting mom from the car back into the chair then into the restaurant; getting her out of her wheel chair, hat, gloves, scarf and coat and seated in a chair; then either finding a spot in the restaurant to store the wheelchair or running it back out to the car; then, after we were finished eating, doing the whole process in reverse.
      But after a few times and with the assistance of my faithful, helpful hubby Tom, we got it down to a drill, and Tom and I got into the routine of taking mom out for 8 am Mass on Sundays followed by brunch, and out for lunch a time or two or three during the week.
      On the days we didn't go out I'd visit my mom at Sunrise and hang out for an hour or so, often bringing sweets or snacks or any article that she might need or have asked for.
     Over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays some of my siblings, my children and my grand children poured into town to spend time with mom, and her days were full of visitors,

...activities,

...and outings.

     Too many visitors, activities, and outings, we were to learn, when two days after Christmas she seemed depressed and tired out.
       Turned out that she was, in fact, tired out. Wiped out, in fact, and, as pointed out to us by one of the Sunrise caregivers, in need of a day or two of peace and quiet (see post from 1/2/2020, "Epilogue").
      But, after the previous weeks of frequent outings, visits, and holiday excitement, my mom was to have a sudden spell of more peace and quiet than she'd had since her arrival at Sunrise; by December twenty-ninth all the visiting relatives had returned home and I was headed off to Los Angeles to spend eleven days visiting my daughter, son-in-law and grand daughters.
      My mom would have no outings during that time and only evening pop-in visits from my daughter Theresa.

     I worried that, in spite of her new friends at Sunrise and her self-appointed task of assisting with the care and feeding of her fellow residents in her Memory Care neighborhood (see "Epilogue"), my mom might be feeling lonely for me or longing for one of our outings.
      But no. When I returned from my trip to Los Angeles I found my mom looking better and in better spirits than when I'd left. I wondered if having some time without me constantly hanging around and schlepping her out every other day had actually helped her relax, adjust and settle into her still relatively new surroundings on her own terms. The Sundowners - the state of anxiety that often grips elderly people - even seemed to have abated, as I noticed when I visited her in the early evening.
       In fact, one evening when I visited her a little before dinner time she was sitting contently around the dining room table with some of the other residents. I sat and chatted with her and her friends for about ten minutes, at which point she told me that I should go ahead and go, as she wanted me to get home safely. I think she really just wanted to get back to her socializing, such as it was.

Or, as my son Tommy put it, "Sometimes you just wanna hang out with your friends without dragging your kid around."

     As for missing all the outings: my mom didn't appear to notice that she hadn't been out for a couple of weeks. In fact, whenever I'd ask her what she did during the day she'd usually tell me that she and some of the ladies had gone out for lunch or dinner to to Mass together. She seemed to be living a very full, satisfying life in her mind, along with her de facto relationships with her Sunrise friends and fellow residents.
      All of which made me wonder whether I should take my mom out any more at all?
      Why have her woken up at 6:30 am on Sunday mornings to be taken out to Mass in a church if she believes she's going to Mass in a church whether she does or doesn't? Why drag her to a restaurant if she gets the same satisfaction from believing she's gone to a restaurant? After all, if taking my mom out is a haul for Tom and me, it's likewise just as tiring for her being the haulee.
      And, I wondered, with the colder weather upon us and all the sickness that's been going around, is it even healthy to be taking her out, tiring her out, and risking her picking up one of the infinite bugs - or, God forbid super-bugs - always stalking crowded public places?
       And, of course, there's always the risk that, careful as we all are with my mom, she could miss a beat getting out of the car or while in the church or restaurant and fall. After all, relatively good shape that she's in, she's not getting younger by the day.
       On the other hand, almost every time I visited my mom since my return she'd suggest that we go out for dinner. Whether it was morning, afternoon or evening, she'd suggest we go out for dinner. Even if she'd told me just a few minutes earlier that she'd gone out for dinner that day. It made me think that she must actually want to go out for dinner for real.
     Or did she? In any case, I always told her that we'd go out tomorrow.
    And so I spent about a week ping-ponging back and forth whether or not I should take my mother out, or whether she'd be better off just staying at Sunrise.
     Finally yesterday while visiting my mom I asked one of the nurses on duty if she thought it would be okay for me to take my mother out. She thought it would be.
     A little later while I was at the reception desk signing out from my visit I poured out my dilemma to the friendly concierge at the desk and asked her if she thought that, under the circumstances, I should be taking my 99-year-old mother out.
     The concierge replied that I absolutely should. She said that everybody needs to get out now and then, even my mother, and more than I might realize. "Take your mother out," she told me.
      So we did. Tom, Theresa, and I took her out today for lunch at the Rusty Bucket.

It was fine, and all the maneuvering and hauling and hefting notwithstanding, we all had a really nice time.
After we returned her to Sunrise my mom thanked me for the movie.

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Hope Was In The Air

1/16/2020

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You didn't happen to watch the Democratic debate the other night, did you?
Well, don't feel bad, nobody else watched it, either. Or just about nobody. Or at least just about nobody I know,

...and I run with a pretty political bunch.

So if hardly anybody I know watched it, I figure hardly anybody at all must have watched it.
I nearly didn't watch it myself. Ever since the first debate back in August, which I found to be a nice getting-to-know-you event (see post from 6/28/2019, "The Air Is Hummin'), I haven't watched much of the subsequent debates, which, after the first one, seemed more like tiresome affairs with a dozen or so people vying to get a word in edgewise as opposed to imparting any relevant enlightenment.
And besides, there's so much alarming, consequential news constantly coming at us, day and night, night and day,

...that it's hard to scrape up enough left-over interest in current national events not of the highest level of heart-thumping urgency. Which the Democratic debate somehow didn't seem to be.
However, with expectations low and attention span at half-mast, I decided to watch at least the first few minutes of the debate.
And I'm glad that I did. Because, from the first few minutes onward, this one was a really good debate - at last.

With only six candidates on the stage:

Joe Biden,

Elizabeth Warren,

Amy Klobuchar,

Bernie Sanders,

Pete Buttigieg,

...and Tom Steyer,

...there was time for each of them to present and enlarge upon their plans in detail, and everyone had plans: plans for dealing with Iran and the middle east; trade plans; plans for affordable health care, child care, and higher education; plans to address climate change, environmental issues, and the economy.
And everyone spoke so coherently. Lots of straightforward “yes’s” and “no’s” to questions. So much meat and potatoes. So satisfying.
And there was so much civility among the candidates, and so much agreement on the issues and on policy. Sometimes the candidates even referenced or agreed with or emphasized each other’s ideas.

There was a sense of collegiality among them.

   They even shared an occasional joke.
      And though the candidates generally spun their ideas in their own way and in their own direction, there was general agreement over goals and principles.
      Nobody went after each other. Nobody’s fangs were bared or claws were out. I liked it.
      I especially liked that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders cordially agreed to disagree over whether Sanders once told Warren that a woman couldn't be elected President, and when questioned by one of the moderators on the subject neither took the bait to fight.

(Of course there is speculation that the two took the fight out behind the school yard for a moment after the debate was over, but in view of how smoothly they played off any contention during the debate I think we should just let that moment go.)

Listening to these candidates debate felt like, after having been subjected for three years to a steady menu of head-banging, heavy death metal hard rock,

...suddenly hearing the smooth, dulcet tones of fine classical music.
Nor did any of the candidates waste time excessively slamming Donald Trump, but rather used their time to talk about their own ideas for bettering our country.
And what good, sensible, ideas. I found myself suddenly feeling optimistic and hopeful that big ideas were possible, big ideas that really could reform health care in this country, save the planet from climate change, pull us back from the brink of war with Iran.

And suddenly optimistic and hopeful that someone up on that stage could deliver us from Donald Trump.

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A Trustworthy Face At The Los Angeles Airport

1/9/2020

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Yesterday, after a 10-day visit to Los Angeles with our daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren,

...Tom and I were waiting around in the Los Angeles airport,

…already crowded at 6 am,

… for our flight back to Columbus.

We were sitting at an electronics charging station charging our stuff,

…when a young guy sitting in one of the spaces in a row of seats on the other side of the charging station called over to me and asked me if I would keep an eye on his things,

…his things consisting of a couple of bags and a nice-looking computer tablet.

     I said, “Sure” and walked over to take the seat next to his stuff.
     Having apparently expected me to just keep an eye on his stuff from my spot several yards across the room, the youngster said with a smile, “Wow, you’re really rising to the occasion,” and thanked me.
     “Well,” I joked, “if I’m gonna babysit, I’m gonna babysit.”

The guy was gone for about five minutes, and I sat there looking at all the people around me, most of whom were probably as honest as could be and would never dream of stealing another’s unguarded property,

...still, you never know, and there are enough dishonest people out there that things are stolen all the time.
And so I pondered being deemed by a total stranger in an airport as trustworthy to guard his things.
And it occurred to me that, for all the times in my life that people have sized me up as a push-over, clueless, incompetent, addle-brained and helpless; for all the times I’ve actually been all those things, along with confused, indecisive and insecure; for all the dumb, wrong, ignorant and regrettable decisions and choices I’ve made,

…at least I’ve always had a face that people read as honest and trustworthy.

“In the eye abides the heart,” wrote Stephen Foster.

Or at least that’s true in my case.

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A Friend Lost And Found

1/8/2020

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…Continued from last time:

The morning of the first day after my mother arrived at her new neighborhood at the Assisted Living unit of Sunrise of Gahanna,

...she made a friend, whom I’ll call Rose, which is not her name.
My mother actually made several friends that first day,

…though Rose was to become her Bestie.

     As my mother said to Rose shortly after they met, “It seems that you and I have a lot in common.” My mom and Rose appeared to enjoy passing the time together and they always sat next to each other at meals.
     And so it hurt my heart when, three weeks later on the day when my mom was transferred from Assisted Living to the Memory Care Unit whose residents were in various stages of Alzheimer’s or dementia, my mom sat down for her first meal at the dining room table, looked at the seat next to her and asked, “Where’s whats-her-name?” I knew by “what’s-her-name” my mom meant Rose.
     Fast-forward three weeks later to Christmas Day. While visiting my mother in her Memory Care neighborhood I caught sight of Rose leaving the neighborhood with her daughter. I went over to say “hi” to Rose and her daughter, who was taking her mother out for the afternoon. I learned that Rose, too, had just been transferred from Assisted Living to Memory Care. Neither Rose nor my mother appeared to recognize each other that day.
    Three days later I left with Tom for a ten-day visit to Los Angeles to spend some time with our daughter, son-in-law, granddaughters,

...and grandpups Tyson and Pinky Poo.

While we were gone my daughter Theresa took over visiting my mom.

     Theresa and I chatted every few days, during which she gave me updates on my mom’s spirits and well-being.
     During one of these updates a few days after I’d left, Theresa informed me that when she arrived at the Memory Care that day she found my mom and Rose sitting on the living room sofa watching TV and holding hands.
      The two friends had found each other again.

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Epilogue

1/2/2020

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...Continued from yesterday:
      One mid-morning a few days after my mom moved to the Sunrise Memory Care unit I came for a visit and found her sitting at the dining room table with some of the residents. One of the more high-functioning residents from the other Memory Care neighborhood down the hall had come over to my mom's neighborhood and was sitting at the table.
      "She's so sweet, she's my new friend," said the woman, referring to my mother.
      "Isn't that a pretty blouse she's wearing?" said my mother of her new friend.
      My mother then proceeded to tell me how well some of the other residents had eaten their breakfasts that morning. Evidently my mom helps with the feeding of the residents who need help then she eats her own meal afterward.
       If I bring my mother cookies or other treats I make sure to bring enough for all the residents as my mom likes to offer around, pressing cookies into the hands of the non-verbal residents, who nonetheless are responsive enough to take and eat a cookie.
        I visit my mother every day. Or at least I did until the Christmas holidays, when my sister and other visiting relatives sometimes substituted for me. And then I was out of town for a long weekend in December, during which time my daughter or son popped in for visits. And then I stayed away for a couple of days when I was sick with a cold.
         In any case, I've visited my mother most days since her arrival at Sunrise. Since her move to Memory Care I generally find her to be her sunny old self. But sometimes I'll find her gripped with anxiety and worry over herself or one of her fellow residents, all of whom she worries over like a mother hen. She's prone to Sundowners, a phenomenon explained to me by the Sunrise staff as the tendency for the elderly to be gripped by anxiety and confusion in the evening. Subsequently I try to spend time with my mom in the morning or early afternoon, before Sundowners sets in.
         Still, I believe that the wonderful caregivers at Sunrise do their best to give my mom and all the residents as good a life as they can, and we, my mother's family, do what we can to make life good for her,

...taking her for 8am Mass every Sunday followed by brunch,

...going out for lunch from time to time,

...here at the Rusty Bucket in Gahanna,

...and taking her to a holiday party hosted by one of my friends.

On Saturday, December 21, the first round of holiday relatives arrived, my daughter, son-in-law, and grand daughters from Los Angeles,

...who joined us the following day for Sunday brunch,

...then the next day spent the afternoon with her at Sunrise.

The following day my sister Romaine arrived and the next day, Christmas Eve, she and my grand daughters spent the afternoon at Sunrise with Mom making Christmas cookies for her Memory Care neighbors in the kitchen of my mom's neighborhood (each neighborhood has its own kitchen).

Afterwards my mom cleaned up the area and washed the cookie pans.
The next day, Christmas Day, we took my mom to Christmas Mass then brought her to our house for lunch with the family.

Then my sister and I visited with her for a while in the afternoon.

     The day after Christmas my sister again took one of my grand daughters over to Sunrise to spend the afternoon with my mom.
     The next day, Thursday, my brother and his wife arrived from New Jersey for a visit, and I suggested that on the following day, Friday, we - all ten of us - take my mom out for to an early lunch.
        But when my brother and his wife arrived on Friday to pick up my mom for lunch she had no desire to go. In fact, she appeared to have no desire, period. She seemed 'way down in the dumps. She said her foot hurt. We wondered if a hurting foot would be sufficient cause to send our mom into what appeared to be a state of depression. Or was Sundowners setting on my mother earlier, and more virulently, than usual that day?
        Concerned, my brother approached one of the caregivers and told her about our mom's seemingly depressed mental state.
         The caregiver elucidated what, in retrospect, probably should have been obvious to us all: Consider, said the caregiver, that you've all been running your ninety-nine-year-old mother non-stop for the past week: taking her out, visiting her every day, bringing gifts over, bringing the children over, making cookies. The poor woman, said the caregiver, is wiped out. Let her rest today and you'll see, she'll be better.
         And so we all did let my mom rest that day, and sure enough, by the next day she was happy to see us again, and her foot no longer hurt.
   In the future I must try to remember that, at ninety-nine-and-a-half, my mother isn't as young as she used to be.

But sometimes that is hard to remember.

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A Good Priest

12/31/2019

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....Continued from yesterday:
       My mother's anxiety had nothing to do with her imminent move from Assisted Living to Memory Care; she still had no idea she was moving. My mother was in a state of turmoil because she needed to talk to a priest. Or rather, she needed to talk to a priest because she was in a state of turmoil and needed to confess. Immediately.
        I tried to explain to my mother that it was unlikely that I could find a priest to come over and visit her that day, but that the following weekend I'd take her to the local Catholic church for Saturday afternoon confession.
        But she didn't want to wait until Saturday, she couldn't wait. She needed to see a priest right now. Her eyes were filled with desperation.
        I was seized with the terrible notion that maybe my mother, who'd always had a clairvoyant streak, was having a premonition of her death on this day and was seeking last rites before she died.
        I consoled her as best as I could and told her I'd look for a priest.
        In the meantime I suggested that she join the other residents in the Bistro where there was a special holiday musical performance,

...two harpists playing Christmas carol duets.

I left my mom to watch the harp performance while Tom and I helped the Sunrise relocate my mom's things from her old room,

...to her new room,

...which ended up looking nice and cozy enough once we'd gotten it set up.

     My mother enjoyed the harp concert, though after it was over she asked me if I'd found the priest yet. Of course I hadn't. Because I hadn't been looking for one. I'd been hoping she'd forget about it during the concert.
     The staff decided it might be best to let my mother have lunch in her old neighborhood then after lunch break it to her that she was moving and lead her directly to her new room in the Memory Care unit, which was what we did, putting the finishing touches on her new room while she ate lunch.
     To my great relief my mom appeared not to particularly mind the move to her new neighborhood and new room, and seemed to be distracted from her preoccupation with finding a priest by the newness of her surroundings and the kindness of the Memory Care staff, who were showering her with attention.
      Tom and I left my mom, hoping she'd acclimate and settle in a bit and maybe even forget about wanting to talk to a priest.
     When we returned to check on my mother a few hours hours later she was sitting in the Memory Care living room among the other residents, looking distressed.

The Memory Care living room.

      I asked my mom how she was doing
     "Terrible," she said sadly. "They're not going to let me go."
      My heart sank. My mother knows she's in a locked ward, I thought.
     But it turned out that wasn't what my mom meant. She explained to me that she'd gone off to look for a priest and they'd told her to come back, that there was no priest here.
      "But I know there's a priest here," she said, "there has to be. This is a Catholic place."
      When I told her that this wasn't a Catholic place she said, "I know it is. I saw nuns here."
     My mother had mistaken several of the caregivers, Muslim women wearing head scarves, for nuns.
       "I need a priest," my mother beseeched, "now."
       I decided I had to try and find my mother a priest. Now.
       I came up with the idea of calling the local Catholic parish where we'd been taking my mom to Mass every Sunday morning since her arrival. I thought maybe I could drive my mom over to the rectory to talk to one of the priests there. Or maybe one of them would at least talk to my mom on the phone. The church secretary was kind and sympathetic, but one of the priests was out of town and the other was unavailable until the next day. Would I like to call back tomorrow?
        For no other reason than that I didn't know what else to do, I called my sister-in-law, my mother's former guardian, in Seaford, Delaware. I told my sister-in-law of my mother's plight, but she had no more idea what to do than I did. However she agreed with me that it was unlikely that my mother would find peace until she'd made her confession to a priest.
        A little while after I'd hung up with my sister-in-law she called me back. My sister-in-law had called the parish office in Seaford and talked to the parish secretary there, who came up with the idea of calling a priest who'd been my mother's pastor there years ago, a kind, good-hearted man who'd since retired and moved to Annapolis, Maryland. The parish secretary called the priest, who told the secretary that he'd gladly hear my mother confession over the phone right then. So the parish secretary called my sister-in-law who called me. I could see the relief in my mother's face when I told her that Father would hear her confession over the phone.
        I called Father from my mother's room, then I handed her the phone, left the room, and shut the door.
        Out in the hallway I met one of the Memory Care caregivers who asked me if I had any ideas on the best way to handle my mom. I told her that my mom generally didn't need handling, that she was usually a friendly, nice person, but that today she'd been upset anxious over not being able to see a priest. The caregiver was understanding and sympathetic and said she'd be glad to pray with my mom if that would comfort her. I thanked her for her kindness.
       About fifteen minutes later my mom exited her room and handed me back my phone. Father was still on the line and wanted to talk to me. He assured me that my mom could call him whenever she wanted or needed to. I thanked him profusely.
        The ministrations of that kind priest dissipated my mother's fear and anxiety and she was now transformed back into her old good-natured self. She smiled at and gave a hug to the caregiver who'd asked me how to handle my mom.
         By then it was dinner time, and so the caregiver led my mom to the dining room and introduced her to her new neighbors.
           The following afternoon when I arrived at the Sunrise Memory Care unit, nervous to learn how my mom was faring, I asked the caregiver who I followed down the hallway to the unit how my mom was doing.
            "She's really being hard," I heard the caregiver say.
            "Oh, no," I said, "she's being hard?"
           The caregiver laughed and turned around to face me. "No, no," she said with a smile, "I said, 'she's a real sweet heart.' She's so nice. She helped me all day. She helped with the other residents and she helped feed the ones who needed help eating. She's a very nurturing person."
            "Well, she was a nurse," I said.
           I decided that the Sunrise staff knew what they were doing after all.
           And I sent up thoughts of gratitude for that good, kind-hearted priest.

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High Anxiety Before The Memory Care Move

12/30/2019

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…Continued from yesterday:
     My mother’s week-and-a-few-days-long reprieve at an end, she was moved on Monday, December 2, from her old new home at Sunrise Assisted Living to her new new home in the Sunrise Memory Care.
       I’d spent a portion of the previous night lying awake angsting. Though my mother had been in her Assisted Living neighborhood a little less than three weeks it somehow felt to me, strangely, as if she’d been living there for many months, so far back in time did my old life with my old preoccupations before her arrival seem. But how would my mother take the news of the move? How would she take leaving her friends? How would she adjust in the Memory Care unit?
        The Memory Care Unit, like the Assisted Living Unit, was divided into two neighborhoods.

Entrance to one of the two Memory Care Neighborhoods.

      The staff had informed me that one of the neighborhoods housed the higher-functioning residents, but that the anxiety level there was higher there than in the lower-functioning unit, and so they’d decided my mom would be better off in the low-functioning but less anxiety-filled neighborhood.
       And so my still-cognizant, still sociable, still-conversational ninety-nine-and-a-half-year-old mother who, despite her confusion still possessed a decent amount of joie de vivre, would find herself in an environment where she was the highest functioning of all the residents, most of whom spent their days staring blankly. And how would my poor mother deal with that? Would she herself quickly mentally degrade to the state of the dementia and Alzheimer's residents around her?
         What was the Sunrise staff thinking? I not-too-happily wondered.
         But what choice did I or my mother have? Thus I hoped that, by some miracle, this move would turn out to be not for the worst.
      I’d been told by the staff that I could help with the move if I wished, or not if I didn’t wish to, but I did wish to help, so on Monday morning Tom and I showed up to help with the move.
      As it turned out, all the residents in my mother’s Assisted Living neighborhood knew that my mom was moving out that morning. During her brief stay in the neighborhood my mother had managed to endear herself not only to her neighbors but to several of the residents of the other Assisted Living neighborhood, several of whose residents were now in the daily habit of meandering over to my mom’s neighborhood to hang out with her. I imagine they enjoyed soaking up her warmth and humor, which she hadn’t lost despite her sporadic mental confusion.
      On the morning of the move several residents approached me and told me how sorry they were that my mom was leaving.
      One resident looked around her then leaned closed to me and said softly, “I wish they’d let your mom stay here and move a couple other people away.”
       I laughed at that, pointing out to the resident that they were one of the people whose room my mom had invaded in the middle of the night.
       “I don’t care,” they said, “I still wish they’d let her stay here.”
        So do I, I thought to myself, not the least reason being that when I'd arrived that morning to help with the move I found my mother, for the first time since she'd arrived at Sunrise, in a terribly anxious, unhappy state.
          She knows, I thought, nobody told her, but somehow she knows.
          But as it turned out, my mom's sudden high anxiety, unlike mine, had nothing to do with her imminent move.
To be continued...

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A Reprieve

12/29/2019

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...Continued from December 14:
    But my mom did not end up moving the following day from Assisted Living to Memory Care.
   As it turned out, in the room I chose for my mom there were some stains in the carpeting that didn't come out with a shampooing and stain treatment so the director decided to have the carpeting replaced before my mom moved in.
     The carpeting replacement would take about a week, so my mother had a week's reprieve. Or at least that was the way I saw it. My mom didn't yet know she was moving.
       But I was glad, because the postponement of my mom's move would mean she would still be in her nice room in her lovely Assisted Living neighborhood for the following week, Thanksgiving week,

...during which time my sister Romaine would be visiting from Portland,

...and my daughter Claire and her hubby Miguel would be visiting from Chicago.

Romaine arrived on Monday, November 25, Claire and Miguel came the following day, and
for the next few days we did our best to regale my mom with love and attention.

Dennis, the Sunrise resident cat,

...who my mom believed was her cat,

...probably in no small part because Dennis likewise seemed to believe he was my mom’s cat, having taken up residence in her room shortly after she arrived,

...also shared in the attention, as well as copious amounts of cat treats.

In our mission to make this a happy, enjoyable week for Grammy - my mom’s grandmother handle - we not only spent lots of time with her at Sunrise,

…but we took her out for lunch every day.

Bob Evans on Tuesday,

Olive Garden on Wednesday,

O'Charley's on Friday.

We even took her out for lunch on Thanksgiving day, again to Bob Evans, the only restaurant we could find open that day and where, much to our dismay, the only menu choices were Thanksgiving dinner or a couple of breakfast items. But it was an outing, anyway.

That evening, while my sister spent her second turkey dinner of the day at Sunrise with my mom, the rest of us had Thanksgiving dinner – for some of us also the second turkey dinner of the day – at our house.

By Saturday morning all the out-of-town company had returned home, and with all the visitors gone and the flurry of activity over, I wondered if by Saturday afternoon my mom would be feeling suddenly let-down or lonely.
I went to visit her on Saturday afternoon and found her contentedly watching the Ohio State football game with some of her friends.

After the football game my mom went off to participate in a game of Ohio State Buckeyes Bingo and I went home, grasping at a strand of hope that maybe the Sunrise staff would surmise that the extra week of outings and family interactions had had a therapeutic effect on my mother’s cognitive process and that perhaps they’d let her try staying a bit longer in her Assisted Living neighborhood.
But no. The staff informed me that, though my mother may have seemed well enough with her family, she still frequently wandered around the building in confusion during the day and left her room to wander at night, too. Her week-long reprieve had been only that, a reprieve. She was still scheduled to move on Monday into the locked Memory Care Unit.

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Another Change

12/14/2019

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…Continued from yesterday:
    In the days following her arrival at the Sunrise Assisted Living my mother settled into her new neighborhood while I popped in to visit her once, twice, sometimes three times a day.
     The staff often assured me that my mom was doing wonderfully well, amazingly well for her age, and at one point one of the friendly staff members said to me, “You’re welcome to come over every day, but you know you don’t have to. And you don't have to feel guilty.”
    But I felt that I did have to. And it wasn't about guilt. Well, maybe it was, a little. But whatever my underlying interior motivation, I wanted to come every day.
     One day I met the daughter of one of the residents and we agreed that putting one’s mother into a care facility felt like putting one's small, vulnerable child into daycare 24/7. They were always on our minds. We worried about them, worried whether they were well, whether they were happy.

So Tom and I took my mom out for lunch.

Tommy and Theresa visited her in the evening.

On Sunday we took her to church then out for brunch,

...then later to our house for Sunday dinner

      At Sunrise she was making friends and endearing herself to the staff with her warm, funny charm.
       And though my mom appeared to be doing well and happy enough, there was no denying that she traveled in and out of a state of confusion. She wasn’t sure where she was or why she was there. She seemed to think that she’d be moving soon, though she didn’t know where she thought she was moving to, or, for that matter, where she’d just moved from. But on two occasions she took pictures down from the walls and wrapped them in clothing for the move. The aides had to re-hang her pictures.
        The nurses and aides informed me that she sometimes wandered around the building, lost and confused, and had to be walked back to her neighborhood. A couple of times she'd wandered into other residents' rooms in the middle of the night - most residents don't bother locking their doors - and flipped on their lights. One time she went around and said good-bye to the residents who were sitting in the living room, telling them that she loved them all and would pray for them all, and that she was leaving.
     It turned out she was right.
    A week and a day after my mother arrived at the Sunrise one of the nurses informed me that my mom was heading in a direction that would necessitate her moving from Assisted Living to Memory Care, "sooner rather than later." The nurse offered to give me a tour of the Memory Care unit the following evening.
     The following day was Thursday, November 21, one week before Thanksgiving, and that evening was the Sunrise Family Thanksgiving dinner, to which family members of the residents were invited to share a Thanksgiving meal.
     Tables were nicely set for the visiting families,

...and the staff served us a delicious turkey dinner, seconds optional,

...including a variety of yummy desserts.

After dinner I met up with the nurse who'd offered to show me the Memory Care unit.
On our way to the unit we passed pretty lounge that I hadn't seen before where Dennis the Sunrise cat apparently liked to hang.

It was such a cozy little spot that I thought I might not mind hanging there myself.

Like the Assisted Living, the Memory Care was divided into two neighborhoods,

...joined by a homey common area filled with objects that might resonate with people in dementia.

Unlike the Assisted Living, the Memory Care was a locked ward.
    The whole unit was considerably smaller than the Assisted Living wing and was well staffed, and the nurse assured me that my mother could wander to her heart's content here and that all the items in the unit were touchable, and if a resident picked up something and brought it to their room, well, that was permissible, too.
       There were residents sitting silently at tables or in chairs or wheel chairs and a few wandered about. The nurse showed me two vacant rooms, one in each neighborhood, one room that opened into the living room, the other set back down a short hallway.

The rooms looked smaller than my mother's current room, though the Sunrise Director later assured me that the Memory Care rooms weren't smaller than the Assisted Living rooms, just differently configured.
In any case, these rooms lacked the vanity with the extra cupboard space above and the mini-refrigerator below,

...and they also lacked the three rows of shelves built into the wall.

     And there was no shower in the bathroom. All the residents were bathed and showered by the care givers in a room called the Bathtique.
      Both rooms depressed me. The whole Memory Care unit made me sad. I hoped my mother wouldn't have to move here too soon. In fact, I hoped that maybe in time, in a few weeks or so, my mom would become acclimated to her new surroundings and maybe with some therapy her confusion would clear so that she would be able to stay in her present neighborhood with her new friends.
      "Which room would you like for your mother?" the nurse asked me.
      "Which room?" I asked. Now I was confused. "I need to pick out a room already? I mean, my mom's not moving right away, is she?"
      "Tomorrow," said the nurse.
      That was what she had meant by sooner rather than later.
      On our walk back from the Memory Care unit I struggled to hold back tears.

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<<Previous

My Mom, Elizabeth Warren, And Me

A Dilemma

Hope Was In The Air

A Trustworthy Face At The Los Angeles Airport

A Friend Lost And Found

Epilogue

A Good Priest

High Anxiety Before The Memory Care Move

A Reprieve

Another Change

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