Goodnight - again

It is 8 p.m. Sunday night. Mom has been to bed twice. The first time at 5:30 after having cake and ice cream with us, Mom came out of her room in her pajamas to say good-night. In spite of our urging, encouraging and engaging her to stay up longer, she went to bed. At 7:30 Joe came to the bedroom where I was ironing, to say that Mom was up and dressed and sitting at the table waiting for breakfast. It took me about 30 minutes to get her back to bed by doing the things that we normally do before turning in like covering the birds, starting the dishwasher, setting up the coffee pot, putting the little dog in the kennel and checking on locked doors. Joe gave her night time pills and water. Finally she headed back to her room and was lying down fully dressed when I got in there. I made light of being confused after a short nap, thinking that it should be morning when she refused to put her pajamas on. With more cajoling, I got her out of her slacks, into badly needed clean panties and Poise pad and her pajama bottoms. When I handed her a wet wipe to wash her hands after handling the soiled items she began taking her pajamas off again and I instructed her how to use the wet wipe on her hands. Getting the pajama top on went better but as I bent over to help her get her pants off and on, I knew I needed to empty the waste basket a short ways from my nose. So I did that while trying to get her to take her socks off. The trash went but the socks stayed. Mom is in bed again.

When anyone asks how Mom is doing, I don't know what to tell them. More of the same? Not really. That could mean that today is no different from yesterday or last week. When I say she is getting worse, it doesn't fully express the day to day deterioration. That was my response to Deena again this week when she called and Deena gave an understandable answer of "we knew that was going to happen." I am sure she did not know the impact of those words until she spoke to Mom on the phone that day. The tired side of me wants to say "welcome to our world" but the daughter and sister side of me knows the moment of grief she must have felt.

When I can sit with Mom and do her nails before church on Saturday at 3 and at IHOP at 7 she tells us about the "lady" who did her nails, we know she is worse.

When she can be downright cruel and on the verge of abusive to Chi Chi, Stacey and David's little black dog that they dropped off her on Friday before they drove to Tulsa for a wedding, we know she is worse.

And the next day as we leave for church, Mom asks where that cute little black dog came from and I tell her we are dog sitting for a friend, we know...

• When Mom puts creamer in her glass of water, we know...
• When I have to tell Mom which body parts to wash and to use soap, we know...
• When I find my shoes and other items from around the house hidden in Mom's room, we know....
• When I am cleaning feces off of her, the floor, the bathroom counter, washing her soiled clothes and sheets...
• When Mom goes to IHOP every week and meets the same people for the first time every week, we know ...
• When Becky takes her out for lunch and she throws the food across the table yelling "I'm not eating that", we know ...
• When Mom looks in the mirror and sees the "curls she was born with" and we see frizzy long hair and a resemblance to Einstein....
• When we are up too many nights because Mom is up or she is yelling and thrashing in her bed from a nightmare....

And we grieve.

AND we rejoice when Mom remembers the first few lines of the Lord's prayer

• And when Mom puts all of her jewelry on just to hang around the house
• And when she taps her foot to the songs on the country legend station in the car
• And when Mom looks the menu over carefully and orders strawberry pancakes - again
• And when I put her to bed and she calls me sweetheart - like she knows I belong to her somehow.