Sister L says it all

Picture by Sister L

Check out Sister L's recent post at Habits of an Artist.

It's the little things

The feet that won't stay put

Yet another Sunday morning with Mom. I figured that today she's been here almost three and a half years. Not forever, I guess, but sometimes it feels that way.

For most of that time, I and the aides have been fighting a battle to keep her feet on the platforms of her wheelchair. Today I stopped to put them on at least three times, and every time, within a few steps, she was dragging them on the floor again, making it hard to push. Sometimes she even pushes back, wanting to go a different direction, but never sure where.

After church we went to the Bistro, got some cookies, and I even ordered a scrambler, and she leans over just as we're settling in, "I have to go to the bathroom really bad." I left the table set and buzzed her back upstairs. She'd already done it in her pants by the time we'd reached the toilet, and I called in reinforcements.

We returned to the Bistro, finished our snacks, and I brought her back upstairs. She was, I think, just as glad to see me go as I was to leave.

The balm of the harbor

We are all in need

Dad's burial
May 2013

Found Mom asleep in her room last night at 7 p.m. Singalong had ended early and, downstairs, an ensemble of the Milwaukee Symphony was playing in the chapel. When she was healthy, she might have gone to that. Now -- just like my dad, when he was deep into Alzheimer's -- she finds her truest self, her most complete self, when she's asleep.

She looks haggard some days, and other days pretty good. Her food has improved -- they no longer puree the main dish, just chop it into small pieces -- and so has her eating. But she is tiny now compared to her middle-aged self. She was always worried about her weight, but she was never huge, and it's ridiculous in hindsight.

I had my third "counseling" session yesterday. These are conducted by a young woman, T. I asked her how old she was yesterday, and she said 31. She might as well have said 13. She has some book learning, and has done a lot of these sessions with all kinds of people, so, while she's a little bit "young" in her analysis, she's useful when I ask her if what I'm feeling is normal. Mostly, she just lets me talk.

Yesterday I went on about how I felt about my mom at different times. Her narrow morality, the humility she stressed and imposed on us -- and, on the flip side, her welcoming of all kinds into our home, and her relative lack of judgment of almost any individual person she got to know. She was selfish, I think, when we would visit with young kids and would have to leave a couple hours early because, say, a snowstorm was predicted -- she would pout and it would ruin for her the whole three-day visit. She lacked, in that way, empathy or imagination -- just could not see our real concern, the fear that we and our kids might actually, for example, die.

She's so feeble now, so completely dependent, so very different. The thing that continues to bring me up is that she thanks me for coming. Did I ever thank her for picking me up at school? I don't think so.

Big sky in Dodge County

Car couture