Mom & Me Three Archive

    Two movies, which surprised me. I may have created a movie monster on Sunday. Right after breakfast yesterday Mom looked at me expectantly and asked, "What movie should we watch this morning?" So, we watched Mrs. Miniver in the morning and Working Girl in the afternoon. I took stats and watched what she ate in order to continue pulling her blood sugar down from it's (assumed, since I didn't take stats) flight Sunday.
    In the late evening after Mom retired she arose, mildly agitated, came out to the living room, turned her rocking chair toward me, sat and asked me to tell her "how Mother [her mother] died." I decided the best way to do this would be to review Grandma's entire history from the time Grandpa died, including:

1. The time immediately after Grandpa's death when Grandma lived, briefly, alone in their house in Prescott and Mom stayed with her frequently;
2. All I knew about Mom's sister's family's decision, after putting Grandma's financial affairs in order, to sell Grandma's house in Prescott and move her to a small mobile home close to them in Scottsdale;
3. The history of their discovery, after Grandma lived in Scottsdale for a couple of years, that she was quickly developing what appeared to be deep dementia and their decision that she should be moved in with them, which prompted them to build an addition onto their home, a small apartment with easy access to and from the main house for Grandma;
4. Grandma's relatively quick descent into the area of Alzheimer's in which she not only didn't recognize others but began to lose touch with the entity she recognized as herself;
5. The family's valiant struggle to keep Grandma with them despite the fact that everyone in the family worked full time during the day;
6. Grandma's progressive recession into spending much of her day in the fetal position and the family's decision to put her in a nursing home because she was requiring a level of care the family could not perform nor afford to provide at their home;
7. Grandma's final 6 months or so in the nursing home when Mom (and often I) visited her frequently;
8. What she was like in the nursing home; what Mom's visits were like;
9. A comparison of Mom's memory loss/confusion with Grandma's dementia, primarily because my mother has moments when she is afraid she is going to "end up like Mother". I don't think she will, her dementia has a completely different profile, so I stress this when we talk about it;
10. A final account of Grandma's death, not including the official Cause of Death, since I have never been privileged to know this, which I told Mom. I made the assumption for Mom that Grandma pretty much died of "advanced age/natural causes" as did Grandpa, both of whom were in their 90's at death.

    After this review, Mom and I talked about her still-alive relatives. I've been suggesting lately, since one of her cousin's husbands died recently, that she call her cousins in Iowa and South Dakota to see how they are.
    "No, I don't think that's a good idea. If I call [the cousin who used to teach and live in both South Dakota and Iowa] she'll want me to come out to visit."
    "Mom," I said, "they're older than you and you're 87. Although they used to travel a lot, they haven't traveled at all in a couple of years, probably for the same reason you haven't traveled; it's probably too uncomfortable for them, anymore. I doubt that they'll even question your lack of visits. They're probably afraid you're going to ask them when they're coming to visit you! In case you're worried about [the cousin who's always lived in Mechanicsville, Iowa], the last we heard from her [about 6 months ago], she was complaining about how awful it is to be 90 and how she 'can't get around like she used to' anymore."
    Anyway, I'm going to work on her today to call these relatives. Once she gets on the phone with them she transforms into the cousin they all, including Mom, know and love. It's a delight to listen to her talk to them.
    I don't expect this to be the last time Mom asks me about the history of those immediate of her family members who have died. It isn't, really, the first, although it was the first in depth history review. I need to check on some of the facts, though. I wasn't sure of the time frame of Grandma's death...I still am not sure if it occurred before or after I lived in Seattle, and that particular point was a stickler in our conversation last night, as Mom does have a clear overall memory of her life before and after I came to live with her.
    Anyway, later.