Missing Mom on her Birthday

Celebrating Mom's birthday!

Mom (on the right) and her sisters, Evelyn and Margaret

Mom and me and my dogs

Mom and her grandkids

Monday the 16th of March is Mom's birthday. The first birthday I haven't been able to celebrate with her. She's gone on to heaven where she doesn't have to worry about getting older and where every day can be blessing filled. Mom would have been 95 if she had made it to this day. She did not. She passed on last July. Mom always said she wanted to live to be 100. She almost made it. 

Mom with my sister and her granddaughters

She had a hard way to go those last few years after dementia stole her ability to remember. That's not something I'd wish on anybody. And certainly nothing I wanted my mother or us, her family, to go through. My mother was a very determined woman and so when dementia made her think she was still a young woman who needed to be taking care of her children or cooking for her husband or sometimes being so young that she needed to be home with her parents, then she could not accept that she couldn't go out the door and do what she thought she needed to be doing.

Mom and a great granddaughtr

But now if I can push those last unhappy years aside, I know how much Mom loved life and how much she loved her family. She was a beautiful woman inside and out. And I was very fortunate to be her daughter. What a blessing to have a mother like her! She made sure we learned right from wrong. She encouraged us in whatever we wanted to do with our lives. She loved us even when we were not exactly lovable. 

Mom and another great granddaughter

In her more aware moments in those last years she would say she was tired and ready to give up living except she didn't want to leave us. Family meant so much to her. She meant so much to me. I miss her! 

Mom loved our family reunions

I know many of you have had to say goodbye to your own mothers or fathers. You've told me how much you miss them. How you wish you could have a few more days to walk beside them and hear some of the old family stories again. You've told me how you carry them with you in your hearts. Our mother's voice is the first voice we heard and her words will forever whisper in our thoughts. 

So happy birthday to my mom. I won't get to give you a hug on your birthday or buy you flowers. But I will remember all the beautiful things you've given me. Life and joy and the wonderful knowledge of your love. 

Do you have or did you have a wonderful mother like that?

Birthday Stories and Flowers

Birthdays can be like flowers, lovely and bright, different even as they come on the same day year after year. The birthday stories some of you have been sending me are the same. Some of you have birthdays where not much fuss is made, maybe cake and ice cream. Others of you have had parties and special vacations and surprises. All fun as you celebrate the gift of another year here on Planet Earth. Some of the stories are touching. Some funny. Some loving. Some sad. A few have been a combination of all those emotions. 

That's the way the story is tonight. Chris shares about her mother who is in a nursing home suffering symptoms of dementia. But that doesn't mean she doesn't have a birthday to celebrate or reason to smile. If you can find those smiles on that hard Alzheimer's road, then life gets easier if only for a little while. Here's some of the story Chris shared with us.

"First, thank you for sharing your journey with your mom with us. My mom's 90th is this month and ...I am getting her a small tiara to wear for that day! (& balloons for the wheelchair...maybe a wrist corsage?) Last year, my sister and I took her out to lunch but the nurse forgot to let the cafeteria know that she wasn't coming...so Mom found out and felt bad since they had gone to the trouble of fixing her fried shrimp. (I think she forgot we were coming.) Anyway, we pick her up and she insists that I take her lunch from the Center with us because she wants to eat it too! ... So off we went to our little favorite restaurant...,a 1950's cafe with the best food in the world... So Mom insists on bringing the food from the Center in...I am like Mom!...please...it is rude to bring food into a restaurant and not eat their food...this is the best food ever. My sister...trying to please Mom pushes for the Center food to come in with us. Of course, the owner & the chef notice we brought our own take out food in. :/. She is so gracious, wishing Mom a happy birthday...and she asks about the food. Mom explains she couldn't hurt the Center's staff's feelings by not taking the food with us. Then she refuses to eat food at the restaurant...only soup and just a bit because she doesn't want to get full. And she eats the Center food! Crazy time!"

With someone with memory problems you might as well just go with the flow, Chris. Hope this birthday was less crazy for you but fun for your mother. But here's a preview from Chris on how things might go this year in another story she shared about her mom. 

"My mom has Alzheimer's/dementia, and the other day I got a call from her. She spoke to my husband first...asking him how it was going (like she was perfectly in control). Then I got on the line...she said she was working all day at the college and needed to go home but apparently she was home...her roommate got to go home with her husband! I said, "You're confused, aren't you, Mom?" She said she was very confused and we talked about the college she worked at, what she did...then I said she had a birthday coming up and did she know how old she was? She didn't, but then when I asked 50? No. 60? No. 70? YES! I said, "Well, there you have it! When you were 70, you did work for the college, and if you are confused and think you are 70, of course you'd be going home on the weekend! I said she was going to be 90 and she denied it over and over! Ha! What a hoot. So I said, "Well, we could pretend to lose 20 years, but then we won't have my youngest daughter (who's 19) yet!" I asked if we could pretend we don't have 20 extra pounds instead and we laughed and agreed."

Thanks for sharing, Chris. That last story made me think about my mother who drifted in time to different ages. Sometimes she was only 16 and sometimes in her thirties. She looked at me like I was  nuts if I told her she was in her nineties. She knew that wasn't right. But it definitely might be good to forget those 20 extra pounds, Chris, especially after birthday cake and pie.

Since I last talked to you here, I got another year older, but I'm still celebrating all month and you can celebrate with me by entering my birthday giveaway contest. Check out details here. Deadline to enter is September 30.

Also, today and maybe for a couple more days, The Blessed, one of my Shaker books has a special e-book price of 99 cents or less. Check it out at Amazon; Barnes & Noble (Nook); or Christianbook.com. Maybe other internet e-book sites too. Be sure to check the price to see if it's still on special before you download.

Thanks for reading and thanks for sharing your birthday stories with me.

My Mother, My Friend

Mom and Dad on a date

         

Mom on her honeymoon

 The first friend any of us have is our mother. And my mother was the best friend I could have ever had. She taught me how to embrace life and that the more love you give away, the more you are blessed with in your heart. She was cute when she was young, beautiful as a young woman and each year that passed brought her even more beauty. Here's a photo tribute to her.

Mom when I was a girl

Mom and some of her grandchildren

Mom and her sisters

Dementia stole her memories but not her spirit. And now as one of our family members said, the big four are together again. She meant Mom and her sisters. They did know how to laugh together and have a good time.  
 

One of my favorite pictures of Mom

Mom and one of her great grandchildren

Mom loved all her grandchildren and then when the great-grandchildren came along, she was ready with smiles and love for them too. 

Mom helping me make her famous crackerjacks

She didn't do a lot of needlework or craft type things, but she did have some specialities, like making delicious crackerjacks and a chocolate pie that was out of this world. She crocheted one afghan and wove one basket just to prove she could. She also once picked wild cherries to make jelly and she brought home huckleberries from Oregon and made wine. She had fun trying new things. 
 

 

 

 

Mom holding her youngest great grandchild

Mom loved babies. Each new addition to the family was treasured. During her last weeks at the memory care facility, her baby doll could always bring a smile as she carefully held and loved it. I'm so blessed that I was once that baby she held and loved.

Mom doing Physical Therapy

My mother passed Saturday morning with a last whisper of breath. I was with her when she went. I didn't see the angels that came to get her, but I know they were there. I will miss her smiles and kisses, but I celebrate her life well lived. My mother, Olga Elizabeth, headed on up to glory after 94 years here with us. I'm glad I was able to share so many of those years with her. I'm thankful she was my mother, my friend.

Mom's last good picture at The Lantern

Thank you for your many prayers and kind thoughts and comments as you read some of my posts about Mom's dementia. So many of you have walked the same hard roads or have lost your beloved mothers to other illnesses. We join hearts to remember all those beautiful mothers and if your mother is still with you, give her a hug for all of us who can no longer hug our moms. 

Facing the Truth of Dementia

"Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger." ~Ben Okri

A sweet friend sent me this book as a gift. Tracy and I met at a writing conference several years ago and then exchanged e-mails now and again. She has a caring heart, and she has also walked dementia's road with her mother. We talked about the challenges of caretaking, the sadness of our mothers losing those wonderful family memories, and the sorrow of losing the mothers we knew and loved so well even before they passed on. Somebody once said dementia or Alzheimer's is the long death. 

Her mother has passed on. My mother is still hanging on, but she's not doing well. She doesn't know me anymore, but she still lets me hold her hand and hug her. Most of the time. She still gives me a kiss when I leave. But this last week, she has seemed farther away and I've had the feeling that something is wrong. It's so sad to sit with her and have her look at me with a "please, do something" look. Most of the time I can't understand what she's saying and she can't understand me either. It's like all the words have been dumped out of a sack and she can no longer sort them out to find the right ones to say or to hear. 

But then Monday when I was there, she suddenly looked up at me and said plain as day, "My back hurts so bad I can barely stand it." The nurse gave her some medicine, but with my mother's extensive osteoarthritis, there's not much that eases the pain. She lived with pain for years. She was tough and able to bear what had to be borne, but that was with memory to give her a reference point. Now each pain is new and unknown since she can't remember the day or hour before. When I went back Tuesday, she was no better. Nor was she any better today when my sister went, but they did let her lie down and she went to sleep. Perhaps that will rest her back. 

Dementia is such a difficult disease, and so many families are facing the same kinds of hard times that my family is dealing with right now. In the introduction to Living with Alzheimer's & Other Dementias, Angela Timashenka Geiger of the Alzheimer's Association says 44 million people worldwide are living with some kind a dementia related illness. I teared up reading the introduction. Not sure I'm brave enough to read the stories. 

Do stories help you deal with problems in your life? 

Many of the stories I've written bring a tear to the reader's eyes. Some of the tears because the story is touching, but some because fiction mirrors real life and sad things happen in life. Mom having to live out her final years with dementia is one of those sad things. It is not what I wanted for her. It is not what she wanted either. She was always so self reliant, so ready to enjoy life. It's not what I would want for anyone. I just heard of another friend who lived life to the fullest that has been diagnosed with some sort of dementia and is in a facility. Dementia happens and it's sad. 

The final sentence in Ms. Geiger's introduction urges all of us to take action in the fight "whether by sharing your experience, speaking up, or spreading the word--so that someday, the only story we have left to write is about the end of Alzheimer's disease." 

Seeing the Light through Dementia's Darkness

A Special Treat

I have a special treat for you on One Writer’s Journal this week – a guest post by Kristy Robinson Horine. 

I met Kristy at the Licking Valley Writers’ Conference when I was signing my books at a writer’s event last fall. At the time, Kristy was the executive director of the conference, but life was about to change for her. While her other three children have long since left babyhood behind, she was excited about expecting her fourth child. 

A New Season in Life

Now she’s entered a new season in her life with the care of her baby girl and she's using this time to explore new options in her writing. Kristy read my posts about my mother’s dementia and very generously sent me a beautiful piece she’d written about the journey into dementia she witnessed her grandmother taking. Not a good journey, but sometimes there is joy in the moments. She found that joy with her Meme and wrote about it. The photo is of her Meme at a nursing home on one of her last birthdays before she got to go on home to heaven. Can't you just see her personality shining through the dementia?

Kristy is letting me share her story forward so that her words can perhaps bless those of you who have walked this hard path with your loved ones. In some ways every journey for those suffering dementia is similar, but at the same time, each walk along this path is also different. But sharing what we experience can help us to see the light between the dark things.  

Riding Fences  

       by Kristy Robinson Horine

     Momma gave me The Look when they arrived. Papaw had packed Meme into his candy apple red Toyota and bumped along country roads to our house. It must have been pretty bad this time. I urged Meme toward the door.

     “Come look at the garden I planted Meme,” I said. I grabbed both of her hands and steadied her down the brick steps, across the cistern, down a concrete block step, and into the yard. Meme puffed hard, wheezing. After a few steps, we stopped to rest.

      Inside, Papaw was telling Mom how Meme had removed the gate from the hinges when she couldn’t get out of the padlocked yard. He was telling how she had escaped and told strangers passing by that someone in her house was trying to kill her. He was telling about the conversation with the police officer who didn’t know about Meme and her Alzheimer’s. 

      Outside, it was just me and a woman who could no longer remember my name.

     “Now, I want you to just look out there,” she breathed with her mouth open. “Do you remember when we was in Caden Town?”

      I looked at her eyes and knew I would lie. “Yes ma’am,” I said.

     “Do you remember how much work it was? Daddy made me work. Would take that razor strap to me if I didn’t do it. You know that Mamaw T and Papaw Tuttle were multi-millionaires, but I thought I had worked my ass off,” she said. I no longer flinched when Meme cussed. Her filters were just about gone, but this time, she had remembered to whisper talk the bad word.

     “Yes ma’am,” I said. “They didn’t want for anything, did they?”

     She hooked her elbow through mine: us against the world. I didn’t have a clue about Caden Town, but I liked the co-conspirator feeling. Her eyes shined in the sunlight.

     “We was born different,” she said. “The two of us.”

     “Yes Ma’am,” I said.

     The distance to the garden from the house stretched with every wheeze, but we made it. I secretly hoped that Papaw was giving my mother an earful. I also secretly hoped that God wouldn’t answer my prayers to take Meme before she got too bad, right there next to the garden. Meme had gotten a bit heavy since she couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten. She couldn’t remember that full meant stop. I just wasn’t certain I could lift her if she hit the ground.

    We settled down onto a swinging bench at the edge of the snow peas I planted. I told her about shoveling manure and spreading it around after everything had died off the season before. I told her about running the tiller for the first time ever. I told her about how the wind blew as I hoed my rows, moving the string I had tied up between two broken tobacco sticks. I told her that Papaw said I could plant more in a crooked row anyway. There was something like an apology in my voice. Suddenly, I wanted my garden to be full and thick with fruit. I wanted Meme to see even though I knew she wouldn’t remember. I stopped talking when I realized her mind wasn’t sitting with her body.

    “I want you to look out there,” she said. I thought she was going to ask me about Caden Town again.

     “Yes ma’am?”

     “Do you see how that dark goes like that?” she moved her hand in a horizontal line and wiggled her fingers as if to mimic a flitting bird. “Do you see that dark?”

      I squinted into the distance, hoping to catch a glimpse of what she described. I shook my head.

     “Those dark things there,” she said, waving her hand back and forth, more insistent. “The ones with the light in between.”

  

   Again I looked and realization came at once. “Are you talking about the black fence just on the other side of the garden?”

   Her hand relaxed, patted my knee. She exhaled then, after I named the darkness for her. “Yes. Fence. That fence. That’s right. Look there, between them.”

    I leaned my head closer to hers, tried to see what she saw, like a child trying to find a single constellation in a sky full of stars.

    “That’s what you need to see. The part that’s not dark,” she said. “You need to see the light.”

    In that moment, I rode the fence between my reality and hers. In that moment, we both saw the light.

About Kristy

~Writer, teacher, poet, artist, mother & wife Kristy Robinson Horine has worked as a journalist, studied through the Christian Writers Guild, and is now a freelance journalist. She writes for Kentucky Monthly and has a couple of blogs, A Kentuckian in Paris, and Write One Real Life.

Thanks, Kristy

Thank you, Kristy, for sharing. My mother is struggling more each week with communication, but she has begun to hold and talk to a doll and that seems to comfort her. Perhaps it gives her purpose to care for the “baby.” But each smile whether directed toward me or toward the doll is a moment to appreciate when I visit. As Kristy’s Meme said, you need to see the light.

Mom's New Place

I haven't talked about Mom for awhile here. Not since I told you we were moving her into The Lantern, a memory care home for those with Alzheimer's or dementia problems. It's a very nice facility, bright and open, and the staff are kind and caring. 

Even so, it's been a difficult transition. The first week, we were in the ER twice because she fell, once at night and once late in the daytime. She had bruises and no major injuries. I cringed every time the phone rang, fearing another fall. But since then in almost two months now, we've made one more ER visit. Again, a fall in the night. Again, only bruises. 

Mom's a pretty tough cookie. But it could not have been that way. She could have been hurt worse, and that makes the falls a major guilty poke for my sister and me. We were watching her so closely at her house that we were right with her every time she sat up in bed. We had a bed alarm but after replacing it once at a high price, we just went with wind chimes tied to her walker. Then we placed the walker beside the bed so that she'd hit it and ring those "bells" when she tried to get up. The memory care home is not equipped for one on one observation at night. We signed numerous papers saying we were aware of that before Mom moved in. The workers do check on the residents periodically, but there's plenty of time in between checks for Mom to wake up and decide it's time to "go to school" or that somebody is "out front waiting for her." Or maybe just because she needs to "go."

There are other problems. She wouldn't eat at first. At home, she ate whatever we fixed, but once at the home, she wouldn't even look at the food on her plate. That is getting better. She eats breakfast now and dabbles with her other meals. Another problem, she doesn't like them giving her baths and helping her dress in the mornings. You have to realize where she is with this. At home, when I would tell her we needed to go get cleaned up, she'd tell me she just had a bath. In her mind, I'm sure she had. Sometimes I would have to talk for an hour before she'd come around to letting me help her bathe. The aides don't have the time to do that at the home. They have other residents to get ready for breakfast. So I understand the problem, but I know no solutions to suggest. The best help I had at her house was simply prayer that she'd be in a cooperative frame of mind.  

All's not bad though. Even though she wouldn't smile for me in the photo I snapped on Friday, she seems happier or more satisfied there than she was at her house. She still talks about "going home" to see her mother and father or that she needs to go cook supper for my dad. But she doesn't try to go out the door the way she did at home. I think because the place is bigger and the trip to the door is so far up the hallways, (and of course, locked if she did get to the door) she gets distracted easier. She thinks she'll have to wait until later. Plus, the other people there distract her too. 

There are residents at the home who are much younger and in better physical health than Mother and in better mental health too. Some of them wander a bit, walking to find an escape from the confusion that reigns in their minds. Others never say a word. One lady whispers everything and another lady sometimes stands in the corner and cries. 

In contrast, Mom has been chattering a mile a minute the last week. Nothing she says makes a lot of sense and she doesn't process what you say to her correctly. You say one thing and she thinks you've said something totally different. Makes for hard conversations. In this photo, she's telling me she has four of them - fingers, I think.

I haven't felt as if she's known me for a couple of weeks now. When an aide asked her if I was her daughter on Friday, she said no quite emphatically. But I am, whether she knows it or not. And she still smiles when she sees me. At least at first. Then sometimes she's ready for me to leave so that she can go home. After all, you can't leave company to do what you want. Innate hospitality forbids that. Maybe that's what keeps her satisfied in the big gathering room. 

My sister or I go see her almost every day. I'm not sure that's helping her, but it helps us. You see, it's not only Mom who has to adjust to the new arrangement, but us as well. Care taking is a demanding thing and it wraps tentacles of guilt around you when you come to the place where you think you can't do it any longer. 

But what we are continually reminding ourselves is that she wasn't happy at her house and she seems more content at the facility. There is the danger of falls. She is getting worse with her communication, but that could have happened at home too. The main thing for us to remember is that we love her and she loves us whether she's able to show that any more or not. 

She was a wonderful mother and I miss her. Those of you going through some of the same things with your loved ones understand what I mean when I say I miss her. Let's all lift up a prayer for those with this dreaded disease and for the families who have to watch their loved ones decline into a terrible world of confusion.

P.S. 

I took a walk back to my wildflower area today and was surprised to see a lot of the flowers blooming. The one above, Dutchman's Breeches, was always one of Mom's favorites. And I also saw my first snake! I think he was cold since he didn't slither away but let me step right past him on the path. 

  

Thanks to all of you who downloaded my book, Scent of Lilacs. It's going to be free for a while longer, so if you have e-reading friends, I hope you'll tell them about it. You can check my last blog post to see the links to the places where you can download the book. And you're always welcome to share my blog posts with any friends you think would like to read my ramblings. Thanks. You're the best.  

A Hard Day's Night at the ER

Here's Mom about five years ago with a lap full of great grandbabies. She was beginning to have problems with her thinking then, but they were things you just passed off as getting older. Dementia was actually raising its ugly head, but we either didn't recognize the symptoms or didn't want to see them. I, for one, never thought Mom would have memory problems. I thought she'd be one of those little old ladies who soldiered on with some physical problems but that she'd be remembering things I'd long forgotten on her hundredth birthday.

Alas, that didn't turn out to be the case. Dementia invaded her mind and stole her life as she'd always lived it and would have wanted to finish living it should she have had that choice. 

But now she can't remember. She can't choose. And while in the picture above, she was having a good day but perhaps too big a load in her lap, last night she had a bad night. She fell at the Alzheimer's home. My sister and I went down to see about her and decided she was probably okay. We signed releases with the ambulance personnel and took her back to her room to bed. It's a long walk from the front of the building to her room. She barely made it on foot. And then once in bed, she was crying in such pain that we changed our minds, bundled her up and took her to the emergency room where they x-rayed, scanned and treated her with great care. The other times I've been in the ER with her were decidedly unpleasant, but this time they addressed her pain, were quick with the tests, and the several hours we were there weren't so bad. She slept most of the time and my sister and I talked about how sleepy we were going to be as we watched the clock spin through the wee hours of the morning. 

All the tests came back normal, but in the process of reviewing the paperwork, I discovered a mix-up with Mom's medicine. The prescription that is supposed to help with her agitation wasn't being given the way the doctor had prescribed it and the way she'd been taking it for a few months. The orders he'd written for the home weren't clear enough, and they had cut her dosage by two-thirds. Plus other over the counter aids we were giving her, at the doctor's verbal instructions, weren't being given because the doctor had not ordered those in writing. All that is straightened out - we think.  

On our visits to her before her fall, she seemed happy enough and didn't mention us taking her home. But she hasn't been sleeping and not eating very much either. There is an adjustment period for a move like this. I know that. But it is still very difficult to stand back and not do something to make things better. Of course, there are the prayers going up for her and for all of us, her family. You can't begin to imagine how I appreciate you praying for Mom that she'll have peace there in the new place. Looks as if she's needing more prayers than ever. We are going down for family night tonight. Perhaps the next time I write about Mom, it will be a happier post. 

Meanwhile, if I can stay awake after the all-nighter at the ER, I'm hoping to send out a Valentine newsletter tomorrow with info on a new prize giveaway to celebrate Summer of Joy back on the market dressed in a new cover. If you're not on my newsletter list, you can sign up easily by clicking here. You can also follow my posts here on One Writer's Journal by subscribing to the posts. If you enter your e-mail address, the posts will show up in you mailbox. 

Thanks so much for reading and thanks so much for all the support and caring messages you've give my family and me over the past few days. Prayer is powerful!

 

The Hard Choices of Dementia

When I was a little girl I always wanted to look like my mother. I thought she was the prettiest woman ever. And I wanted to be like her too. Strong. Determined. Smart. Patient. Loving. She was ready to do whatever necessary to take care of her family. She loved us, her three daughters. 

Mom grew up during the Great Depression years. She had three sisters, no brothers. She and her sisters were always close. They loved their mother and father. My grandfather was a blacksmith and served in World War I as a cook. He died when I was five. I only have a couple of memories of him. I'm not one of those people who can remember when I was two. I do well to remember when I was twenty. LOL. But Mom always had a great memory of how things were when she was a little girl. Those memories were the inspiration for my first Rosey Corner book, Angel Sister. While the story is completely fiction, I owe the inspiration for the background and the characters to Mom's stories of her childhood years. 

Mom's only a few weeks from being ninety-four. She always said she wanted to live to be a hundred. But she never planned to lose her memory to dementia. We never thought she would lose her memory to anything. We thought we'd have our mom with us as our mom until she moved up to heaven. It hasn't happened that way. When she reached her late eighties signs began to show up that all was not right. She began to think things had happened that had not happened. Always things that made her unhappy. Still, she managed for a few more years with us dropping by to help with the little things. Then she fell and although nothing was broken, it was a traumatic experience because she was unable to get up and lay there for we don't know how long before my sister stopped by. 

We didn't think she would pull through that. She got better, but her mind continually got worse. We started staying with her around the clock after that fall although at first we could make quick trips to the store or wherever. Then her mind got even worse. We couldn't leave her alone. She started wanting to "go home." Home was not this house where she'd lived for over twenty-five years. Home was most often her childhood home. Her parents hadn't told her she could stay so long and they were going to be upset. At times she also thought about her home with my father who has been gone for almost thirty years. She had to fix supper for him and the "children." Nobody was watching the "children." She had things to do and she really needed to go home. And because she has always been a determined "I can do it" type person, she would get up and try to go out the door. If nobody would take her home, she'd just walk. After all, the "home" she was seeking was just over the hill. 

And so, the lies began. At first it was difficult for me and my sister to lie to our mother, but it is cruel to tell a dementia sufferer that their loved ones are dead. It doesn't stay in their brain and is a fresh pain every time. Besides, Mom would sometimes look at you as though you were the one without good sense since she'd just seen her mother or father or husband that very morning. So a lot of time her mother and father were "out of town" perhaps visiting "out of state relatives." Nevermind, that they had no out of state relatives. Dad was doing various farm jobs. Perhaps in the hay in the summer or stripping tobacco in the winter or feeding the cows. Whatever came to mind. And "tomorrow" became the promise that never happened. Tomorrow we'd see about going home. Tomorrow we'd talk about it. Tomorrow we'd do whatever we had to do. And that is what happened. We did whatever we had to do.

And now tomorrow we're going to do what we have to do again. We're moving Mom into an Alzheimers' Home. It's a beautiful place with a caring staff. It's our way of trying to give her some more time out of the nursing home since her funds are getting low and we may need to sell the house to keep financing her care. We are naturally concerned. So much can happen. We want Mom to be happy. She's not happy here most of the time. She may not be happy there. She may not be happy anywhere until she moves on "home" to be with her mother and father and sisters. It's a difficult choice. It may not work for her. Then I don't know what we'll do. 

If there's ever a time when a person has to take it one day at a time, then dealing with dementia is that time. Sometimes it's one hour at a time. I know many of you are dealing with the same illness, and it is an illness, a cancer of sorts of the mind. So may we all take it one prayer at a time.