Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Lost dentures, missing cops, Kay's resignation from she can't remember what, and Mom's apology for "thieving."


                Between my visits on Tuesday and Thursday, Kathy sent me a message about visiting Mom in the early evening, around 5:45 PM. 
                Mom told Kathy she was glad to see her and was just going to call her to come and take her home. 
                Kathy told Mom she was glad she came even without being called, and for now being at Aegis was best.
                Kathy said there wasn’t too much paranoia just the obsession with her BMs.
                Nan, Mom’s faithful every-Wednesday friend (when Mom was at home) came before Kathy on Wednesday and had a “decent” visit. 
                Kathy thoughtfully mentioned seeing Jonathan’s aunt and uncle featured in the San Francisco Chronicle in an ad for the Sequoias, a retirement home where they were much more content than my sweet mother was at Aegis!


I wrote about Thursday, May 05, 2011, the last time I would see Mom before Mother’s Day. 

Dear Kathy and Suzy,
                When I got there at 10:50, Mom was sleeping, and I sat down in her armchair (not Kay’s!) and started to sleep myself, but then Kay came to the door and Mom woke up. 
                Kay said there were going to be a lot of people, but this time she didn’t say,  “in my room, so get out.” (“I think you should leave now.”)  She said there was a party.  Downstairs.  She told Mom she needed to get up and go with her “Because you know the way.”  (I’m almost certain she wasn’t talking about hell.) 
                Kay was friendly to me this time.  She said, “My, you two look alike,” and then she asked me, “Are you her mother?” 
                I identified myself as her daughter and said I was happy to hear that I was like my mother, and Mom said, “And we both have beautiful teeth” and flashed a smile that wasn’t there after all. 
                “Oh, I don’t have any teeth.  Where are my teeth?” 
                 So we looked and looked, though’ Kay left for the party downstairs without us. 
                Mother seemed sane, the way she had the first few minutes of my visit on Tuesday.  She told me I was lucky that I’d gotten her disposition instead of my dad’s and in a sort of sane way.
                We looked through everything but never found the dentures. 
                I later called Aegis and got someone named Suzette, who said “Oui” instead of yes and in reference to the Perry Section for the Memory Challenged told me Mom was in PaREE, which I think is where Mom would like to be--PaREE, France, though’ today the theme was “I’d like a place that was like this but not so high toned, with people of many different nations but not at the exclusion of  whites.”  No more reference to Aegis’ being for the “lower economic strata.”  (I finally found the missing Visitor’s Book and saw your April 30th entry, Suzy, and Mom’s comment about wishing all the people of the world had the same amount of money.)    Anyway I asked the French-accented concierge about the dentures and begged to be called when they’re found.
 I was there just a little bit more than an hour, and all my time with Mom was in her room, looking through her things for the dentures. 
Close to noon Kay came back and said she’d resigned.  When I asked from what, she said, “I don’t remember.  I know it was a high position.  But when I saw who I’d have to be working with, I thought, ‘No way!’” 
Then Mom, who’d gone back to bed, said, “Kay, I want to tell you how sorry I am because I’ve been thieving from you.” 
Both Kay and I expressed surprise, and Mom asked me, “Isn’t that what I’ve been doing?  I’ve been doing something that hasn’t been good or fair for you.  And I’m so sorry.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me except that I’ve gone mad.” 
Kay just commented again on how much Mom and I look alike (though my teeth were in my mouth),  and she went to lunch, which Mom didn’t want to do, and I didn’t think I should have her eat, toothless,  the sandwich I brought her.
I told Divina and another Aide (it was a bit harder to find aides this morning) to remind them not to let any garbage go out without the denture check, and Divina showed me the box with the glass missing from where she said Mom broke the glass of the fire extinguisher box at 5:00 am this morning.  This was the second offense. 
Mother did say, as we were looking for her dentures, “Do you know what’s ironic?  Just when I need them, the police are going away somewhere.  I saw it in the newspaper.  Look at today’s newspaper, and you’ll see what I mean.” 
Sure enough, there was a headline, “Cop jailed in drug scandal.”   
On my way out of PaRee, I stopped to talk to Carol (another concierge—and isn’t she sweet!) about including Ada on Mother’s Day, and then she asked  Yerba (?) and Sue, who told me about Mom’s breaking the glass “Maybe with her elbow.” 
We talked about the medicine and the possibility that it could be changed. 
“Her hallucinations are terrible,” Yerba said. 
They think that Ada is available for Sunday.  They haven’t heard about any plans with her own family.  So I could bring flowers and cards for both mothers.

                Love,
                Tina

1 comment:

  1. Looking back, the scenario was quite hilarious! Your mom is really cool; she wasn’t even bothered while looking for her lost dentures. Anyway, how did the search go? Were you able to find the dentures? I know some people find not having them on uncomfortable.

    Haleh Ashkevari

    ReplyDelete

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