"Everything's Awful, Everything's Fine."

Report from me June 12, 2011

Hi~

                I was with Mom from 12:25 to 2:20 (remembered to check in and out!), and she was in pretty good shape—more like Friday and less like yesterday!  She had just had lunch and gone back to her room.  Kay was still in the dining room. 

            Mom  seemed happy to see me, but when I asked her how everything was, she said, “Everything’s awful….Everything’s fine.”  Or something like that. 

            But she seemed in good spirits.  There was another episode of the urine, though.  There was a very strong smell, and she wanted me to help her get rid of the soaked pads she had in a plastic bag.  The bag was heavy with urine.  I noticed later, when she was lying on the bed, that she didn’t seem to be wearing any pads at all.  The two hours I was there, she got up to go to the bathroom just twice, and neither visit was very long.

            `Mom told me she’d just eaten and couldn’t eat another bite, but when she saw that I’d made cookies, she ate all three of the giant things. 

            Mom had no recollection of your visit yesterday, Suzy, when she was so out of it.  She reacted to the arm pillow as if she had no idea where it came from, and when I told her it was from you and brought it to her bed, she was thrilled!  She said she wanted to thank you, so I put  my iPhone to good use for a change. 

            Shortly after the call, she told me that she’d like to thank you, and I gently told her that she did.  “Did I?”  she asked. 

            Aside from that short-term memory loss manifestation, she was in a good emotional and mental state.  Right before leaving home, I’d gotten a call from John Zulch, the son of Betty, Mom’s best friend when we lived in Blackfoot, Idaho.  He said he had come across some pictures of Mom and his mom back in 1951 and would send them to me, so I told her about that.  She remembers who he was but wasn’t sure how many kids Betty had had.   

            The postcard I sent her from Bremen, Germany, was on her night stand, and she told me she hadn’t had a chance to read it, so she read that out loud. 

            She asked me whether I’d found anything in Germany to help me overcome my feelings about Germany, and I told her yes, and mentioned the law forbidding any denial of the Holocaust.  This time she didn’t ask me what the Holocaust was.  I told her that things really are very different, very anti-Nazi now.  “Are people sorry for what they did?”  she asked me, and I assured her that they were.   (I could have added that everyone eats Italian and California cuisine—except for cucumbers and bean sprouts-- instead of sauerkraut, but we didn’t get to that.) 

            Then I gave her something funny that John Zulch had sent me about 1910, a century ago.  I’d printed it out because it seemed like the kind of entertaining reading that Common to Popular Belief  is.  I’ll send you a copy, but just to give you an idea, back in 1910, heroine was sold over-the-counter because 'Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the  mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect  guardian of health'. 

                When I read that aloud, Ada was there and she laughed and said, “I’m sure glad they told me that.”

            Crossword  puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented  yet. Mom said, “I might as well have died,” and I agreed that it was a good thing she was born in 1921, not in 1910. 

                 (By the way, lately, she seems to think that her birthday is on Halloween.) 

                When Ada stood up and said, “Well, I’ll let you go now,” Mom pointed out, “You’re not letting us go.  We’re letting you go,” and Ada acknowledged that that was true.  She gave Mom and hug and said, “I love you,” and Mom said, “I love you too.” 

            We also took turns reading aloud from an article in a magazine called Style or something like that.  I have no idea where it came from.  But there was an article about teaching children how to be happy and likening learning happiness to learning a foreign language, which Mom said I should read aloud since I teach a foreign language (English to people of other tongues), and I asked Mom what she thought parents could teach their kids about being happy.  She said, “I think I’d tell them that you can appreciate small things, like donuts.  And if you have something that worries you, you can talk it out.  That’s about it.” 

            We briefly worked on a crossword puzzle together.  

            When she mentioned her Halloween birthday, I reminded her that her birthday was October 25, which meant that she was a Scorpio like me.  She said she’d never felt much like a Scorpio.  She thought they were “quite willing to give you their opinion on anything.”  I agreed with her, confessing that I know I illustrate that characteristic of a Scorpio.  (It’s not my fault.  It’s in the stars!)  She said, “That’s something that should be watched.” 

                After almost two hours, she seemed really tired, and I asked her if she’d like me to let her rest.  She said, “But I was very happy to see you.”  So I told her I’d be back on Tuesday. 

            I have an out-of-town birthday celebration that day, so I plan to see Mom later in the day.  She said that she might like taking a walk in the garden later in the day.

                Love,

                Tina