3.
I noticed a decline in Mom as the weeks slowly went by. One day I arrived and could not find her anywhere. I even had the staff running around looking for her. At least twenty minutes went by before a nurse found her in the adjoining section (how she got there no one will ever know) holding onto her framed wedding photo.
‘Hi, Mom, where you been? We've all been looking for you!’
She clutched the photo to her chest.
‘I found my photo in a flat over there. That woman stole it.’
I guided her gently back to her room and placed the photo back above her bed. A nurse called me from just outside the door. I met her in the corridor while Mom looked through another photo album.
‘Do you think you could take her photo home with you? Your mom keeps accusing the other residents of stealing it and then she wanders around as she did today. If it is not available to her, she will not know it is there at all. She won’t miss it.’
I felt a pang of sadness tug at my heart. Just a few weeks ago she had told me all about her wedding day, naming all the people in the photo and I knew she had named them correctly. Now it had become an obstacle to her.
‘Yes okay. When we leave the room, take it out and leave it at the reception. I will collect it on my way out.’
Her confusion and wild stories increased on a daily basis. I found that even going from the lounge to the dining room confused her and she would ask if this was a new restaurant as she could not remember being there before. Her wandering at night had become so bad that I was called in for a meeting to discuss the situation. They wanted to move her to the upstairs section where there were a tighter control and a safer environment specifically designed for those who are not yet in the most advanced stage of Alzheimer’s but are also not able to live comfortably without aid. It was next door to the dreaded section I feared, the last step before the end. It was too close for comfort and yet what could I do but agree, for the safety and health of my mother.
When I arrived to visit her the following day, Mom was having lunch in the dining room, and she looked awfully tired. I asked the nurse how the move upstairs had gone.
She replied, ‘She was very confused. She was up and down the whole night, and they eventually had to give her a sleeping pill.’
I looked at Mom nibbling at her food, exhausted. My heart cried out for her. I wanted to shake her brain alive so that she could live a normal life again. I had seen this happen to my grandmother, and I anxiously feared what was still to come.
‘Hi Mom, how you?’ I asked as I sat down next to her.
She looked at me, and it took her a few seconds to register who I was before she replied, ‘Hello.’
And then the smile and the sparkle in her eyes sent my heart whirling. I was not yet lost to her!
‘I’m tired today. I don’t know why because I just had a good sleep.’
I felt my eyes well up with tears, and I just hugged her. We went to the garden after lunch but it was too cold outside, so we went back upstairs to the TV room.
Although the TV was on, the sound wasn’t and not long after we sat down she said, ‘I can’t sit for long, they will be wondering where I am.’
‘Who will?’
‘All the staff, if I am not there they start to panic and then they do everything wrong.’
I found it best to go along with her stories and imagination rather than point out the obvious.
‘Where are you working now?’
‘I’m still at the Hyperama; you know that!’
She gave me a “don’t ask stupid questions” look.
‘Oh yes but I thought you were moving to a new job.’
‘No, I changed my mind. They need me too much.’
From this time on we would have this same conversation about her work. On certain days, I was highly entertained by the goings-on at her imaginary workplace. Sometimes I wondered if those things had happened when she'd worked there. The names always eluded her, though, but maybe that was just as well.
Often I would take her out to lunch, mostly to a little restaurant up the road called Chatters. They got to know us very well and knew to get the apple pie warmed up when we entered the door. As lovely as it was to have her out and in different surroundings it eventually became too much for her to cope. After half an hour she would start getting frantic over her luggage that must have gotten misplaced. I would then assure her that it had been taken directly to the lodge. Five minutes later we would have the same conversation. If it wasn’t the luggage, it was once more the staff that supposedly needed her. So instead of taking Mom out it became better for me to take cake and coffee to her. So after lunch at the home, we would find a quiet place, and I would let her believe we were at a restaurant for tea. Was I a liar? Was I adding to the further deterioration of her already confused mind? These questions would haunt me later.