Sunday, October 6, 2013

It's a little before 9.....


 It's a little before 9 am on a Sunday morning, and Mom has been up for at least 4 hours.  In that time she has:

-Taken a 3 foot by 5 foot picture off her bedroom wall and taken it apart. And I mean apart.  The back was taken off, the picture removed and the frame broken at the corners.  It is in pieces.   

-Made the rounds of... Peaking around the door of the bathroom, to see if anyone is using it and needs help wiping or flushing- Looking out the living room window, to make sure the perimeter is secure- Stopping at my bed, to touch and see if I could possibly be asleep still- Checking the kitchen's food supply, to hoard food in case of a hurricane- Inspecting my bookcase in a little alcove off of the living room, to rearrange it- Stopping in the hallway, to adjust the dimmer switch on the light so that there is plenty of light when I strangle her- Going back to the bathroom, to make sure no one got by her and is using it unassisted.  This happened dozens of times before I gave up and sat with her in her room for 2 hours.  What a joy that was.  For her.

-Stolen 4 packs of cookies from the pantry, in case of that hurricane here in the desert.

-Woken everyone up... many times.

-Stripped her bed of all linens and blankets, folded them, and stacked them on the chair.  She left the mattress cover pulled back at one corner to sleep under it.

-Taken one of the sliding  doors off of her closet and rested it diagonally across the open doorway.

-Removed most of her clothes from hangers and stashed them in various nooks and crannies around her room.

When I was a kid, a public service announcement used to come on tv in the evenings.  It asked "It's 10 p.m.  Do you know where your children are?"  This Alzheimer's generation that we are caring for is screaming for a rewrite. " It's 5 a.m., do you know what your parent is doing?"

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