Sunday, November 26, 2006
The Visit
We spent much of the last week with my parents. We left last Saturday to go up, leaving much later in the day than we had planned. I called my mom about 9:00 p.m. to let her know where we were and let her know that we were on schedule to arrive there about midnight. I asked if they were planning to go to Bible class on Sunday morning, as they had not been going for that when I was there in the summer. She said they had been going, but "there was no law that said they had to." I got up about 7:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, but knew I was not going to be able to move fast enough to be able to be ready to leave by their scheduled 8:00 a.m. departure time. I told Mom this and she said they would just wait and go for preaching. I went to shower and get ready. I heard my dad call someone to let them know he and Mom would not be at Bible class. When I came out of the bathroom about ten minutes after eight, there sat my mom at the end of the table - hat and jacket on - dressed and ready to go. Obviously, somewhere between breakfast at 7:00 a.m. and that point, it had slipped her mind that we were not planning to go to Bible class. (I quickly finished getting ready, and Dad made some adjustments, and we made it just about three minutes late!)
This was the first of several instances where it became clear that my mom's mind is slipping more and more. She thought the year was 2002. She had not been taking the multi-vitamins I had purchased for her in the summer because she did not remember to take them. The last two times she tried to make her home-made rolls, they have not turned out well.
She is obviously not eating well. I watched her stumble and almost fall several times while I was there. She has to hold on to the wall to walk down the hall. I don't know how much the lack of proper diet contributes to all this. It grieves me that I cannot spend the time needed with her to take her to the needed doctors to find the cause for these issues.
She told me that her plants were beginning to die, just as her mother's had done before her mother's death. She said it gives her a strange feeling. After checking the plants, I told her I think the problem with the plants is that she isn't watering them. But, you never know.
The night before we were to leave, I gave her a hug before going to bed. She said, "I'm going to miss you when you're gone."
Me, too, Mom. Me, too.
This was the first of several instances where it became clear that my mom's mind is slipping more and more. She thought the year was 2002. She had not been taking the multi-vitamins I had purchased for her in the summer because she did not remember to take them. The last two times she tried to make her home-made rolls, they have not turned out well.
She is obviously not eating well. I watched her stumble and almost fall several times while I was there. She has to hold on to the wall to walk down the hall. I don't know how much the lack of proper diet contributes to all this. It grieves me that I cannot spend the time needed with her to take her to the needed doctors to find the cause for these issues.
She told me that her plants were beginning to die, just as her mother's had done before her mother's death. She said it gives her a strange feeling. After checking the plants, I told her I think the problem with the plants is that she isn't watering them. But, you never know.
The night before we were to leave, I gave her a hug before going to bed. She said, "I'm going to miss you when you're gone."
Me, too, Mom. Me, too.
# posted by pawatson @ 6:07 PM 
