Chapter 50: I’d Like My Mom Back Now, Please

Dad sits on the Board of Directors for a seniors’ association that has a programming location right near their house.  For the past year, dad has been looking into the possible programs mom can participate in – just to get out of the house and have a little socialization. Earlier this fall, mom did a watercolour course there.  Every time I asked about it, mom said how much she hated it, and that she was just doing it for dad.  To her credit, she kept going, so I guess that’s something.

But fine, painting is not something mom has ever done in her life so I get that she wouldn’t necessarily be excited about learning how to do it in a course.  Music, however, is another story.  Since the spring, mom has been participating in a Tuesday morning group called  “Music Makers.”  It’s a bring-your-own-instrument kind of deal, and whoever shows up calls out songs, and they’ll play and sing.  This should be right up mom’s alley.  Until she joined, no one was using the piano in the room; and with her gift of perfect pitch and her genuine enjoyment of music, dad and I thought for sure this would perk her up and get her excited.  It seemed to work for the first few months.  But lately, it seems as though mom will arrive to the room, head straight to the piano, wait for someone to call out a song, and then do her part with no interaction with anyone else.  Apparently the group takes a coffee break about half-way through the session and mom just sits at the piano and doesn’t really talk to anyone.  Which is doubly strange since a long-time friend of hers from the church is one of the group leaders.  So long as mom doesn’t complain about going, dad is going to keep her enrolled.  I suppose it’s hard to not go when you get driven to and from…mom was driving herself to the group up until last month.  When she had another vehicle incident.  She came out of the building, couldn’t remember where she had parked the car, and got so upset about forgetting that someone else had to come and comfort her – and then call dad to come pick her up.  I really don’t want mom driving anymore but dad says she has been fine to get to and from church on her own (a trip which is less than a kilometre from the house).  I suppose mom hasn’t shown any signs of not knowing how to drive – but I continue to worry about her getting lost.  I guess we’ll see how this goes.

More depressingly, we hit another “loss” milestone this week.  Mom has lost her self-medication privileges.  I thought the daily pill containers would be the magical solution to ensuring that she would take her vitamins and blood pressure tablets smoothy.  Unfortunately, I forgot to account for the possibility of mom just forgetting about the container altogether – and then not always being sure on which day of the week it is.  So, there’s another thing dad is now responsible for doing and I feel so bad for how much stress he is taking on.  I really hope that now that I am in charge of my own schedule (and income generation – eeks), that I’ll have the time to help out more around the house and take some of the load off him. 

But as hard as this is on me – I can’t imagine what it must feel like for dad.  To watch your spouse of nearly 50 years start to fall away while she’s still in front of your face. If ever there was a definition of hell on earth!   

Will someone please send the real mom back to us now, please?  This is so hard to manage.