Homecoming...again
So Voyageur mentioned something about a break. Well, here I am writing early before sunrise, before I go practice yoga. Oops :)
Sometimes dementia smacks ya square in the face. Like last night. I got home yesterday and she of course wanted to take me to lunch right away. Wendy's. Well, I'm a pescartarian, but when I'm home I 'forget' along with her. So I had some chicken thing and she and I laughed and laughed, catching up. Which means it's the same conversation we have on the phone. Except she kept saying how glad she is to see me.
Voyageur came over and we went to Mom's favorite craft store and then the grocery store. OMG. Voyageur is a saint. First off the grocery store is not set up in a way that makes any form of sense. Second, grocery shopping was a huge bonding thing for Mom and me growing up. We loved grocery shopping together. She had a list - organized in columns and where things were in the store - and coupons and her calculator. Well, the calculator went by the wayside a few years ago, and then the coupons. She still has the list, but it's items she writes down as she thinks of them, sometimes duplicated, sometimes in a scrawl that is illegible. No columns. No order.
We get in the store and she is like a madwoman, trying to find her list, then almost off running to get her shrimp. Voyageur slows her down, says let's get some produce first. Big thing of mixed berries, then off and running. A woman I don't recognize, a ritual that has gone completely haywire. Mom and I used to have fun grocery shopping, poking at each other and her 'running' away from me with the basket. Now I watch the two of them, my sis reminding her of the needed items as they come up in order of the store, Mom searching the shelves, finding it, putting it in the basket. I have to walk away to another aisle.
As we are shopping, we are reminding Mom we are celebrating Thanksgiving on Sunday, that's why we are grabbing extra stuff. She doesn't suggest what we should buy, cook or who we should invite. Thanksgiving is a distant memory. I don't know if she actually keeps not remembering Thanksgiving is coming up or doesn't want to remember. Dad had a heart blockage and had to be rushed to the hospital a few years before he died. On Thanksgiving. If it were me, I would want to forget about that holiday.
When we get to the checkout, Voyageur and I bought the stuff for the faux Thanksgiving (we are just having a few folks over and kind of an open house style) and Mom got the rest. She wants to use the self-serve checkouts, we steer her away from that. That's a nightmare, her trying to scan the items, not knowing how to use the machine to pay, blech. We find a cashier, get checked out, go home.
Voyageur and I spend some time with her back at the house, then we go hit a coffeeshop. A much needed break. As we are driving back home, Mom calls and starts talking like it's our normal nightly call. I tell her we are on our way back home, she says 'Huh? What do you mean?' I realize she forgot I came home and we spent the entire afternoon and early evening together. Tears well up, my heart in my throat, I tell her I just then got into town and I would be seeing her in a few minutes. She was excited I was coming home....again.
I was told a few years ago I have to enter her reality and not try to bring her into reality. So I will come home....again and again.
Perhaps now we will take a break :)