living with Mom

Since we moved Mom up to live in Seattle with him David has written occasionally about her in his skook blog.

Today he writes: "So many things to do today (and tomorrow and the next and the next) and huge chunks of the day are spent directing AM [Aged Mother] in taking care of basic survival functions. Her sophisticated human brain, now that it no longer works smoothly, seems more to hinder the process than to help. She gets stuck in thought loops. She knows she's supposed to be doing something but can't remember what it was. And it's a rare thought seems able to go from point A to point B without taking a detour to X and then getting distracted by M. She's good natured about most of it. And when there is an upset it's usually easy to distract her. And then she seems to forget."

On Friday December 26 he wrote: "Morning. Been up for a couple of hours now, surfing the internet and tending to Aged Mother. My plan to kill her is going smoothly. She eats four eggs a day. That's twenty-eight eggs a week. With butter. "With butter" describes most of her meals. All vegetables go with butter. Sometimes butter and yogurt. All fruit goes with yogurt, occasionally with soy milk as well. She'd probably eat the fruit with butter as well if I only suggested it. I probably won't need to. She's asked for butter on every thing else without my prompting. One of these mornings I just know she's going to ask for butter to go with her pears. And then she's doomed. (Cue manical laughter.)"

And this was posted on Sunday December 14: "'Is your Dad still alive?'

'He died three years ago Mom.'

'Oh.' She thinks about that. 'I didn't think he was still alive. But I didn't think it was three years.'"

My sis-in-law Sarah has written me some emails about living with Mom. Some good writing, too. Just on that basis I've been tempted to ask her if I could excerpt from her letters, post them on LuvSet. But I kinda don't want to. At least not now. It's still a new thing that Mom is having these thought difficulties and I know I'm not OK with it. I do think if Sarah kept a journal it would make reading others would value.

I phoned late this morning and got Sarah but Mom was asleep. Sarah said she'd get Mom to call back. Indeed, when Kent & I got back from brunch (chilly air but warm on Chester's sunny deck -- I made sure to wear a black jacket to absorb as much sunlight as I could) there was a message from Mom. She got a little confused leaving the message, "Who is this?" I heard David's voice reminding her. But when I called a moment later she talked about the weather (cold there, too), the Chinese food they had for dinner last night, studying Yoga Journal for useful advice. She says she has to use a walker now, which disappoints her, but she's gotten used to it.