For Such a Time as This

Hi everyone!  Can you believe I'm back already?

After today, I am convinced that I am the ONLY person on this planet that can properly take care of my Mom.  I have the ability to know what she wants and how she wants it, even when she doesn't even know -- OR, she doesn't know how to say it.  And I am speaking about current events.  God only knows what is to come.

I know what she is TRYING to say when she is saying something so crazy, Jerry (my DH) can't start to figure it out.  He gets very frustrated with her.  And, OF COURSE, I know that no man "gets" a woman, but this is different.

I'll give you a few instances:

This afternoon, Mom sat down at the kitchen table while I was doing dishes or laundry or something.  I heard her fiddling with things on the table and saying, "I've got to find the salt.  Where could it be?  Joy, I NEED to find the salt."

We weren't eating.  She didn't have anything to put the salt on.

I realized when I looked at the table that she had arranged the pepper, the toothpicks and two little wooden angels on top of a trivet in the center of the table, and she wanted the salt shaker to be there too to complete the arrangement.  I walked over and picked up the salt shaker which was on her blind side at the end of the table and handed it to her.

She said, "Oh, thank goodness!  I had to get this arranged right, and I couldn't find the salt."

Jerry NEVER would have understood that.  He would have told her she didn't NEED the salt, and he would have just ignored her.

Then there was tonight.

She was having a pretty bad dose of Sundowner's.  Her mind was off on a dozen tangents.  For some reason, she kept going into the wrong bedroom even though she was already in her bedroom.  I was in my bedroom and couldn't see that she kept leaving her room and going into the one across the hall.  Jerry could hear her from his office.  Jerry went out and closed the door to the WRONG bedroom and told her to go to her OWN room.

In a few minutes, she would come back out of her room and go to the closed door -- open it -- go in and start rearranging things.  Jerry saw her and went back again to return the items she had removed from it and close the door again.  He told her again to PLEASE go to her own room and watch TV.

In a little bit, Mom was out of her room again and going through the closet in the WRONG room. Again Jerry went out to the hall to find out what Mom was doing, and I heard the commotion. I was afraid Jerry was going to strangle her!

I had received a phone call from my friend, Deb, and I was in my room talking to her.  That is why I didn't hear Jerry and Mom having room wars at the other end of the long hallway.  As soon as I hung up, I hurried down the hall to rescue my Mother.  She was TRYING to tell Jerry that she needed "her jacket".  She had taken a garment out of the WRONG room closet, and she was complaining that it wasn't the right one.  Jerry was telling her it wasn't even a jacket, it was a top.  Mother -- being extremely soft spoken and patient -- was trying so hard to explain that she needed her jacket.

I shooed Jerry off to his office which is where he needed to be as he was trying to finish some very important paperwork.  I took Mom buy the arm and led her back into her room.  I knew EXACTLY what she wanted.  She has this little white bed jacket.  It is fuzzy and warm.  She folds it a certain way, and she puts it around her ears and her head every night in her bed.  It had disappeared, and she could not find it in her room.  Hence, she kept going in the other room to look for it.

Mom was saying she just had to have her jacket, and she was very worried it was lost.  I assured her I would find it.  I figured it must be under the covers or under the bed, and that is where it was.  It had fallen behind the headboard which is brass bars.  I reached down through the bars and onto the floor and picked it up.  She was DElighted!!!

I made sure TBN was on and was the right volume and that she had the controller in her hand.  Yes! She actually has learned to push the "off" button when she is done watching TBN.  At least, she could do it last night after 30 minutes of lessons from Jerry.   I gave her a hug and told her I would be back to check on her, AND I closed the door to HER bedroom.  When her door is closed, for some reason, she stays inside it.  Jerry was closing the wrong door.

Poor Jerry.  I try to explain this stuff to him, but he just thinks it is crazy.  He thinks she should KNOW where her OWN room is!  He is much more patient when he isn't tired and in pain from his knee injury, of course.  I get really cranky too at times.  This assignment takes a LOT of patience!

I go check on her every 30 minutes until she goes to sleep, and I'm headed there now.

Be back soon.

Hugs, Joy