Dementia's a bitch, first and foremost. Most of the time, my mother cannot finished a sentence. In fact, she can barely start one. On the lighter side, this makes for some very entertaining conversations between my parents--my dad who can barely hear, and my mom who can barely put together a coherent thought let alone a sentence. But on the less lighter side, it's incredibly frustrating, for her, for Dad, for everybody.
The background. Last year, Mom announced one day she wanted a laptop of her own, so she could write emails, stay in touch with old friends, family, etc. My brothers and I knew this was probably not a great idea. Even ten years ago, when the dementia was just beginning, and Mom was still able to use a computer to check email, she was constantly calling one of us up to remind her how to get to her Inbox, how to write and send an email, how to close the Inbox, even how to turn the computer on and off. We ended up having to make her little Post-It lists that we stuck to the computer monitor. And sometimes that worked, but you know how computers are. One little mis-click and you're suddenly looking at your Control Panel instead of Outlook Express. That happened a lot.
Eventually Mom stopped using the computer, then she stopped doing the household accounting (Dad took that on until I moved in and relieved him of that duty, which he absolutely hated. Which reminds me--I really need to blog about Dad and Math one of these days...), then she stopped cooking (Her last attempt, a meatloaf, was....well,.....inedible.), then she stopped writing, anything. Now she spends most of every day in front of a television, watching CNN. Pretty sad.
So anyway, we nixed the laptop idea. But then Mom brought it up again about four months ago.
"I want a laptop" she announced out of the blue one afternoon. And I had to really think about how to respond to her. Sometimes I feel like the evil parent who doesn't let her children have or do anything fun anymore. It killed me when I had to tell them both they could no longer drive. Dad took it better than Mom. He could see....so to speak.......that having a totally blind right side is a major accident waiting to happen. But Mom still occasionally spouts off with "My kids won't let me drive anymore and I don't understand why. I don't see why I can't drive!" (And it's really funny how she can say these kinds of statements without a hitch.)
You know what I think? I really think that when we become elderly, there's a part of our brain that thinks we're still thirty. It doesn't even "think" we're still thirty. It firmly, totally, undeniably BELIEVES we're still thirty.
For example......Every holiday season, my mom ALWAYS says, "I'd better get busy with the Christmas cookies." And I'm thinking ("thinking" mind you, NOT "saying") "Mom! Do you remember the meatloaf???" but what I really end up saying is, "Okay Mom. That would be fun" because I know she'll forget she ever said it....until next holiday season.
Here's another one...........Every time one of my brothers rides his motorcycle up here to visit, Dad says, "You know, I'd like to take that out for a spin" and my brother and I are like, "Dad! You're freakin' blind on your right side! You use a walker for cryin' out loud!"
Or, whenever family comes to visit, a few days before they arrive, Mom always makes the comment, "Well I'd better go make up the beds for our guests." And I just shake my head because: 1. I've already done it; and 2. Really Mom? You're gonna go get the sheets? Make up the bed? Put on the pillowcases? All by yourself? Really?
So anyway.......Mom made this statement, this grand announcement that she wanted a laptop of her very own. And I had to take a moment to think about how to respond to her. I stood there for what seemed like an eternity trying to think of the best, the most effective, the most tactful way of denying my mother a laptop, this new "toy" she wanted so badly. And here's what I came up with....
First I used the money issue (always an effective deterrent with elderly parents on a fixed income): "Mom that's going to be at least $1000." She answered simply with a deflated, "oh."
Second, I thought of an alternative (And at the time, I really thought this was so, so clever of me. Silly me.): "I have an idea Mom. How about we get you a portable electric typewriter? We'll put it on the dining room table, plug it in, and you can just hunt and peck the keys and write your letters and notes that way!"
She liked that idea. It was still a new toy that was just for her. But it wasn't going to cost $1000. More like $100. And I figured if she ended up not using it, it's always nice to have an electric typewriter around the house, right?
So I ordered the typewriter. It came. I set it up in the dining room. Loaded the paper. Mom was so excited. She went in, sat down.....and sat, and sat, and sat. She must have sat and stared at that typewriter for a good thirty minutes. I finally asked her, "Mom what are you waiting for?"
And she meekly replied, "I don't know what to do." So I gave her a typewriter tutorial--showed her the keyboard, showed her that the paper was loaded and ready to go. She seemed to get it. I left the room. About an hour later, I heard her walking back to the living room saying to Dad, "I'm exhausted" as she collapsed in her hydraulic recliner.
Later on, I went into the dining room to check what she had typed. There were at least a dozen pieces of paper spread all over the table with "Dear" typed at the top. Some had "Deeeeeeee aaarr" or "DDDDearrrr" or "De ar". "Dear" was as for as she could get.
I gave her another tutorial. My brother did the same during one of his visits. Twice. Ultimately she was able to type a complete salutation and the beginning of the first sentence, "Dear Pat and Dick, It's been so long...." and then it just drops off. Eventually Mom gave up. The typewriter is in one of the guest rooms now, with Mom's last attempt "Dear Pat and Dick, It's been so long ....." still in it.
Okay so now flash forward to two weeks ago. Mom came into the office one day and asked me for some note cards so she could write Thank You notes to people who had sent Christmas cards or little presents. I found a box of personally monogrammed notecards in the desk, which excited her. She took the notes into the dining room and started to work on them. It took her a while and she got frustrated.
One afternoon she asked me whose monogram was on the front of the cards. "That's your monogram Mom!"
"Oh" she replied, surprised, slightly confused.
I encouraged her to keep at it and suggested maybe she do just a little bit at a time. That seemed to help. She finally finished one note, which she sealed and gave to me to mail, which I did. Then another one already sealed and addressed (quite legibly too!), which I also mailed.
And now the source of my dilemma. Two days ago, Mom handed me a third note to mail. It too was already addressed. I took it, told her I'd mail it that afternoon, and added it to my pile of outgoing bills. That afternoon I got in the car to run errands, which included a stop at the post office to pick up stamps so I could mail everything in my Outgoing pile. I got my stamps and was standing in the post office lobby stamping each envelope. Mom's note was the last one in the pile. It wasn't sealed. It was a note she wrote to her friends Pat and Dick in South Carolina (the ones to whom she had attempted to type a letter). She has not seen Pat and Dick for at least twenty years. They've stayed in contact by phone and by letter. The address on the outside was legible, barely legible but legible nonetheless. I took the note out, curious to see if I thought Pat or Dick was going to be able to read it, curious to see what Mom had written.
I think I stood in that post office for at least fifteen minutes staring at what Mom had tried to write. "Dear Pat and Dick" it started. "It's been so long since I've written" it continued. Some words were a little hard to decipher but it was off to a good start. Good for Mom, I thought. She should write more, I thought. But then the note declined. The entire notecard was filled with writing. But it was all made of half-sentences, repeated fragments, half-words, and a kind of an eery, strange repetition of the word "quick" in several different forms. Like seriously, the word "quick", "quicker", or "quickly" was interspersed in the note at least twenty times. Sometimes by itself, sometimes in doublets--quickly, quick. Sometimes in triplets--quick, quicker, quickly. Sometimes all by itself. Quick. It made no sense. The first thing that popped into my head was that sentence everybody learns on the first day of typing class because it includes every letter in the alphabet, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." Did Mom's brain have some sort of weird short circuit moment where it overlapped a random typing memory onto what she was trying to write? So I stood there. And all I could think was, "I can't send this." I stood there holding this disjointed but well-intentioned note to dear friends and all I could hear in my head was "I can't send this."
So there it is. Do I send it? It's still in my purse, stamped and ready to go. But I just can't stand the thought of Pat or Dick receiving the note and seeing the evidence of my mother's dementia.
What to do?
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