Mom Is Getting Married! So She Says.

The Christmas season is ending and a New Year and decade begins.  It’s been six months since my mother moved in with us and it’s been an ‘adventure’ to say the least.  Nurse Teresa stopped by this morning and mom had a good check up.  She is strong, active, and healthy but getting more and more confused.  Her train of thought the last two days is that she is getting married again.  She has a man who visits at night and he apparently flew in from Holland.  Hey, this is a vast improvement of her previous preoccupation.   I would rather her talk about marrying someone than having her talk over and over again about the death of our family dog, Brodie.  He died just before Christmas.  Brodie was very compassionate with my mother and now that he is gone, the house seems very empty.  The hard thing was I had to rehearse my sadness along with her.  For a day or two she transferred the grief thinking it was a person in the family that died. So her moving on to marrying a person who is friendly and making her blush like a young bride is a welcome change.  Oh the mind, how complicated and confused it can be. 

Mom is sleeping more and more.  Sometimes she goes to bed as early as 4 p.m. and not get up till 9 or 10 the next morning.  Then, like last night she went to bed at 6 p.m. and got up at 5 a.m.  So there really is no pattern, each day is a different story.  We have resorted to putting a lock from the outside of her door.  We found that even the ability to roam a short hallway during the night was causing stress as she got to the point she could no longer find the door handle to get back into her room after visiting the hall bathroom.  To solve the problem of not finding her bathroom inside her suite, Michael removed the door.  She didn’t even mention the door missing to the bathroom or the fact that her door was locked. I wish we would have done that sooner.  It’s been going really well.  I have a baby monitor outside her door in case she panics and tries to knock on the door in the middle of the night. 

This morning I heard her around 6:30 a.m. making some sounds, went to check on her and she had been up for quite a while.She was packing, clothes everywhere, her dresser emptied and she had probably 5 layers of clothing on. I don’t even know how she manages to get one arm hole in correctly and then the neck of the blouse is somehow around her waist.  Sometimes her pajamas are on under her pantyhose.  It’s really sad but really funny at the same time.  This morning I was really out of it, I must have woken out of a  dead sleep because I just didn’t cope with it all, as well as usual.  I undressed her without many words and she was anxious to start the day…she said ‘Oh, the door is open’, and walked around the house looking for a cup of coffee and breakfast.  I followed her and gave her a banana started the coffee while half asleep.  After a while of me being in a daze she went back to her room and said “goodnight’ and back to sleep she went.   She slept till 10 a.m. when Nurse Teresa came.  The rest of the day went really good.  I was finally awake. Ha.   Later, we got her hair trimmed and joined Sylvia for lunch during her lunch break.  We came home and she watched a little TV and then decided it was time for bed. When she decides it’s time, there is no talking her out of it.

Recently Mom has been talking to invisible people pretty much on a daily basis.  She will give them a Bible study, or tell them about Molly.  She raises her voice and talks deliberately slower for them to understand her very clearly.  By the way, most of her talking is in Dutch.  I would say 90% of the time. This makes it somewhat challenging for Michael, her grandkids and caretakers.  I am amazed she doesn’t seem to notice that I am doing a lot interpreting for her.  I am so happy I understand most of it.  When I am not around for Beverly and Betty, they just play along.  That is, until she asks a question. 

Mom had a time she was terribly depressed.  That seems to have passed.  Her angry moments have lessened too.  She doesn’t sit much, unless she is sitting right next to someone.  Gone are the days when she would sit and listen to a podcast or watch a video on her own.  This makes accomplishing any tasks near to impossible when she is awake.  It does get very exhausting.  

I had a scary event a couple of weeks ago.  I went into her room to check on her in the morning and she was breathing really irregular and I couldn’t wake her.  She had rapid eye movement and when she opened her eyes she didn’t see me.  It was concerning so I called Hospice.  They were going to come but within 15 minutes, Mom was up and smiling talking about heaven.  I think she must have been in a deep, deep dream or vision.  Crisis over.  I actually stayed pretty calm during all that, even hoping that this indeed would be the sweet way she would transition into heaven one day soon.

Christmas Eve when all the kids were home was fun.  We ate early to make sure Mom would be able to join us and we let her open her gifts during dessert.  She loved being the center of attention.  Then off to bed she went and we had a nice family time with just the kids.  It was very relaxing.

Christmas morning she went to my sisters and had a great time with her family.  It was sobering to think that this may be our last Christmas with her.  Then again, if you observe her during her good times, you think, she may outlive some of us!  I’m glad that our Heavenly Father is the one who holds her future.  Father knows best.