Do You Know Where We Are?

We were only a minute from my mother's little box of a room when she asked me this question.  She had put her root beer float down on the floor of the van because she was full.  She thought the idea of a root beer float was a great invention.  I guess it's the dementia that keeps her from knowing they were her specialty not too long ago.

When she suddenly said to me, "do you know where we are?" I had two answers. One was in my head.

1)  Yes.  We are on Scotland Avenue, in Chambersburg, PA, near your room.

It's the room we are trying to embrace as your new home.  We've driven this way a million times.  But it feels foreign right now.  I asked her the same question in return.  "Yes", she replied with confidence.

The other answer was in my heart.

2) No.  I have no idea where we are, mother.

In fact, right now I feel very lost.  One minute you are your normal self and the next minute you say things that don't make sense. I used to laugh and sometimes still do, but mostly, I feel very sad.  Sunday you were shopping for birds.  When I asked the nurse just to be sure, she shook her head in slow motion.  "No - no one went shopping today".  She confirmed what I feared.  It wasn't true.

I know that I'm your daughter and that you still know who I am.

I know that I am struggling with what is the best thing for this stage of your life.  You wanted to move here to this retirement community and loved it up until the past year or so.  It's probably not the Home's fault. It's just that you like to do things that are impossible for you now.  Gardening, cooking, reading....things that are basically a personal retreat. You're not interested in card games, movies you don't understand and can't hear and services that just don't appeal to you.

Now my heart breaks when I leave you each time.  You sit in your chair like a lost child or a stray animal looking for a home. Worst part of it is, there are so many like you in this position.

I know that I feel completely helpless, but I'm doing all I can to find the right situation for you.  Today a contractor comes to look at our house and give us an estimate on building a room for you here.  I'm afraid of so many things.  Can I really properly care for you?  Will agencies that say they will help, really help us?

I'm looking into another facility 5 minutes from me, but they don't have a bed right now.  That would be handy and I could bring you home and fix you good meals and take you with me to church and let you be part of a faith community again.  I will also be checking out another facility that is not as close, but has many of your high school classmates there whom I know would shower you with love.

No mother,  I guess I would have to say I don't know where we are right now.  But we'll find our way on this road together.

Peace.  Much peace to you.

Crutch, Crutch, Goose - a new game with my Mother

You've probably played the game "duck, duck, goose".  You know, the one where you sit in a circle and hope you are the one chosen to run around the circle—like a maniac. Next, you bop someone on the head and they continue the frenzy of activity.  Such excitement and anticipation in the air. At least, that's how it felt when I was a young girl.

As an adult, I still play a version of this game. First I sit and meditate quietly, or I vigorously ride my bike. Then BOP, an idea taps me on my head and I'm up and running around in circles.

Bop - "let's do a Christmas CD"
Bop - "let's learn to figure skate"
Bop - "let's put together a Christmas show"
Bop - "move your mother to the nursing center"

oops.....that "bop" wasn't my idea.  

But there I was...off and running (well, actually, I was hopping on crutches) to get her situated in her new room in the skilled nursing department at the retirement community where she lives. Being on crutches has slowed me down......a LOT! 

In the midst of all this hustle and bustle of moving my mother, it is so easy to lose sight of the positives.

Until last Saturday morning.

I had been planning a special picnic lunch for my mother.  I spent most of Friday afternoon making food preparations and creating the perfect scenario in my head.  

Early in the week I had promised her that I would take her out for lunch. Going out to eat would be a nice change from the institutional food and the atmosphere she has had to adjust to.  

But I began sensing that what she really needed was a touch of home. Memories are all she has left and they are fading too. Familiar things that would tie her to the past.  

So I started conjuring up this picnic idea in my head:

Sunshine.
Picnic table in the woods.
Home-made foods served on her Fiestaware.
A family heirloom tablecloth.
Root beer floats.

And then we got a call at 9:00 p.m. Friday night.  

She had fallen in her bathroom, hit her head on the tile floor and would be heading to the ER.  

We arrived before she did. 

She had a massive goose egg on her forehead and I gasped when I saw it, trying not to let her see my reaction.

I held her hand at one point to help her lift her arms for the nurse and saw the skin drape down over her bones like a wet dish rag.  She's only 95 pounds and I'm convinced most of that is just bone. 

It was a long night.

She wondered about our lunch plans.  Could we still go through with them?  

"Let's just take it one step at a time", I said.

Saturday came and it was sunny, but there was a very blustery wind that came with the sunshine so I wasn't sure we could go to the park as originally planned.  Plus, I had no idea what kind of shape she'd be in from falling the night before.

I made the root beer floats ahead of time, put them in the freezer so they'd last in the cooler, packed the blue Fiestaware and cheery tablecloth. 

Would she even remember the cloth I wondered? 

Next, I packed chicken salad, fresh kale salad with fresh strawberries, avocado, almonds, feta cheese and homemade honey-lemon poppy seed dressing and drove the 30 minutes to the retirement home.

When I arrived, a nurse carried all the food in for me and suggested a little sunroom at the end of the hall.  It was obvious my mother wasn't up for an outdoor picnic.

I stepped into her room and gasped again.  

I don't have children so I don't know what it's like to watch your child suffer from bruises and ailments, but I do know the feeling of seeing your aging mother becoming more frail by the week and I shivered at the sight of her black and blue face.  

A child always has the hope of growing up and getting stronger.  At 91, it's a very different scenario when they are bruised or ailing.  It seems to only weaken them.  You take a deep breath every time you see the incoming call from the nursing center.  Is this going to be it you ask yourself?

I could see we had about two options.  Let her lay in bed and have the picnic lunch in her room or try to get her up and sit in the sunroom.  She seemed interested in the sunroom so I went to get it ready.

We hobbled out to the room together, she with her frail body clinging to the walker for support and me with my injured ankle and grieving heart.


When we sat down at that table, however, it was as if we entered another world.  She recognized the tablecloth immediately.  We talked of gardening, cooking, where the tablecloth came from, though she doesn't remember, and how she had walked by this sunroom many times never dreaming she would end up here.

I realized, as we ate, that it was the first time in weeks that we had been able to do anything 'normal' together.  The past few weeks had been focused on parting with her furniture, signing papers, releasing her old room, filling out more papers, getting used to a very small room, new staff and procedures. It had taken its toll on both of us in different ways.  

Now, we sat at a table together, sipping root beer floats, eating from her plates (that I inherited from her) on her tablecloth and enjoying home-grown food.

Every time she sipped the root beer float she would say "this is delicious!".  I would remind her that this was the treat she served everyone who came to visit her in her cottage.  She would put scoops of ice cream in a glass and cover it with root beer, then put it in the freezer.  When unexpected visitors came, she would simply remove the glass from the freezer, put a straw in it (the kind that flexes near the top) and serve it with some pretzels. I don't know of anyone who didn't love those root beer floats.  But she has no recollection of this tradition.  I sighed.  How can she not remember that?  It was one of her trademarks.

At one point, we ate in silence and suddenly she slid her hand across the tablecloth.  "This is a connection to the past", she said.  Gulp.  Lump in my throat.  She can't remember the root beer floats but she can remember the tablecloth?  Memory is so unpredictable.

It isn't the most ideal stage of life for her right now and I shed many hidden tears over it.  But on this day, there was no running around in circles like maniacs playing duck, duck, goose.   We just sat and enjoyed memories together.  Me on my crutches and her with her goose egg bump on her head.   It's making lemonade out of lemons they usually say, but we had root beer floats instead.

Thanks to her goose egg bruise and my crutches, we made do in our new situation and created a new game...."crutch, crutch, goose".

With or without the crutches and goose egg - we will do this again!

"The Elephant Diet" Day # 139 Lyrics Written and Lyrics Waiting To Be Written

Today was filled with lyrics.  Some were written down and some are yet to be written.

I started by writing out the lyrics I want to be included in the CD insert.  That's the next big step in this final process.  As the graphic designer begins work on the cover design, I must decide who to thank for this project and make sure I say all that I want to say. That includes typing all the lyrics to the songs and including any authors for the songs that are not mine.  

I spent the rest of my day forming memories that can be turned into lyrics for another project someday. Perhaps.  

That's where lyrics come from.  At least for me.  For the most part, my lyrics are a representation of moments in time or feelings that I've experienced and think others might relate to or be encouraged by.  

After getting a good start on the lyrics for the CD this morning, I left to spend the largest piece of my day with my Mother.  After a business appointment regarding her care, unloading my car of her clothes that I had taken home to iron for her, going with her to the Doctor and having lunch out on the patio with the sunshine keeping us warm, I asked her if she would like to take a drive through the country.  

She seemed extra sad today and I thought the drive might cheer her up.

She was concerned that we have a viable reason for the drive.  Yes, of course.  That's how she's always been.  Make sure everything has a purpose and don't throw anything away - even gas to take a drive together.  Make it count for something!

She announced that she would like to see the farm where she was born.  That must have felt like a viable reason.  I was concerned we could find it because some days she doesn't know if it's morning, noon or night and there have been times she doesn't even know when she was married.  I decided even if we couldn't find the place, it was worth the trip just to get her out of her room.  After all, we could always stop for ice cream somewhere along the way.

Sure enough, despite her fading memory, she knew when we got near the road close to the farm.  I have never been there, so I had to depend on her memory completely.  That can be as risky as my GPS system or my own brain system for that matter.

When we found the place, her spirits lifted and she began to recall things from over 80 years ago.  She pointed to the silo and reminisced the fact that her father had built it.  

Silo built by my Grandpa Sollenberger

I decided to get brave and do her a big favor.  We approached a newer house on the property to find out if this was the right place, though I was sure that it was from a photograph my brother had taken years ago of my mother by the old house.  

Suffice it to say that knocking on the door to the house led to an interesting chase.  A young man (probably in his 20's) answered the door and said he didn't know the history of the old farm, but that his mother worked at a local bridal shop and we could stop in there to ask her.

I decided to go for it.  We found the bridal shop and when we entered the large store with all kinds of colors and puffy dresses, my mother was totally distracted.  Imagine for a moment the bridal and tuxedo shop filled with fancy dresses and my precious conservative mother standing in the midst like Alice in wonderland.

"Now I know where people get all their clothes" she announced.  "I live at Menno Haven and I often wonder where all their clothes come from.  Now I know".  

Well, I'm not too sure that the elderly at her retirement community are wearing prom dresses, but it made me giggle inside nonetheless.

When I reminded my mother why we were in the bridal shop, she thought we were tracking down the people who built the retirement home where she now lives.  Oh well.

Our minds are a strange thing and as I watch her age, I realize how fragile and undependable our brains can become.  But she knew which road she grew up on.  That's what is so amazing.

We never did locate the woman who could tell my mother what we already knew.  But we did locate a Wendy's and sat in our car under an oak tree enjoying large root beer floats while the acorns fell on the roof of my car making it sound like someone was shooting at us from the sky down onto our roof.  

When I asked her if she remembered how she used to make root beer floats for her friends who would stop in to visit, she had no recollection of it whatsoever.  I was surprised once again.  I reminded her that she used to put vanilla ice cream in glasses and keep them in the freezer.  Then she would add cold root beer to the frozen glasses when company came and it made for a wonderful refreshing treat to serve at the last minute.  She became known for her root beer floats.  Now I had to remind her.

So there's another day in my elephant diet.  Writing down lyrics from the past that were inspired by life experiences.  Living life with my mother today to create more memories which will more than likely lead to more lyrics someday that represent some precious moments with the one who brought me into this world.