It always seems that right before I am going to do another post about my mother, that I hem and haw and procrastinate; I am tired of the process, the circumstances and quite frankly and I am tired of providing energy to the situation: The Mother-Daughter Journey. Just plain tired and fearful of engaging in phone calls, of listening, of hearing it all. The other day I texted  the aide on duty to please tell me one good thing that had happened that day.

She never replied.

Later, I received a phone call from Angela, the Hospice nurse who had just visited my mother. When she arrived my mother was sleeping after having spent two days screaming, agitated, cursing out the aide, calling her terrible names, creating upset on the floor of her building. The nurse reported all of this to me, what the aide couldn’t bring herself to tell me.

Dementia and paranoia had taken over and had tied my mother’s synapses in knots, tangled her thoughts, beaten her memories, assaulted her good judgement, absconded with her filter. In short, my mother was gone.

And I asked: Does my mother need to be sent to an institution? I mean, what do I know?

Angela, assured me that the two aides were doing the best they could, were kind and loving, were trying so hard. My fear, after hearing about the aide, Candy’s, recent days, was that the aides were going to quit. Candy’s father had recently passed away and she has known all too well what Alzheimer’s can do. Judy, aide #2, must have had some experience with this population. It didn’t seem that even with these trials anyone was going anywhere, and, Hospice nurse, Angela said that it would not happen, that my mother would remain, that to change my mother’s environment would do more harm than good, was not necessary, and that we must preserve her dignity, that the aides were doing that.

I gritted my teeth and dialed my mother and had almost an hour long call: It was a semi conversation. I was informed by Judy that my mother spit out her medicine. She thought she was being poisoned, that people were feeding her glass and wanted to do away with her. Her affected, lost, short-term memory forgot she ate, forgot she was watching television, forgot, forgot, leading into false beliefs and accusations.

All of a sudden my thirty-three years in the school system kicked in. I was dealing with a kindergartener, I was dealing with a disturbed child, a needy, lonely, miserable one hundred and two year old who was now petulant, fearful, uncooperative: The teacher had to step in.

I was on speaker phone. The initial part of the conversation was my mother’s monologue from the planet of paranoia, telling me to call the police, trying to dial 911 on her phone extension, commanding me to step in, ranting that the aide was abusing her. And I said, and I said- NO.

Mother, mother! Do you know who I am? Do you know who is talking to you? Do you know who is with you? And each time paranoia set in, I refocused her. Again and again. I do not want to hear this! NO ONE is trying to poison you, no one is trying to kill you, no one is trying to hurt you, now take a deep breath and you listen. ARE YOU LISTENING? Your brain isn’t getting enough oxygen, you are hallucinating, the things you are telling me ARE NOT REAL. NOW LISTEN: I am your daughter, I AM IN CONTROL, not the aides, not the nurses, not the doctor. I AM IN CONTROL, and I am telling you now, YOU ARE GOING TO TAKE THE MEDICINE SO YOU FEEL BETTER AND SO EVERYONE AROUND YOU FEELS BETTER. NOW. Do not say another word. NOW. She assented.

So Judy got the medicine and mixed it into chocolate pudding which she BOUGHT FOR HER and fed it to her. My mother’s reaction was: and what if it kills me? And mine was WE’LL BURY YOU. Now no more of this nonsense, when you have medicine to take YOU TAKE IT, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?

Now she was quiet, she was docile. I changed the topics of conversation, I heard her say she was still hungry even after eating a lunch which she said she didn’t have. She wanted more soup, there was none. I told Judy to begin to order double portions of whatever my mom likes to keep on hand. I told her to keep offering her water, that she must be thirsty from all the moving and agitation and screaming and stress.

My mother was settling down. Still complaining about the other aide, saying that Candy told her that everyone hates her! that no one greets her or says good morning. That she is left alone for hours. I told the aide that everyday she should inform my mother of the day and time. That if she needs to leave the room, to tell my mother what time it is and what time she is returning. I told my mother that I knew she was intelligent and was a responsible, excellent worker in her past and that I knew she understood what I was saying. That a lot of what she sees, hears, or senses is NOT real, and to trust me and the aides.

I took the conversation away from her, I asked her how many grandchildren she had, she asked about my family. I told her I was going to tell her about what was going on in my house. She didn’t want to hear. Sorry ma, you are now going to LISTEN.

And I said: My son and I were raising butterflies for the second year in a row. That the mother butterfly visits our garden and lays eggs on the parsley and dill and the eggs hatch and little tiny caterpillars come out and eat and eat and grow and grow and eventually we watch them turn into butterflies and we let them fly away to pollinate the flowers.

“That must be beautiful.”

It is very beautiful and we enjoy helping nature and it is a wonderful experience.

My mother was listening like a rapt schoolchild.

My mother used to get us to eat by telling us stories. There was the story about Peasy and Beansy which seemed to be the perfect mealtime facilitator. I wish she were the one who would still build me houses of mashed potatoes, who would buy me another Golden Book and sit me on the couch and read to me. But now time has played its cruel joke and spun the roles around and I have to step up, acknowledge that I am without that mother and that in her final hours filial duty pushes me forward; I have, since my childhood have forever been in the role of diplomat, smoothing the feathers of family members, trying to keep the peace and this time was no different. But it is different. My phone call won’t change anything in the long term without the intervention of medication, but for the short term, I might have made it a little better. She wouldn’t let me get off the phone. Don’t leave yet, I am afraid.

I was hoping that this blog would be the one about butterflies; the butterfly mother releasing her eggs on plants that belong to someone she inherently trusts to raise them, to keep them fed and clean and  off to a good start: I promise that will happen, the stories and photos will appear soon.

I have become a mother butterfly.

The series starts here:
Part 1: And The Band Played On … a mother’s life, a daughter’s journey

The previous post is here

The next post is here