Monday: As I began to tell you, last week hit suddenly: the moving truck arrived from Florida and I spent a good amount of time pushing, pulling, fishing through, unwrapping, organizing, a load of boxes that were filled with fragile items wrapped like paper mummies. A few boxes ended up at my house and there are still a couple that must be gone through at my mother’s. The place shaped up and despite all the attempts of the movers for seniors to plan the layout, nothing materialized as they envisioned it. The contents are all there: it’s a bit crowded … Continue reading →

You’ve read my last post  and you know about Saturday evening when I spoke to my mother and she revealed tremendous upset. In turn, everyone around her became unsettled. I took a break and did not speak to her or the aide on Sunday. I needed to chill, rewind, and take a deep breath. I inhaled deeply at the latest Woody Allen movie, had a couple of scoops of ice cream, and tried to remain objective about what has been going on over the last days, weeks, months and almost a year. What I learned is that my mother’s outbursts … Continue reading →

Learning to listen   Blog-world denizens, I don’t know where to begin so please indulge me in a little cathartic airing-out of my grievances. We all have our way of looking at things, our perceptions shape our reality. No two realities are the same.   Yes, this post is part of the series about my mother. It continues where we left off with the potential for everyone to live happily-ever-after, for me to have some stress and pressure removed, for my mother to live close-by and accessible. The aide is a live-in has to be fed, we must feed her … Continue reading →

The time has come. Months have gone by filled with weeks of anxiety, days of questions, hours of confusion, minutes of apprehension, and thousands of seconds of stress. My mother’s apartment in the senior housing building is in the process of being set up with temporary furniture. I spent the day there with my son, two trips with carloads of bags and equipment. Flashlights, bath chairs, wheelchairs, tissues, bedding, stuff and more stuff. Had keys made, bought extension cords, foraged for extra potholders and kitchen towels. We did what we could but the cable/phone still isn’t working so thankfully a … Continue reading →