The Good and the Bad about Mother's Living Situation

We're coming up on the six-month anniversary of Mother's move into the Alzheimer's unit of a nursing home; and although there is much I could say about that, for tonight I'll only mention two things: one negative and one positive.

The hardest thing during this winter has been the fact that when my children and/or I have been sick, we have been unable to visit her or have her out here for meals.  The nursing home has a fairly strict policy of protecting their residents from germs--and rightly so!--consequently, we have tried to be conscientious about not exposing her to the various little illnesses we have had.  Thankfully, we have only had two rounds of sickness--one back in November, and one during the past couple weeks--but both of those times have seemed to draaaaagggggg on as my heart has longed to be with my mother more often, but my head has told me to stay away.

That difficulty, however, actually contributes to one of the best parts about my mother living in the nursing home; and that is this: when she is here with us in our own home, it isn't ordinary anymore.  It's a celebration!!  I find myself anticipating her arrival more and wanting to do more extra things to make it especially meaningful for her--and for us, since she almost certainly doesn't remember any of it--when she comes these days than I did when she just lived down the hill and was here every evening for supper.

Last evening, for example, the germs that had struck our home while I was away in Canada seemed to have abated, and our evening schedule was wide open, so I asked Dad if he could bring Mom out here so she could be here for supper with us, and he kindly went along with my request.  When she got here in the afternoon, I greeted her with a big smile and said, "You're just the person I was looking for!" as I handed her the dishtowel to dry some dishes I was washing.  She did that a while, then admitted that her back was hurting, so I took her into the living room and got her settled in our best rocking chair with my wedding album on her lap for her to leaf through.

All the other kids were otherwise occupied at that point, but David did a terrific job of relating to her (he always does)...

...and impressing her with his handstands.  :)

I was so happy to be working in the kitchen, preparing a special meal, while my mother was here under my roof again!

Jeff grilled steaks for us (the beef came from a friend of ours who lives a few miles away; we drive past his farm quite often on our way to choir, violin, and church, etc., and we like to look out the windows of our car at the cows in his pasture and say, "There are our steaks!" and "Hi, Dinner!" and so forth), and we also had creamed corn (grown by our neighbor and frozen by us), homemade applesauce (from apples grown at our nearby orchard), and grape pie (made from home-grown grapes).  It just so happened that we used the very last of our wedding napkins during this meal (unless another stack is lurking in some box somewhere), and it seemed appropriate to me that the end of those would come during a significant, celebratory meal with my mother.

I still miss having my mother close by and having her more involved with our day-to-day lives, but I'm immensely grateful that she is doing so well in the Alzheimer's unit...and very thankful that when she comes to visit now, it is An Occasion!!  :)  Each time we have dinner together here, I treasure it up in my heart--just like I'm treasuring the memory of last night's steak-and-grape-pie supper.  :)