The beginning

It's been more than a year since my sisters and I initiated "Mommy Day Care" for our aging mother. But the story of our search to find a place for Mom began almost two years ago and as I reflect the changes during the past months, I am amazed at the way the wheel of time has turned and changed our lives in some fairly dramatic ways.

Mom and Dad on their wedding day,
August 4, 1945. 

It started with the phone call on a Tuesday in September, 2011. Dad was being taken, yet again, to the hospital by ambulance. I think we all knew it was the beginning of the end. Dad was 90 and had led a full life. Lenient and strict -- a sort of contradiction, but that had been our father. We all knew -- except for my mother -- that this day was coming.

I won't bore everyone with the details. Dad passed away surrounded by family on September 27, a week to the day he was admitted to the hospital. Life goes on and we all do what we need to do to continue.

Mom had a difficult time dealing with Dad's death. They had been married 66 years. Mom was lonely and somewhat afraid of living alone. My two sisters who lived closest to her visited every evening after work, I drove up to visit her once or twice a week and my son and daughter-in-law took her out for dinner or coffee once a week. Friends from church visited. But Mom wasn't doing well. She hated being alone. My son said when they would visit she would be sitting in her chair in the living room with the lights off.

Mom worked at Willow Run Airport
dismounting, cleaning and remounting
machine guns on bombers during WWII.

So we moved her into my sister's house. But Mom was still alone during the day. And it was becoming more and more apparent her  mind was slipping. So we initiated a plan where Mom would ride with my sister to her place of employmnt in Holland and I would meet them there and transport Mom to our house. That way Mom could spend the day playing on the hobby farm where King and I are caretakers (ahhh, retirement). I would drive Mom back to Holland in the afternoon and my sister would take her home.

We called that Mommy Day Care, phase one

The plan worked well for about six months. I can only imagine what a nightmare it was for my sister to try to get Mom up and ready while trying to get herself ready for work. Mom tends to putter when getting ready in the morning.

It has always been that way. Mom was always the last in the car whenever we went anywhere, but it was never more apparent than on Sunday mornings when we were leaving for church. We would joke she was always late because it took her a long time to button her Sunday coat. Mom never saw the humor in it.

But I digress. It was in September, a year after our father's death,  that Mom started making noises that she didn't want to get up early any longer and did she HAVE to do this every morning?

Enter Mommy Day Care phase two

So I started driving to Grand Haven to watch Mom at my younger sister's home. The days were painfully endless. It's one thing to cater to Mom in our own home. It's entirely different when sitting in someone else's home nine hours a day. Trying to come up with entertainment for a 90-year-old demented woman isn't always easy. Oh how I hated it. But it was for Mom.

It was about this time a cousin decided she needed a purpose in life. Things had not been easy for her since the passing of her husband and daughter and she said she had been thinking she needed something to feel useful. She added she was waiting for a sign but God had not handed her a script written in stone, so she decided maybe her purpose was to help us out two days a week. She may not have received a commandment, but for me it was a gift from Mt. Sinai. Oh blessed relief.

This plan worked for another seven months. During this time Mom's dementia was progressing rapidly. If this weren't my mother we were talking about, I'd say watching the progression of this disease is interesting in a morbid sort of way. But this is my mother we are talking about and it's more heartbreaking than interesting. Mom has had several strokes, and although she walks with a barely perceptible shuffle, the damage done to the brain is unbelievable.

Mom knows we are the people who take care of her. She doesn't know we are her daughters. She has no idea our cousin is her niece. We've created a photo album for her with photos of all of us and our children, but it really means nothing to her. She remembers Dad and definitely knows he's no longer with us. After that it's just a matter of taking it day by day. Don't ask her to make a decision - not even a simple one such as: Would you like toast or cereal for breakfast? She often asks me what her last name is.

Enter Mommy Day Care, phase three

This winter it became more apparent it was time to start looking for a home for Mom. My older sister and I started looking, just to see what was out there. In the meantime it was become rather difficult for Mom to stay at my younger sister's home. Her family is going through plenty of changes -- a college graduation, a high school graduation, trips to an out of state college. Senior year activities . . . So it was decided Mom would move in with King and I until there is an opening in one of the three homes we have selected. It could be six months, it could be a year.

And so begins the waiting game. Our lives here have changed drastically, and that is part of what this blog is about. The good times and the bad. The memories. Our hopes for the future. And the way we cope with change.