The little lost soul

For many years after King and I were first married, and then when our children were small, the million dollar question in the days following Thanksgiving was which family we would be with on Christmas Day.

We lived in Ohio and since King's  parents lived on the east side of Michigan and mine lived on the west side of Michigan, dividing the day between both families was not an option. King's family generally won out and we spent many years traveling back to Michigan to celebrate the holiday. To be honest, it was not something I generally enjoyed. Packing up four kids, presents and a dog into the car and driving eight hours was not my idea of a fun time. King and the kids were of the same mind. So at one point we decided we would start our own family tradition and spend Christmas at home -- our home.

When we moved back to West Michigan in the mid-1980s we told family members they were welcome to spend Christmas with us, but we were going to continue with our tradition of spending the holiday at home. Since Mom and Dad lived just down the street from us, it then became a tradition for them to come visit on Christmas Day.

They were a cute couple. On Christmas Eve they hung their stockings by the fireplace and would take turns looking away while the other filled a stocking. They got up early Christmas morning and opened their presents, had breakfast and then drove over to our house to see what Santa had brought our children.

Some years I would fix a huge turkey dinner, other years we would have stir fry. One year Dad refused to come unless I promised I would keep the dogs outside (they were rather obnoxious, but he was equally stubborn). We played games, ate dinner, drove around in the evening and looked at Christmas lights. They were good years.

The years passed. The children grew up. We moved to the middle of the state. Our daughter joined the Navy, our son went away.There were Christmases when I would swallow a huge lump in my throat and pretend everything was fine for the sake of those who made it home. But there were plenty of joyous occasions. Children would travel home from Hawaii or California to spend Christmas with us. Our numbers depended on who could get leave and who could get tickets home. The days leading up to Christmas were busy and filled with trips to and from airports, juggling family parties, Trivial Pursuit competitions, clandestine trips to the store and emergency runs to Kroger after the dog discovered ham dinners in the crock pot. The one constant though it all was Mom, Dad and my older sister always joining us for the holiday.

As the kids got older and started families of their own it was understood they were welcome to come spend Christmas with us. Our home was always open, but we understood the need to start their own traditions. By the time we moved back to West Michigan  our children had, indeed, started their own family traditions and our numbers dwindled to King, our granddaughter, our son, my sister and (sadly) just Mom.

That first year without Dad we all missed him, but no one could ever miss him as much as Mom. They had been married 65 years. Mom was lost without him and we learned -- to late -- how much Dad had been covering for Mom's loss of any type of reasoning.

This year Mom and my sister came to our home Christmas day. They arrived, I helped Mom into her slippers and she then was ready to go back to the nursing home. Thirty minutes. A record. And she was so confused. What was she supposed to do with the carefully wrapped package? Should she rip the paper?

But a part of her remembered. She asked several times if Santa was coming tomorrow and if everyone would be with us then. Apparently our house was too quiet. It seemed she did remember the noise and happy chaos and she missed it. But that is as far as it went. There was no way to explain to her that it was Christmas and everyone was at home with their own families. She simply stared with a blank look on her face and we were left wondering if she couldn't hear us or if she couldn't comprehend what we were saying.

And that confusion carries over to our daily routines.

Since Mom has moved to the nursing home it has become somewhat of a tradition for my sisters and I to meet on Saturdays to take her out for coffee. Yesterday  was an especially rough day, but we are always ready to find a reason for her confusion.

I arrived at the home first and the residents were milling about acting far more animated than usual. It seems they had just completed a fire drill (something a staff member said was a necessary evil, but enjoyed by no one). So when Mom displayed some extra unusual behavior we were ready to find a reason. . . Did the fire drill at the home throw her off?  Or is she really that far gone?

My niece was home from college and joined us for coffee. We had to take two cars. That seemed to confuse Mom a little bit. We were sitting at the restaurant having our coffee and she kept asking if we were all going to go somewhere. We all looked at each other, raised our eyebrows, shrugged our shoulders and said in unison, "We ARE somewhere Mom, but yes, we will go wherever you want."

No sign of her understanding. No sign she even heard us. Just that same blank look. Her question was repeated several times.  We eventually said our goodbyes and my granddaughter and I headed back to our house and my sisters and niece took Mom back to the home. Mom had some sort of a panic attack and kept accusing them of conspiring to take her to a new home.

I would say it is difficult to know what is going through her mind, but that is not correct. It is impossible to know. She visits our homes and is always ready -- eager even-- to return to the nursing home, so we assume she is comfortable there. But once she gets back to the nursing home she sobs when we leave, asking over and over again when we will be returning. Days have no meaning to her. You can tell her: "I will be back Monday," but she doesn't know what day that is. We might as well be telling her we will be back "Snuffel-day." Since we don't know if she can hear us, we write our answers out for her. She reads them aloud, but often times doesn't seem to understand what she has read.

We wish there were answers. But lets face it, there are none. Apparently the demented don't come with an instruction booklet. And she remains the little lost soul.

Christmas traditions

Christmas was always a huge deal for Mom. Sometime after the first of December she would start getting out the red candles and a few decorations would find their way into the house. Her decorations were always tastefully done.

Although they didn't do a whole lot with outdoor decorations, Dad had a wooden wreath form made of plywood and Mom would go out into the woods and cut pine boughs to make a wreath for our front door. Sometime during the 1960s Dad made a wooden Christmas tree frame and stapled large outdoor lights to it. He then put pie plates around the lights so we had an outdoor tree that kind of looked like rings of giant life-savers. King and I inherited it and it's been an outside decoration for our home for almost 10 years.

Toward the middle of December Mom would finally send one of us into the garage to get the boxes of decorations down from the attic and we knew we would be getting the Christmas tree soon.

Each year -- usually on a Saturday in December -- Mom, my younger sister and I would take Dad's saw from the garage and walk across the street to the Veldhoff's Christmas tree farm and choose a tree. I believe they were commercial growers for a while and then got out of the business, but the trees remained and for many years that's where we got our tree.

Now, choosing a tree was no small deal for Mom. This trek would take several hours. My sister and I would run from tree to tree. "This one is perfect Mom." "Look at how tall this one is." "This one has pine cones." Mom would walk over and judge each tree. "That one is nice, but I think the trunk is a little crooked." "That one is too big to fit in the living room." "No, I think this year we will go with something a little (rounder, smaller, taller, fuller)."

Mom would agonize over the right tree and inevitably the one we would bring home would have a 90 degree angle in the trunk. Dad would work in the garage on the stand until he could finally find a way to make it stand upright. I recall the year Dad, in total frustration, jumped in his car and drove to the shop (the machine shop in the dog food factory he managed) and welded a cast iron stand. Mom swore the living room sagged in the corner where the tree was, but that tree, and every tree after it, stood upright.

Mom also did a lot of baking during the holiday season. Cut out cookies, rolled cookies, fondant, thumbprint cookies, popcorn balls . . . the list was endless. Plates were set out when company came and we would often have cookies and milk as an after school snack, an evening snack or a waiting for the bus snack . . .

Years later, when I met King and would spend the holidays with his family, his mother hoarded cookies. A plate would be passed and we would be allowed one cookie, then the box would be hid away in her bedroom. She once confided in me that at the end of the season she had to throw cookies away because they became stale. She asked what my mother did with her leftover cookies. I tried, but I could not help myself, "There never were leftovers. We ate them." (Ok, there was always plenty of fruitcake left over after the holiday).

On Sunday afternoons in December we would go to church to practice for the Sunday School Christmas program. They were always lavish affairs with lots of singing, verses to memorize, angels, wise men, shepherds, and of course, Mary, Joesph and Baby Jesus.

The program was almost always performed on Christmas Day -- no matter what day of the week Christmas fell. After the program oranges and boxes of Cracker Jack were distributed to everyone in attendance.

These are the memories I have tucked away to pull out when I think of Christmases past. We now how our own traditions -- a blend of those from my childhood and King's, melded together with traditions our children are creating. It is as it should be and they, too, will be able to pull them out someday and reminisce.

I hope they will remember for a very long time. Because, as we have learned, memories are fragile and can be very fleeting.

Did that really just happen?

I have a propensity to start a sentence and then get lost in thought and fall silent. I think I do it mostly with my daughter or perhaps she is the only one who calls me on it.

I can zone out quite easily.

The other evening after work I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few items. I rounded the corner to the tea aisle and there was Paul Simon perusing the Celestial Seasonings.

I stood there for a few minutes staring at him, reasoning it could be him. Perhaps he owned a home along Lake Michigan and did his grocery shopping when few people were around. My mind wandered to the last time I actually saw Paul Simon and that would have been when he did the video "You can call me Al." This guy looked just like the Paul Simon in the video. Hmmm, wonder if he'd aged at all since 1986.

I was thinking about listening to his cassette tape in the car with the four kids while we were trying to find a bulldozer that had tipped over in the Kalamazoo River. The dozer had tipped over while dismantling a controversial dam in Plainwell (or maybe it was Otsego). The newspaper I was working for wanted a photo. One would think finding a bulldozer in the river would be easy. It wasn't. I was thinking about how naughty the kids were that summer day while we drove around aimlessly with no money for McDonalds and how frustrating it was not to be able to find the stupid bulldozer and damn dam.

Through the fog of long ago memories I hear, "Can I help you with something?"

Busted. Although my mind was 27 years away, my eyes were still staring at a man buying tea.

"Sorry, " I mumbled while I started pushing the cart past him.

"I'm not him you know," said the man with the Celestial Seasonings in his hand. "But I can give you an autograph."

And for those who are wondering . . . I'm guessing it wasn't him.

Wonder what THAT tastes like

A friend posted on FaceBook: Gravy on pancakes. That is all.

I seriously wondered if she was having breakfast with Mom.

Since on onset of dementia Mom has embraced some unusual food combinations. Marmalade on French fries.  Ketchup on pancakes. Our granddaughter was grossed out when she dipped shrimp into vanilla pudding. I watched her eat an entire restaurant cup of sour cream while waiting for her taco salad.

That's not our mother.

I can't imagine being so far gone mentally I won't  recognize food. Or know how to eat it.

And it's a shame Mom has lost touch with food as our family celebrations seem to center around food.

Mom came to our house for Thanksgiving. When my sister told her a few days beforehand they would be coming here for dinner, Mom was quite excited. Thanksgiving day she wasn't so sure what the day was or why everyone was in our dining room. We have our good days and bad days. Thanksgiving was a mediocre day. We ate early and she was ready to leave by 1:30. We had estimated she would last until 2 p.m. Our estimations were close.

As much as Mom has forgotten, she still knew she liked cranberry relish. And yes, she still enjoyed it smothered over her turkey. She always has. Perhaps her new-found food combinations are simply a matter of experimentation.

We can joke about it, but who would have thought it would come down to this?

Years and years ago I was an editor of a senior citizen's magazine. I worked closely with Senior Services in Kalamazoo. I did countless interviews and wrote countless articles on how to deal with aging parents.  I remember thinking: "But not my parents. They are so vibrant. They are so healthy."

Mom and Dad were healthy and vibrant. Dad downhill skied until he was 82. Mom stayed  active in their church. They walked for exercise. They had gym memberships.

But aging plays dirty, and it plays for keeps.

Dad died from complications of old age and Mom is losing her mind. Who would have guessed?

My sisters and I often talk about our concerns for our own mental health. We wonder if this is something we are destined for as well. Our mother read and kept active. Mom ate healthy. Her cholesterol and blood pressure were good. Still, she lost her mind.What about us?

It's a sobering thought.

Oh, and just for the record . . . I have loved dill pickles dipped in sugar since I was pregnant with our first son.