Never Take It Personally

The purpose of this post was to write a disclaimer to all my family and friends. Please do not take anything I write personally.  I have been trying to filter my feelings so I don't hurt anyone else's.  However, the thing about words on paper that are written and not spoke orally is that sometimes, as I teach my students, the tone in which you hear the words in your head is not the way in which I say them in my head as I write them.  So please, do not take anything I say personally.

Speaking of taking things personally..........

The first thing you learn as a caregiver of someone with Alzheimer's Disease is that you are not suppose to take their abnormal behavior to heart.  This means that no matter how many times the patient tells you that she has not seen you in ages, your son stole money from her, you never ever visit or help out, don't take it personally.  These are signs that something is definitely amiss. Before my mom's diagnosis, she would often call me and tell me all about the things that her grandchildren did wrong at her house.

My mom and dad's dream house!  Built in 1977 

They didn't have the towels up properly on the towel rack.  They went to visit but left a huge mess for her to clean up.  They were borrowing things and never returning the.  The biggest red flag of all was when my mom called to tell me that my son had taken her vacuum and brought it out to the woods and now she could not find it.  Ironically, my mom at that time, only had a central vac and had no other vacuum. In later years we did buy her a regular upright vacuum but that had nothing to do with the one she thought was somewhere out in the woods.  Needless to say, it was frustrating. My mom would offer to let my daughter borrow her car to get to school as long as she (my mom) had the car back to go bowling on Friday nights.  No sooner would my daughter be out of the driveway, my mom would be calling me and asking me when her car was going to be returned. This became increasingly frustrated to me.

I guess the actual 'straw that broke the camel's back' or the thing that pushed me to say something is definitely wrong or we are going to have to move was the day she drove to my house and told me that my kids could not swim in her pool anymore because they left wet towels in her laundry.  The thing was, if you knew my mom, she was a fanatic about perfectly hung up towels and in now way were you to hang a towel on the fence.  It was rainy and windy that day.  The towels needed to be washed.  My son did put them in the laundry but my mom was not happy.  I remember that day clearly.  She came to my house.  Yelled at me about the kids and I had to calmly say to her that from that point forward, both me and my kids would not be going over to her house any more.  Something seemed to register with her and she looked at me and then started to cry.  At that moment, we both knew something was wrong, really really wrong.  I also knew that she didn't want to hurt her grandchildren!

My mom sat down.  I made coffee us both coffee. Together we made a plan. We called her doctor and made an appointment that we could both go to together.

Dave (6), Dan (5 months), and Jess (3) at Ma's in her kitchen

I knew with my brain that my mom was not acting like this to hurt us.  I knew she loved us and we were her world.  However, my heart was broken to think my children were going to think their grandmother didn't like them and thought they were being mean to her.

For a long, long time, I worried about how my children would be effected by events such as this. Unfortunately, my mom didn't have anything that could be fixed with pills or surgery.  She had a disease that she would not overcome. I can only hope that they remember all of the wonderful times that their "Ma" was devoted to them unconditionally because, after all, she was the best grandma that she knew how to be!