Saturday, April 27, 2019

Please Share!

Me (left) and my mom on my wedding day 6/6/1981
For those of you who are not seeing my blog on Facebook, please share my blog with people you know!  Please pass it on to anyone you think might be interested in reading it.  My hope is to help others in my same position.  It is through saving my own memories, I can at least feel that I am preserving my mom's memory.  Never would I think on that day in June my mom would not be here to witness the most amazing things in my life or my children's lives. 
Me and my mom last year at nursing home 2018

It is sad to go take this trip alone and the more I can inform people about this horrible disease and how it takes its toll on a family, the better I feel because it means I did something positive! 


Thank you to everyone!!!

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Traditions of Easter

Any one who has had the pleasure of knowing my mom before Alzheimer's knows that holidays and entertaining were very important to her. When she was nine, her mom died.  She became pseudo mom to her two little brothers who were six and three at the time.  She often told me stories of trying to be the homemaker of the household.  She even had to learn how to do laundry, one time getting her arm almost caught in the roller of the old wringer washer.  My mom told me about having little food because my grandfather would go out and drink away his paycheck, leaving little for three small children.  Luckily, her grandfather helped out and took care of the kids as best he could. Sometime during her 12th year, she went to live with her Aunt Ann and was able to be just a regular teenage girl.  My mom told me once that it was her Aunt Ann that taught her everything!  Not only did she teacher 'everything' but she took her to church and that is where my mom developed her love of holidays!
My first Easter!  1962 Uncle brought me a bunny!
As the years went by, my mom helped me color eggs, she made me Easter baskets, and hid Easter eggs.  She and I would go to Easter Sunday Mass and then she would put the finishing touches on dinner.  We always had the same foods every Easter.  Ham, potato salad, macaroni salad, fresh kielbasa, marshmallow salad, pickled eggs, and cut up carrots, celery, and green onions.  I have no memory of desserts until my own children came along when I would provide a dessert for dinner.
My 2nd Easter! 1963 All ready for church!
My mom made every holiday special! There would be traditional foods and new clothes!  She and I attended church for many years together.  I can remember times when she would use bobby pins and pin tissues to my head because I didn't have hat to wear in church.

Mom made anyone who came to her house for Easter a special Easter basket. For many years she would invite my in-laws or my niece and nephews.  She would have special wrapped presents for everyone. As we all got older, I started to ask her not to give the kids as much chocolate. She started giving David a fruit basket and then she discovered Rice Krispie treats!  Knowing she just had to make sure we had a bunny in our baskets, she bought Bunny Chocolate molds and used them to make Rice Krispie bunnies, even wrapping them in special plastic wrap with ribbons and bows!

David, Jess (2), and Dave(5)
She only stopped hosting Easter when it became too difficult due to the fact she was exhibiting dementia symptoms and just couldn’t accomplish the necessary tasks any longer.  I started offering to bring more cooked dishes, even offering to make the mashed potatoes for her. Her response to me the second to the last year she made our dinner was that I didn't know how to make mashed potatoes and that they were always too runny!  At the time, I really was hurt and had a hard time with her comment.  Two years later she had no idea she had ever said it because she told me I made the best mashed potatoes.  In hindsight, we know why she said those things and now it doesn't hurt my feelings, it just makes me sad.

Unfortunately, one Easter we went to her house for our designated dinner time, only to find her just getting dressed with no dinner ready. She was just starting to cook and we ended almost two hours for dinner to be ready. This was definitely a sign that something was wrong because my mom had always been the ultimate entertainer and a very thoughtful planner for family holidays. That summer, I convinced her to start coming to my house for holidays.

My mom entered the nursing home in June of 2013.  Since then I have tried to include my mom's traditional food on our table.  However, very few people eat any of them, so I have started eliminating more and more of the dishes each year.  Sadly, two years ago I lost the bunny molds somewhere in my house.  It has taken me the two years to 'get over' the lost bunny molds. This year I bought items to cook my mom's traditional foods, but I didn’t make any.  I figured I was the only one who would eat them anyway, so I took the easy way out. I didn't need to eat a whole bowl of marshmallow salad or a whole ring of kielbasa. I did make my grand children and nephews Easter baskets and probably always will until they are grown!  I had David hide 39 eggs and everyone had fun helping the little ones look for them.

It was a great day, except for the waves of moments when I missed my mom and felt guilty for not visiting her on Easter.  Just at the right moment though, my father in law made my day.  As soon as I brought out the Rice Krispie squares, his eyes opened wide!  He announced that they were tradition!  He always remembered my mother making them!  He didn't say "bunnies"!  I guess if I don't find the bunny molds, Easter can still happen as long as we have Rice Krispie squares!!



Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Lifetime in a Box

I saw a post on Facebook a few weeks ago that said one day your children will want to see you in their old pictures, so make sure to be in them and not just be be the one taking them.  It made sense but I didn’t really think too much about it until yesterday.  School vacations are a great chance to clean some messy areas in my house.  The places where things get tossed to make the actual living spaces look better, because there isn’t enough time to keep everything perfect and work. So, in that messy back room, as I was looking for the Easter Basket prizes, I stumbled upon another big box of old pictures from my mom’s house. Try as I might, there were not many pictures of my mom.  So, I guess the post on Facebook was true because I want pictures of my mom. However, she was always taking them. I want pictures to remember her the way she was before Alzheimer’s.  I want pictures of the two of us. I want pictures of "Ma" with her grandchildren. Each picture of her brings back the memories of my mom as she used to be. There were hundreds of pictures but there weren't many of my mom. However, I did find one of her and her yellow bowl!

My mom in her kitchen making something great!


This picture was taken in our tiny kitchen, in our tiny house, in Baldwinville. I’m not sure what she’s making in that yellow bowl but I am sure whatever it was it was delicious! The picture was taken sometime in the early 70’s. The curtains are her own creation and in the colors she used on everything....her favorites. Oranges and browns were her choices for many projects she sewed. The house was tiny. It had a small eat in kitchen, a living room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. There was no cellar and no attic. It did have an attached garage and a laundry room off the garage. No matter how small it was, it was a really great house because she put so much of herself into decorating it and she was always cooking something!!  It was through this picture I actually remembered the fact she sewed me a bedspread and a canopy cover for my big bed.  It made me remember the chocolate covered cherries she made before Thanksgiving and stored in the hall closet (lack of space in a tiny house) so they could then be ready for gift giving at Christmas. One picture can conjure up a million memories.  Memories that she now can't express and has forgotten.
Yesterday, I cleaned my cabinets, rearranging my dishes so I could put her bowls in a place where I could use them daily. Today I will make a cake for my youngest son's 30th birthday and I will use her bowls to mix the cake.  My mom can't be here for his birthday but I can at least put a little bit of her into the cake when I use her bowls.

Today I will take pictures of our family supper, as I always do, but I will be sure to ask someone to take a picture of me with the birthday boy! I hear there is a thing called 'selfies" now, so maybe they are valuable for something!  Get out and take pictures of you today!

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Out to Lunch

Yesterday marked a tradition for me that started quite a few years ago, the exact date however I cannot remember.  My two very best friends from Grad School and I celebrated our April birthdays at O'Connor's Restaurant in West Boylston Ma. We meet a few times a year to share our latest teaching stories, family stories, uplift each other through tough family times and celebrate the joys of great family events.

On my way home, it was pouring so I turned off the radio to concentrate on the drive.  My mind, however, would not turn off and it got me to thinking about my mom.  I started to realize that 'going out to lunch' was very much a part of my mom's life.  My earliest memories of my mom were of the two of us always together going shopping for the weekly groceries.  Then, the big treat came after the shopping.  My mom took me to lunch at the first fast food type restaurant I can think of that appeared in the Gardner, MA area.   I remember my mom would get me a hamburger, fries, and a soda.  She would get a double burger, fries, and a soda.  (I thought that it was so cool that she got that second burger on her hamburger!)  This was a huge deal for our family and the biggest treat for me.  I am not sure if it was because we never ate out due to money being tight or if my mom just cooked for us at home, but it was something I looked forward to every Friday when I wasn't in school.

As I grew up and my mom started to enlarge her circle of friends, lunch out was replaced with her Artex painting group on Tuesdays, or her ceramics classes on Mondays. This eventually led up to her lunches out on Fridays with her close friends......of course without me as I was now older and I suppose not quite as cute as I was before!  Ha....Time marched on and the days of afternoon activities and lunches were replaced with work responsibilities and my mom's lunches seemed to dwindle.  With the exception of going to lunch on Wednesdays after bowling, my mom pretty much stayed home when she wasn't working.  That was until her grandchildren came along and we would all head to Friendly's routinely on school vacations for lunch and ice cream.

I am sure her lunches out were her way to connect with other mothers/women/wives etc just like I find I look forward to my lunches out with my grad school friends or once in a while my 'oldest/dearest' friends.  Even this year at school for the first time, I am finding that sharing lunch time with my teammates has been a great break in the day to help us all with a difficult cohort of students.
There must be something special in these 'lunches' that takes place because they seem to me to be more than just eating food.
Nancy Schofield and Mom


Looking through pictures I have found a picture of my mom with one of her best friends.  My mom always said they all put their drinks in front of her to be funny because my mom rarely drank alcohol. Sadly her best friend Nancy passed away from Cancer years ago and now my mom is in the nursing home.  When I look at this picture, I am reminded that my mom once went out to lunch just like I do. She would mark it on her calendar like I do now.

To sum it all up, I guess I am continuing to do the same things that my mom did.  I had never thought of it before but I suppose I am a lot more like my mom than I ever admitted.  Connecting with good friends or family (I like to take my own grandchildren to Friendly's from time to time) all are part of enjoying a very wonderful gift we have all been given.  Get out and see your friends.  Talk, laugh, cry, while eating good food and drinking good drinks.  Life goes on.  Friends move away or sadly pass away.  People get older.  People get sick.  Enjoy each day while you can and don't pass on a lunch out with friends!!!

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

And Then There is This Yellow Bowl

I was fortunate to turn 58 last week and it really got me to thinking.  A month ago I started to think about all the things that I have not done by now that I had hoped to do. There are so many places I thought I would have traveled to and so many things that I had planned to do one day when we had the money.  I usually don't feel sorry for myself because I have started to appreciate the fact that I am lucky to be this age and having my health and family is the biggest blessing I could ever have.  So when those 'feel sorry for myself' feelings happen, although they are few and far between and only last a short time, they usually end up with me missing my mom more than ever.  I know I am physically able to still sit with her and she can babble nonsense to me, but I am really missing the mom I knew.  

On the eve of my birthday, I wondered if I was feeling this sadness because this school year has been the epitome of the worst year in teaching or because I was really struggling with turning 58 (which made no sense to me if you know me).  Never has a birthday worried me because I love my birthday.  I don't even mind telling my kids at school how old I am.  I am so lucky to have a birthday.  I go to the gym.  I watch what I eat.  I try to be mindful and have balance now in my life.  I am literally happy most of my days and rarely ever see 'the glass half empty". This didn't come easily...it's taken many years of thinking that my life should be something else when it just is what it is and I know my happiness depends only on me. 

So this was a surprise to me when I truly just wanted my mom.  I wanted her to remember to send me a card.  I wanted her to forget it was my birthday and show up at my house at 9:00 pm with a piece of cake from Cumby's like she did the last year she really understood it was my birthday (and had forgotten).  Most importantly, I wanted her to make me my birthday dinner.  Some may laugh but given the choice each year, I would choose my mom's meatloaf, scalloped potatoes, and tomato bread pudding for my dinner choice.  Nothing to me meant  mom's best cooking as those three things on my birthday.  

That's where the Yellow Bowl comes in!

The Yellow Bowl-one of my biggest childhood memories!
My mom had a set of Pyrex mixing bowls.  The largest is yellow.  Then the sizes go smaller and the colors change with sizes.  Green is next, then red, then blue. I am lucky enough to have kept these bowls when we cleaned out her house.  I wasn't using them because there was a point I felt that maybe she got Alzheimer's from the things she cooked with.  I wouldn't use her aluminum cookie sheets or her old Tupperware either.  I decided that Pyrex bowls are just that.  Pyrex bowls and that not using them was just silly.  So, I took them out and now I am using them every day!  (I know it's only been a week but they are present again in my life!)

Nora mixing the wet ingredients for the cake. 
This yellow bowl holds so many treasured memories for me.  My mom made macaroni salad, potato salad, and coleslaw in this bowl every summer.  She made her 'dressing' in it for holidays, often baking it right in the bowl.  Everything baked was mixed in this bowl until she got her kitchen aid from my grandmother (which my daughter has now).

Nora learning to sift the flower with Grampa's help.
This past weekend, instead of the stainless mixing bowls, I handed my yellow and green bowl to my granddaughter and husband to use to make a cake.  It may be my imagination but I really believe that the cakes we made this weekend tasted better out of this yellow bowl.  Who knows......all I know is that I am now on a quest to find pictures of my mom using her bowl because I know I have many of them. 

Today when I left my mom after a visit, I told her that I am going to use her yellow bowl tonight and I showed her a picture.  She smiled and said, "Yes, Yes, Yes!"  Who knows?  Maybe she was just babbling but then again, maybe she was happy that I was still using her yellow bowl.


Miss Nora Rose with the cake she baked with her grampa!

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Hello??? Is Anyone Still Out There???

Hello!  I am wondering if anyone is still out there? It's been quite a long time since I have found the time or energy to write about all of the words spinning around in my head. It's been a rough school year.  It's been quite a year of changes and relearning how to be comfortable with the new norm, or what I guess would be the norm now.

For those of you wondering, my mom is still with me and I thank God on most days.  It's the days when I see sadness in her eyes that I wonder if she wouldn't be better off with God in heaven and with my dad and brother.  However, fleeting as those moments are, I treasure the fact that I can physically sit with her, talk to her, have a coffee with her, hold her hand, and most of all, hug her.  Every once in a while she squeezes my hand back or she tells me she loves me and that carries me through until our next visit.

Sitting with her today, I realized I am ready to be back.  I am ready to be writing again.  I plan to tell more stories so that I can pass them on.  I plan to share more pictures so that they are saved for my grandchildren to see.

I hope you are still there.  I hope that you still want to hear about how I am navigating my way through my new norm as the daughter of a mom who is in the final stages of Alzheimer's.

And if no one is out there, that is ok.  I know that I am doing this for me and no one else.  As the name says, I am journaling my way through life's chaos as an Alzheimer's daughter.