Christmas 2020

I sincerely hope you’ve all had yourself a Merry Little Christmas? Ours turned out well, although I have to admit it was a rough start for me.

This is the first Christmas without mom. And, although she hadn’t had a good year last year, she was still able to smile when we took our Christmas photo with her.

What’s worse – is Vince and I are recovering from nasty cases of COVID-19.  We’ve spent the past couple weeks struggling to breathe without coughing and sleeping more hours than we were awake.

Vince lost his senses of taste and smell. Which was actually a good thing for me – because I wasn’t really interested in showering – or able to, for that matter. Who knew standing took such effort?

Walking the dog was a lesson in perseverance as neither of us had the energy, but, well, dogs don’t much care that you’re fighting a virus. They still need to walk and sniff and piddle and poo.

Christmas 2019 with mom

But we have some amazing neighbors who took special care of us – from a distance, of course. When we were at our worst, they dropped off soups and fresh fruit. Another neighbor picked up a pizza one Sunday night for themselves – and dropped off a second pizza at our front door for us.

One neighbor made a special trip to drop off a bottle of zinc supplements after we’d run out and then another neighbor brought us a much-needed bottle of Nyquil cough syrup to help us sleep at night.

And just yesterday a neighbor dropped off some Christmas cookies; something we hadn’t even thought about baking this year.

We have some pretty incredible neighbors, don't we?

Ever since I became a part of Vince’s family, we’ve spent every Christmas Eve together.  We have lots of food and drink and – before her unexpected death last year, his stepmother Marilyn and her daughter Michele bought and wrapped a mountain of gifts for us all. It was a pretty amazing sight to see.

This year, however, the family decided to postpone our Christmas gathering since Vince and I had been sick. Nobody wanted us to share the virus.

I get it. I wouldn’t want to share this virus with anyone – let alone people we care about.  So we'll wait to get together with family until the New Year.

We had written our Christmas letter right after Thanksgiving this year – and mailed it well before we got sick. This is evidenced by the line I wrote, “Well, for one thing, our household is currently healthy and happy. And that is a huge thing for which to be grateful.”

Truer words.

Sadly, we learned that one of our relatives was telling others not to open our card or read our letter as they were concerned they’d catch COVID by doing so.

I’d like to think that we’d be more caring about our family and friends not to let anyone open something that even had the remote possibility of containing the virus.

But we just kept on rolling with the punches.

I had barely shopped for Christmas – so I only had a couple gifts for Vince. And I didn’t bother wrapping them. I just brought them downstairs and handed them to him. So prepared, right?

Vince knew that I wasn't feeling very festive and he gave me lots of extra hugs today. Moreover, he planned an amazing Christmas dinner for the two of us to share.

It was interesting – I haven’t had much of an appetite since the start of our illness – and Vince can’t taste or smell. But we shared a delicious beef roast, fingerling potatoes, corn and salads.

I even poured us glasses of wine, but couldn’t manage to finish even one glass.

Oh well. We gave it a shot!

What I realized as the day went on was that it didn’t matter that we didn’t have mounds of gifts under the tree. It didn’t matter that we weren’t surrounded by lots of other people. 

What really matters is that we are returning to good health – something so many have been denied.

What really matters is that I have a husband who loves me unconditionally. Who loves me enough to allow me a melancholy moment, but also asks me to recall some of my favorite childhood Christmas memories.  And that made me smile.

So despite the sad start to my Christmas 2020, it has a happy ending. And carries with it a feeling of hope for the future.

And my wish is for all you to have a healthy and happy New Year. 

Let’s put this one behind us, shall we?

 

It’s About the Dementia – not about the Cranberry Relish

I’m sad today. I was supposed to have lunch with my mom at Parkside Village where they were having an early Thanksgiving buffet with turkey and mashed potatoes and stuffing. Probably even cranberry relish. Not that I’m a big fan of cranberry relish – but it’s an “official” Thanksgiving meal if there is cranberry relish.

But I don’t have turkey. Or mashed potatoes. Or stuffing. Or especially cranberry relish.

Why? Because when I arrive to get mom for lunch, she doesn’t want to go.

My first clue that the day isn’t going to go as planned happens before I even reach the nurse’s station. I am met by an aide who tells me how glad she is to see me.

Uh oh.

Well, it’s not that people aren’t just stinkin’ delighted to see me all the time, but that particular aide has never said that to me before.

So that is my first inkling that there is trouble afoot. She then tells me that mom refuses to get out of bed, refuses to take a shower, refuses to eat breakfast, and refuses to get dressed.

That’s a lot of refusing from a 92-year-old and, frankly, it sounds rather like a temper tantrum a 2-year-old might have let alone someone 90 years her senior.

So then and there I realize we are probably not going to see any turkey or cranberry relish today.

I mean, it’s one thing if you pop over to a friend’s house to pick her up for lunch and she has inadvertently overslept. Unless she’s your most diva-ish friend who requires 2.3 hours of hair and makeup prep time, she could probably grab a quick shower and be ready to head out the door in a few minutes.

But a 92-year-old with dementia? “Quick” is a word that will not be uttered at any time. Ever.

Cursing myself for not having prepared a back-up lunch plan like slapping together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and throwing it in my bag before leaving home, I sigh as the aide and I head down the hall to mom’s apartment.

There, we find her sitting in her rocking chair all bundled up in her flannel nightgown and blue puffy robe that has seen better days. Heck, it has seen better decades, truth be told. But mom refuses to part with it.

The aide, finding mom at least upright and out of bed, heaves a sigh of relief and leaves the room.

So I sit down in the chair across from mom and ask her if she is interested in having lunch with me as I’d made reservations and everything. But she says no.

So, sighing a little myself, I hand her the daily newspaper to read while I start “fussing.”  This is Jane-speak for gathering up old newspapers, collecting dirty coffee cups, making her bed, setting clothes out for her to (hopefully) change into, and generally making myself busy because I know I have a couple hours ahead of me of sitting in a sweltering room trying to stave off hot flashes. Which is almost impossible to do when the thermostat in there is set on “sauna.”

After about a half hour of mom constantly asking what day and time it is, I gently tease her about how late it is and coax her into getting dressed for the day. It is now a little after twelve-thirty in the afternoon.

But the sad part is, I realize that mom no longer knows how to get herself dressed and ready for the day. She looks at the clothes on her bed and then looks at me and asks me what she should do. So I tell her I’ll help her.

But seeing her like that breaks my heart a little bit more.

What happened to that strong, intelligent woman I’d known my whole life? The one who raised four children and who almost single-handedly kept my dad’s defective heart beating in his chest almost 50 years after it had wanted to give out on him in his early 40s. The one who could stretch a dollar until it cried “uncle” and the one who could tell if one of her kids was fibbing just by the inflection in their voice when she asked them a question. And this was, mind you, when she wasn’t even in the same room as the fibber.

I then thought about mom in her later years – the woman who loved meeting new people and who couldn’t wait to pack a suitcase to go on their next adventure. Whether it was to some exotic location or an Elderhostel at a university to learn something new – or simply to head to one of their grown children’s homes for a visit – she was the first to suggest a road trip because she couldn’t stand sitting still for too long.

And now I couldn’t get her to walk down the hall with me simply to have some lunch.

After I help mom get dressed and I hang her ratty blue robe in the closet, we sit down again – mom in her rocking chair and me in the upright purple chair across from her. I look at this once proud and dignified woman who now can’t even get herself dressed and I try to keep the sadness from my face.  She looks up at me and raises her hands in supplication and says, “Now what?”

I smile at her gently – and this time we both sigh.

After a while, I start gathering my things and I tell mom I have to leave to run some errands. I hug and kiss her goodbye and tell her I love her.

She asks me when I am coming back and I tell her I’ll be back tomorrow. At 2 o’clock.

She can no longer tell that I’m fibbing.

Because, you see, I don’t know if I’ll be back tomorrow at 2 o’clock, but it appeases mom to have me say it. She won’t know the difference if I show up at 1 o’clock or at 3 o’clock. Or if I don’t show up at all until the following day.

But I blow her a kiss as I head out the door. And, because she can hold on to this thought for another fleeting moment, she quickly says, “I’ll see you tomorrow at 2 o’clock, dear.”

And when I shut the door, it’s all I can do not to start crying as I walk down that long hallway to the nurse’s station and then out to my car.

And, oh, how I wish the tears were because I didn’t get any cranberry relish today.