Mom deals with new home

I saw my mother over the weekend. She was very unhappy. She feels that everyone has abandoned her now that she is in a different nursing home.

My sister, Kate, and 5-year-old niece, Siobhan, and I picked her up on Sunday to take her to another niece's baby shower. When we arrived to get Mom in her room at the Walker Nursing Home, Mom was sitting in a chair in a blue dress. As soon as we came in the room, she let Kate and I know that she had been waiting 10 hours for us to show up.

"Where have you been? I have to get out of here and get back to Albert Lea where I am a head of a Women's Deanery," she berated us.

We told her we were taking her to Erin's baby shower. She said, "Oh that's right, I forgot about that." She had soiled herself, so I had to clean her up and change her clothes. As I was changing her she asked me who had made the mess, and I told her that she had.

"Well, I did not. Someone else must have done this to me," she said indignantly.

I then took her out of the dress she was wearing and put purple pants and a white blouse and black sweater on her.

Kate brushed out her thick, wavy white hair that has an entity of its own. Kate said, "Mom you have the most amazing hair." She really does. Mom's hair glows and poufs up high when we comb it. My brother John was the only one of her 11 children who had glowing white thick hair like Mom's. When he was dying of cancer and was taking morphine, he could leave his body. People could see John's hair floating in the dark, as he wandered in the spirit world. John was as proud of his hair as Mom is of hers. Neither of them ever dyed their hair and people comment often on the color and ask if it is real.

After we had Mom all cleaned and spruced up, Kate and I then got her in a wheelchair to take the elevator down the five floors to the car. Five-year-old Siobhan hopped on Mom's lap for a ride and for the first time all day mom smiled as she held Siobhan in her arms.

Kate drove her van up to the doors of the nursing home and then we had to get Mom out of the wheelchair and into the van. Mom could lift her left foot into the car, but not her right foot. She was kneeling on the car floor with her left foot bent underneath her and her head was leaning down into the seat of the car. It wasn't a good situation, but she wasn't complaining. I finally picked her up by her bottom and got her turned around. We were laughing and told mom that she was actually pretty flexible.

"I don't know why you don't leave me home, I am such a bother," Mom moaned.

"Quit complaining," Kate said. "You have been complaining since we came to get you. You complained because we hadn't come and now you are complaining because we got you out. You are free for a couple of hours, enjoy it."

We were an hour late for the shower but we got there for the gift opening. Mom complained that she hadn't known we were coming to a baby shower. Everyone told her that they had been telling her about the shower for the last two weeks. Mom brightened up when she ate a big piece of homemade cheesecake and drank a cup of strong black coffee.

We didn't have as much trouble getting Mom in the van on the ride back to the nursing home as we put her in the front seat. She was tired when we got her back to her room and moaned that no one ever comes to see her. She hates being at Walker and wonders why she can't come live with one of her children, as she doesn't see any of us. This isn't true as she has a stream of visitors almost everyday. She does require more care each day but we're doing the best we can for her.