Category: Stories

I originally penned this in November of 2013 as the Michigan snow fell softly outside our windows.

My mom has dementia, so that means her ability to comprehend and remember things and people has been severely compromised.

For those of you who have parents/spouses/loved ones with dementia, you understand how heartbreaking it is watching this person you love daily become someone you don’t know, and sometimes, don’t particularly like.

BUT – sometimes their behavior can be transformed into something humorous. I like to do that. Not because I can’t or don’t want to deal with the reality, but because it IS happening and I might as well find some humor in tragedy where I can. A bit of levity can be a wonderful stress reducer.

So here’s the latest saga. I’m calling this one – The Tale of the Quirky Old Lady Who Puts Things in Odd Places.

Scene One:

Mom: I can’t find my, you know the thing I put my – you know I always put it here (shows me the drawer it’s usually in, but now it isn’t).

Me: You mean your black purse? Ok, let’s see if we can find it, shall we?

Dad: Remember I told you to always put your purse here in this drawer (as he points to a totally different drawer). Where did you move it to? (which he knows is a silly question because she has absolutely no clue as to where or when or how it came to be somewhere it isn’t supposed to be)

*Mom wanders from the vicinity – apparently goes and sits in her favorite chair while Dad and I begin to look, starting in her bedroom, which is the place she spends most of her time moving things and furniture around on a very regular basis.

Scene Two:

Dad and I search methodically in every drawer and under every piece of furniture and inside every bag she has (she puts things in boxes/bags then puts those in another bag which then usually goes inside something else) in her bedroom.

As Dad and I converse, and I occasionally utter “huh” and pause with my hands on my hips trying to envision my Mom squirreling her purse away – where oh where would she put it, we move into the living room, kitchen, bathroom, sunroom, other bedrooms, downstairs to Dad’s man-cave, the utility room, inside both basement freezers, inside the kitchen refrigerator/freezer, plus the pantry, even the washer and dryer.

We continue to comb through each room in the house and even the porches – front and back – but it’s been cold and rainy for the last few days so we’re pretty sure the purse isn’t out there.

Dad and I decide to take a break from searching, as we continue to search.

Scene three:

Mom has begun to accuse someone – anyone – of coming into the house and stealing her purse. No, no, Mom, no one has been here and we certainly wouldn’t take your purse.

*After dinner Mom again retires to her favorite chair while Dad goes back into her room searching once more.

He and I look again between her mattresses, move all her hanging clothes around, on the shelves, inside her jewelry box even, under the bed – again – but no purse.

I have decided to sit down at my computer and chat on Facebook with my two girls, and while they try to give me ideas of where to search for the Missing Item, I begin to wax eloquent and write up a parody for the local news.

*Earnest look and Voice of Seriousness begins to speak…

“The search continues for the missing black purse, believed to be secreted sometime within the last couple of days by its owner. Authorities are skeptical about its safe recovery, but the family remains hopeful.”

“Local authorities are urging all neighbors to carefully check behind and underneath their vehicles before backing out of their driveways.”

“Dolly (Mom’s baby doll who she thinks is real), although a viable witness, refuses to cooperate, pleading the fifth.” 

“As the afternoon wanes, all hope of a favorable ending to this sad turn of events begins to fade.”

“Although the loss will be difficult to bear, the family has decided to band together for support and encouragement.”

Zounds – just when hope was fading like your best pair of jeans after their 1000^th wash – Dad finds the infamous black purse tucked deep into the recesses of one of Mom’s many drawers. In her bedroom. Hiding amid folded blouses and various unmentionables.

Final Scene:

Dad is the hero of the hour and I make him a batch of peanut butter cookies as his reward for tenacity and perseverance.

Thus ends The Tale of the Quirky Old Lady Who Puts Things in Odd Places.

Stay tuned for the sequel: The Tale of the Quirky Old Lady Who Continues to Put Things in Odd Places.

I penned this post back in March of 2014, just a few months before I moved to Florida.  Momma died just a little more than 2 years later in September of 2016.  Her world had shrunken to something so small it was a relief that her suffering had finally ended.

I do the grocery shopping now, and I cook the main meal. Dad cooks breakfast. We can’t leave momma alone for more than a few minutes anymore. You just never know what she might get into.

She likes cutting the towels and sheets up into smaller pieces to wrap around her dolls for blankets – she thinks they’re alive. She uses safety pins. I had to temporarily take the scissors away from her the other week because she was carrying them around in her pocket. I told her she couldn’t do that. She gave me her sour face. But I smiled and said I was only telling her the same things I would tell my kids when they were growing up.

She likes to try and feed her dolls food. She puts it in their mouths and then takes a butter knife and scrapes it back out, all the while chattering at them. She kisses them and holds them and sleeps with them. She doesn’t like to leave them, and gets agitated if she forgets where she puts one. She sits in her rocking chair and hums softly to them and smiles and laughs.

She’s just like a little girl playing tea party. But the tea party never ends and momma’s not playing.

She usually needs help washing her hair now. She doesn’t remember what conditioner is. She barely remembers what shampoo is.

This past summer I caught her using furniture polish outside on the porch thinking it was bug spray. And another day we found her using toilet bowl cleaner to wash the floor. And another day she was ironing the carpet.

She was soaking her dentures in Listerine mouthwash, and Dad, after repeatedly reminding her not to do that, had to take it away from her and put it in his bathroom.

She found a small bud vase with a large enough opening so she fills it with ice and then places it in the refrigerator. I don’t know why. Neither does she.

At dinner, if she has both a fork and a spoon she gets confused about which one to use. If she starts using the fork, then she can’t use the spoon, and vice versa. She will sit there with her hands in her lap looking at the food on her plate. It’s as if she’s attempting to summon instructions as to what she’s supposed to do next.

She doesn’t understand most conversations anymore. I can say to her – the sun is nice and bright today! – and she’ll respond with something completely off topic. I keep our conversations, such as they are, as simple and direct as possible.

She asks for my permission to do things. To eat something. To wash something in the washing machine. I’ve become her momma.

Some months ago she got really mad at us and tried to hide her medications in her bedroom. I thought she was going to try something (she gets nasty and vindictive when she’s angry), so I was watching her surreptitiously.   I went into her bedroom, located her meds and told her she couldn’t hide them. She grabbed my wrists and tried to force me to release them.

It was a very sad scene. I wouldn’t let go, and finally walked out of her room with her meds. After that, Dad had to move all her medications and put them in his bedroom so she can’t get to them.

She won’t remember what she had for dinner, but she will remember something she did months before.

Dad is three different people in her mind. He’s a woman, for some reason, in the mornings when he makes her breakfast. Then he’s either a good guy or a mean guy depending on what mood she’s in and what color shirt he’s wearing. If she gets mad at him, and he changes his shirt, she’ll sit down next to him and tell him about the ‘mean’ guy. She doesn’t remember who Dad is – that they’ve known each other since they were teenagers and they’ve been married for almost 60 years.

But she remembers that I’m her daughter, at least for now. And she remembers her other three children and some of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She can tell us about things that happened years ago with good clarity. And then not be able to put together a name with the face.

It’s like there are missing puzzle pieces in her brain. Arbitrary empty spaces where bits of information is gone. How can you completely forget who a person is, but remember scenes in which they were there?

She looks at pictures of Dad that were taken recently, but when she looks at him in the flesh they don’t look the same to her. I’ve held a photograph of him right up next to his face and she doesn’t think they’re the same person. How does the brain short-circuit like that?

What she sees and what she hears doesn’t get translated correctly somehow.

She wanders from room to room looking for things to do, I guess. She always loved to clean, so I think that’s what she’s doing. Looking for something that needs cleaning. So she’s constantly rearranging furniture and pictures and knick-knacks.

And when she can’t find something, she tries to accuse us of making off with it. Which, of course, isn’t true. So Dad goes hunting around until he locates whatever she’s squirreled away in some strange place that you wouldn’t normally expect to find whatever it is you’re looking for.

It’s actually easier now in some ways than it was a year ago. Then she would get frustrated and become intensely angry when she struggled with remembering how to do something – like cook. Now, she is docile and content most of the time.   It’s as if she is accepting now. We are familiar enough to her and she trusts us – most of the time. So she stays content and compliant like a small child playing, knowing her mommy and daddy are keeping her safe and providing whatever she needs.

I am thankful for each day where her heart is happy and calm, because then I feel that Dad’s heart is safe for a little while longer. Safe from the pain hovering in the shadows. At best I am only sharing his pain. But doesn’t that make it a little easier to bear? I gladly accept the burden if I can be an instrument in allowing him to feel cared for as well.

Dementia is a cruel master stealing more than memories. It’s like a fog that grows thicker and thicker eventually obliterating everything, leaving only blankness and isolation. The ones you loved the most are strangers to you as if your knowledge of them had never been.

All diseases are tragic, but dementia does more than destroy the body. It reduces the family to children crying in anguish because of the betrayal of a parent who should have always loved them. A mother who wasn’t supposed to be able to forget who they are.