And Meredith

When the world shut down in 2020, I used this space to chronicle the months I spent with my aging parents, who'd moved into my basement to isolate from COVID-19. Our time together was an unexpected, tender gift. With life as we knew it on hold, we found our way through days of poems and puzzles, reacquainting--forgiving--each other 40+ years after I'd left home as an angry, stubborn teen.

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My parents returned to their care center in the fall of 2020, when school resumed and I could no longer ensure their protection from the virus. Shortly after that, one of my sisters moved in to provide caregiving that allowed our parents to live together despite our mother's increasing dementia. My father died in September of 2022. The following March it became clear that our mother Meredith needed to move to the dementia unit. 

Meredith has been at "Journeys" for the past nine months. The caregivers are skilled, cheerful, and well-intentioned. Any concerns we've had (Why wasn't her clock adjusted at DST? Why is she in bed with her shoes on?) say more about us as anxious (guilty?) children than about her quality of care. 

My mother voiced a repeated wish while transitioning into memory care. She wanted to attend Sunday school and church each week. My sister who lives in Ft. Dodge manages this request with fidelity, and we other siblings fill in when needed.
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Last summer, I drove to Ft. Dodge weekly with my accordion in tow. I played old-timey tunes on the patio or in the common room, and residents tapped their toes and sang along. Meredith beamed. She was making a gentle adjustment to her new living space. 

When school began in late August, I slipped back to monthly visits. This worked for a month.

Then, as life does, mine unraveled: I was needed in New Zealand, where two of my sons live. Within days of my return to the States, my mother-in-law, 94, was hospitalized for an infection that ultimately necessitated her move from her beloved farmhouse to an assisted living facility. 

A week later I headed to Utah to welcome a new grandbaby and offer a pair of hungry grandma arms.
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The short of it is this: I only visited my mom once between November and January. I excused myself with the sad truth busy children of demented parents lean on: She didn't know I wasn't there.

It was the third Sunday in Advent that I was again in Ft. Dodge. My sister and I took our mom to Sunday school. Meredith only speaks when the class (usually about five people with an average age of 70) reads in unison short prayers from the study book. Her classmates are generous to our vacant mother: "You pointed this out to me once, Meredith," one says, noting a scripture.

After class, we moved into the sanctuary for the service where my sister and I sat on either side of our mom. Throughout the service, we held her hands.

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Three weeks after my advent visit, my sister sent me a text:

In church today there was communion, and Mom didn't remember what that was. I had to whisper instructions to her, like "He's going to give you a little piece of bread to eat." "Drink that juice and put the cup in here." "Now we go back to where we were sitting." She literally had no idea what we were doing. It was surreal and sad. It reminded me of that day Mom forgot what commemorative stamps were. Communion and commemorative stamps are two things I thought would be in her brain forever. 

Commemorative stamps. 

Communion.

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Enough.
Be well.

Allison

How Did We Get Here?

The decline of an aging parent settles as soft layers of dust: first a forgotten name, a bothersome wart, a repeated story. Each increment is barely noticed, certainly not demanding commentary. Now and again something rises to the level of an "event”: a misplaced check, a fenderbender, a broken tooth. 

As my 94-year-old mother-in-law Janet’s primary caregiver for the past several years, I visited her in the evenings, enjoying our shared accordion practice and rounding off the rough edges of her isolated days. She had lived independently a short mile from our house since her husband died in 2010. Our routine was manageable, even pleasant. Until it wasn’t. We were the proverbial frogs swimming in water heating too slowly to be noticed. 

Then one day the water was boiling. 

And that day--or more accurately, that month--Janet developed a blistering skin rash that required twice-daily application of ointment to dark crevices that she couldn’t (and I didn’t want to) reach. An added steroid to her medication list shook loose confusion that had hidden beneath years of an unchanging medication routine she'd managed herself. Her worries, always plentiful, ratcheted up to all-consuming. And then the bloody noses started. Then the UTI. Then a week in the hospital.

In short, my dear mother-in-law had lived a life of physical and mental stamina well into her 95th year. And now she wasn't. November and December were a blur from hospital to assisted living, back to the hospital, back to assisted living. The experience sucked us into a swirl of measureless days.

Dan's sister flew in from Tacoma and stayed three weeks, sleeping on the hospital's pull-out bed(ish). His brother from Minneapolis drove down multiple times. Their help--and sanity--cannot be overstated. This work took many hands.

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So. Now we are here.

This afternoon, Sunday, I arrived at Allen Place an hour before dinner. Walking to Janet's room, I passed the exercise nook, where I met up with Annabelle as she climbed off the Nu-Step. 

Before moving to assisted living two years ago, Annabelle had been our country neighbor for decades, which means she lived within five miles of us. My husband rents two of the family's grain bins and 230 acres of their land. We attended neighborhood corn boils in their shed. When Annabelle's husband passed away last year, he left a life-sized hole in the southeast corner of the county. Two of Annabelle's granddaughters work at my school, and I've taught several of her great-grandchildren, including one currently in my classes. Such are the tendrils of neighbors in rural Iowa.

During Janet's past six weeks of adjustment--perhaps the most daunting adjustment of her life--Annabelle has been my mother-in-law's guardian and cheerleader. Since I usually visit in the late afternoon, I often sit at the friends' table and get in on suppertime conversation.

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As we walked from the gym area to Annabelle's room (across the hall from Janet's), she gave me her perceptions of the day: Janet seemed more cheerful. She had eaten all of her lunch--although after the meal she'd said "See you tomorrow!" and Annabelle had corrected her, "We'll have supper first!"

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When I knocked at Janet's door, she was busy at her ironing board, cutting fabric. Sewing continues to be her most meaningful and calming work. She has been making beanbags of late, but she said she was cutting quilt squares. Small confusion.

We then practiced accordion. Yesterday she played the right hand on her small instrument through two verses of "Edelweiss," but tonight she chose to sit in her chair and encourage me to "play that section again, four or five more times." Always the music teacher.

It was then time to head to supper. As usual, Annabelle knocked on Janet's door. Residents take care of each other here. No one is left behind.

As we've done nearly every evening for weeks, Annabelle (with her cane), Janet (pushing a small wheelchair as a walker), and I headed to the dining room.

Janet then turned to me. "Allison," she said, "Do you know Annabelle?"

"Yes," I said. "I do."

Enough.

Be well.

Allison