Today is a tough day and there are a million potential reasons, but the biggest one is Alzheimer's. Like a toddler without the ability to put pain and disappointment into the mitigating perspective of experience, each difficulty leads to despair. I can't fix her brain, and so we are spending our time repeating the tears and tantrums.
The weather is stormy, and I want to leave -- to get on my way home. She wants me to take her with me but since I won't she wants me to take the card shuffler and I wonder if she'll break it if I refuse. Yesterday we circled around the track of why I didn't bring it, how I could have forgotten, and if I would keep my promise to bring it today. But "today" is just a construct; time is not a real thing. And I have not accomplished anything in this visit.
Here is the crux of the tension: I am in the years of my life where I get things done; my mother has nothing to do. She wants companionship and I want to check her off my list and move on to the next thing. It sounds horrible, but the minutes I spend with her are stolen from another category and there will be a price to pay for this current exercise in futility.
Still, I slow my voice, and smile as my father taught me to do when answering the phone (people hear a smile, you know). I tell her it's okay to have a bad day. I remind her that yesterday she was singing during the afternoon activity and knew all the words. I give her permission to reject the food they brought for lunch, because she is already eating the cheeseburger she asked me to pick up for her. And I show her the chocolate pudding, which seems to be the only thing "they got right."
Today I am not able to re-direct her thoughts or emotions, and I don't stay long. While a part of me feels frantic to get her into a better state before I leave her with the staff, my reasonable self is resolute. They are not daughters who take this so personally. Isabella, the cheerful aide, doesn't feel badly when my mother is unhappy. Isabella continues as a caregiver, providing safety and moving her through the scheduled tasks that are beneficial for her mind and body.
At the log book I pause for a moment over the "Time Out" column, wanting to round my measly 42 minutes up to an hour on this sheet that no one looks at or even keeps past one day. Then I duck my head and push through the heavy wooden door into the pouring rain.
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