Happy Birthday Susan

Susan turned seventy-three this week. Although we had been telling her that her birth date was coming up, still she woke up with no idea that it was her birthday. We discussed her age over pancakes, turkey bacon and coffee. After doing some calculations of her own she concluded that she was forty something, as usual. We didn’t argue. I do have to admit that the ill-logic of it all makes me laugh; how old would that make Jeff, and where do our adult children fit into this family tree? We chose to go with the flow. Her young self was ready for a fun day; but we have learned that a good time must be brought upon Susan carefully, easily and not in abundance. Over stimulation confuses her. So we gathered our daughters and took Susan for an early birthday outing. We certainly didn’t want to keep her out too late- she turns into a pumpkin (of sorts).

She was her usual out of sorts self, but we chose laughter over frustration as the mood of the day. So when I found her seated at the front of the store chowing down on gourmet cookies that she had just purchased, I tried to be patient. Of course she swore that her stomach was empty since she had obviously not had any breakfast. The fact that we were about to go out to lunch didn’t stop her munching. I kept my eye on her as I searched for clothes she might like and each time bringing them to her for evaluation. She sat like a queen cookie monster on her throne while I, her subject, ran back and forth with bright colored shirts and bottoms. The kicking of her legs as she sat munching ensured me that her birthday had gotten off to a good start.

We chose a new restaurant as our next stop since Susan was obviously famished. That is when things let loose- all things. Her birthday attire let loose at the waist upon our approach at the restaurant. We became aware of it when we heard an alarming cry for help behind us as we stepped onto the walkway that circled between the parking lot and the front of the restaurant. The twist of our heads revealed the view of her red pleated skirt let loose and now resting at her ankles. The elastic in her skirts these days, is simply not working for her. So after the initial shock of seeing Susan standing just outside the large windows where all the diners were surely surprised by the view of her bare legs, white undies and knobby knees, we attempted a rescue of sorts. Katrina, always the quick thinker, swooped in to rescue her while the rest of us tried to control our laughter.

We were greeted at the door by amused employees who smartly seated us at the opposite end of the restaurant sparing us the embarrassment of facing our fascinated audience. While entering, Susan uttered words of frustration, shock and horror at her dilemma. Something like, “This damn skirt won’t obey me anymore. I need a pin to hold it up. Look at these shoes, they are not flattering with this skirt so high.” Honestly, I could hardly answer her because of the humor in it all, but dishonestly, I lied. I sweetly chuckled out some sort of false encouragement, like, “Oh Mom, don’t worry, everyone dresses that way these days. You look just fine.” And as we passed the amused employees who were now going out of their way to get us seated, I said what I thought she needed me to say, “Just keep your back straight and hold your head high and nobody will even notice that your skirt is trying to slip down again.” Once inside, Katrina kindly assisted Susan in the bathroom where they fixed, tugged, straightened, pulled and clipped things back into place.

After Susan filled herself with a birthday brunch as if it might be her last, we felt compelled to get something new on her bottom. This time I put her inside a dressing room where I brought her gauchos and slacks until she found one she was happy with. She wanted it so much that she hung her red skirt on the hanger and kept the brown gauchos on her self. I asked the attendant if we could just leave the slacks on and pay at the register. I really didn’t want to deal with that old red skirt ever again.

Management escorted us to the register where Susan became confused and started yelling at me and cussing about where the black pants she had worn into this store were. She exclaimed that she was not a stupid shit who would go out without bottoms on. With a new audience of everyone within hearing range, I assured her that all her new black slacks were safely at home. Okay, so I didn’t mention that the red skirt was in the dressing room garbage, but I knew that if it came home with us, surely it would find itself causing another crisis on our next outing.

At home, Susan enjoyed strawberry shortcake followed by some gifts just for her. She cried the entire time she opened her gifts, especially the box from Stefanie. Homemade gifts from her granddaughters, classic old movies, and best of all, the smartly done family slide show Stefanie had made to help Mom remember everyone. She loved it and recognized almost everyone, especially herself. The background music kept repeating itself as the slide show played over and over. I reached my hand out to an emotional Susan and invited her to dance to her life. She accepted and we swirled and twirled and spun, all the while her eyes stayed fixed on the flashing of those from her life. We danced to life- her life, my life, all of life. I was proud of her for celebrating and glad that she chose to dance.

Happy Birthday Susan.

Susan's Bedroom

I wonder whom Susan is talking to in her bedroom, or whom she thinks she is talking to. I can hear her through the wall as if she is having a conversation with somebody in there. I can’t make out the words that she is saying- only that it is her voice and that she seems calm with a matter- of -fact attitude about this conversation. I hear her clock chiming the music to the Beatle's song Yesterday. I find myself half singing the words from the song that seems so fitting right now:
“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.
Love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.”
.

Sometimes she talks about Deogracias visiting her when she sleeps. She says that he taps her on the shoulder to get her attention. They often discuss why one of them cannot go where the other one is: heaven and earth, dead and alive. Sometimes he kisses her and tells her he misses her. When she tells us about it the next day we can tell that she misses him too. It seems that her memories are mostly good ones of him and her; the ugly part has disappeared from her brain and is replace by kindness. That is as it should be, I suppose.

Susan may have forgotten, but the rest of us remember well their ups and downs. They now seem so long ago and far away. But the clearer memories of the past remind me of how she stood firm and staunch while they were together; until the day when he was gone and she was alone. Even then she tried to be strong; but looking back it is clear how much she needed him, she just never knew it. Any memory of their separation has mercifully erased itself from her mind. So it may well be that it is He whom she is speaking with in the bedroom. Maybe he has once again come to tell her that he misses her and to ask her to come to him. One day she will, but not today.

Crystal Commode (The Antics of my Alzheimer's mother-in-law)

Susan’s homemade potty has become a real source of tension around here. To her it may make some sort of sense I suppose, to pee in a makeshift pot in the corner of her bedroom , but the rest of us will likely never ‘get it’. The thing is, we have dealt with this pee pee pot in the bedroom issue over and over again, each time thinking we have solved the problem. We have tried banning containers from her room, not letting her take drinks in there and documenting every roll of toilet paper placed in her bathroom. We have tried no drinks before bed and all the other tricks you might think of to help a bed wetter, but she is not a bed wetter. Maybe it would be easier if she was. I think I am out of tricks and good ideas.

My logic struggles to find an explanation for this behavior; I mean, is this “out house” mentality a reversion back to her childhood back in the Philippines? Perhaps. Is she too lazy or weak or scared to make her way to the bathroom that is literally only five steps from her own bedroom? I doubt it. It is just as far for her to go to the corner of her bedroom where she has inevitably placed some sort of pee pee pot to use. Confronting her with the issue tends to evoke wide eyed denials with all sorts of verbal fantasies about what its purpose there is. The fact that she won't admit it is exactly what makes me know that she knows it is wrong and could help herself if she wanted to.

If I ever worried about not having a pot to piss in, Susan has put that to bed. At first it was cups and pots being lifted from the kitchen at night. What clued me in was when the missing piss pot would reappear in the morning. The suspicion of what they might have been used for compelling the mother in me to throw them out. Who wanted to use them again? Out they went one by one;all my good dishes were ending up out on the curbside. After an embarrassing lecture about hygiene and human dignity, the problem seemed to have disappeared. We were so thankful. But one day, the dreaded smell of urine reappeared. "Why does it smell like urine in here?” I would ask suspiciously, only to get an oblivious denial of any odd smells- let alone any wrong doing.

In searching out the origin of the stench, the culprit container always unveiled itself. I have learned to spot a pee pee pot right off, no matter what shape or material it may be lurking in. Once, it was the trash can, another time it was an adorable paper gift bag with tissue paper (and now toilet paper) sitting rather nonchalantly on the floor in the corner. She even used a lovely gold Estee Lauder make up box that had been a gift from her granddaughter, Kiara. I admit, that particular pee pee pot was rather hard to recognize and took me a while to catch on to. It was so cleverly masquerading; who would have thought? Today, just when I dared to hope that we again might have this under control, I spotted the crystal candy dish in the pee pee corner. My heart sunk into my chest at the thought of the crystal commode. I seriously do not want to deal with this whole thing again.

I lived in Japan for four years, so I totally get the whole squat and squirt idea. But it seems to me that the awkward ordeal of squatting and squirting at night into a small container on the floor would be as ridiculous as walking a tight rope handcuffed and blindfolded.

I must wonder, can this behavior be blamed entirely on the Alzheimer’s disease? In all my reading about the signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s and while learning about the stages of the disease, I have not come across anything that specifically addresses this problem that Susan presents. Perhaps nobody wants to breech this dirty subject out loud. I don't. A chat with another Baby Boomer caring for their Alzheimer’s parent might prove enlightening.

( To see how caring for Susan started see my Blog post from May 1st called 'Never Say Never'.

Loosing Mothers'

Mother's Day naturally found me thinking about my mother Dorothy, whom I lost to heaven five months ago. Since then I have struggled with the usual grief of loosing someone so important in my life and I have struggled with a few personal issues as well. It took me a while to shake a resentful feeling that I was feeling toward Susan. If she had not been here I could have stayed with my mother in Florida those last few weeks as she fought for her life in the hospital. Like when I first married, I found it once again hard to call her Mom, as if somehow I might betray my own mother. I had lost my Mom and Susan wasn't her, or like her. Unfairly, I found my brain resenting Susan's self-centeredness. My mind would flash back at past hurts caused by Susan always being the center of her own world; and now I struggled with the resentment of her being the center of mine. I wanted to be with my mother, not Jeff's.

Well,I have mostly dealt with those issues and I again call her Mom, knowing that doing so in no way replaces the love and respect I feel for my own mother. But as I have remember back on this past December 1st, I read over my journal entry from that day, which I will share (in part)here:

The Heaven’s Align

Susan is saying twelve Hail Mary’s and twelve Our Father's right now. As she sits in her chair and prays for my own mother who is half way across the United States on her deathbed right now, I remain silent. She is trying to feel with me and fight with me. She is asking God to keep my mother alive. We cried in the kitchen together, me thinking of my sweet mother while Susan wailed that this is about her too. She reminded me that she lost her own mother.

I know she did and I sympathise, but it is my own mother I am concerned about today, my mother who has fought through incredible obstacles these past few years. We have watched her dwindle and fight over and over while each time appearing a bit weaker and further away. But today may be her last fight, it seems. The doctor has told the family that the next few hours are critical and I know that I will not make it there to be with her in the end.

Mary and Chuck and Sandi are there. I get calls every half hour or so with updates. They say she is peaceful and weak and her breathing is slower. Mary is giving her a facial, Sandi took Shannon to a hospital sale where Shannon picked pretty jewelry that they took to Mom and placed on her- pink bracelets and jewels. Mary tells how peaceful and beautiful Mom looks and how clear her skin is, although she is freezing. Her fingertips are beginning to turn dark, which is apparently a sign that the end is closer. Pastor Joe is there with them. Chuck, who for these past few months has been encouraging Mom to fight to live, has finally receded; not because he doesn’t want Mom to fight anymore or that he is ready to let her go. But unselfishly he has asked Mary to let Mom know that it is okay, that if she passes on to another life that he will be all right. He is too broken hearted to tell her himself, but stays in the room while Mary relays this important message. Maybe that is what Mom needed to hear.

Mary tells Mom that today would be a good day if she chose it to be her last on earth since there is a celestial phenomenon in the skies tonight where two planets are very close to the moon. She tells Mom that it would be a night where we would all remember that the moon and planets came together to escort her up into the heavens.

Another call comes in. “Mom is gone,” Sandi whispers on the other end. I take the phone into my bedroom for privacy and so I don’t have to attempt to explain to Susan what she overheard. My mother, my precious only mother. My sweet gentle loving mother is gone from earth. I cry. I want to see the sky and maybe get a glimpse of my mother leaving earth, as silly as that sounds, so I sneak out my bedroom door and unto the porch where I break down and cry and look at the sky and tell my mother that I love her out loud in case she is passing my way. Diego, the dog senses my grief and sits quietly nearby, guarded, as if I might need him, and I might. My insides contract as I cry alone for my mother and look to the sky that for the first time looms over my motherless world.

I don’t know life without a mother. I don’t want to know life without a mother. But I do want my mother to be in a better place where she has no pain or struggles and where I believe she rejoins her Charlie, her own mother and her first child, my sister Starr. I know that I will join them all one day and when I do I will not be afraid. I know that I will have eternal life in heaven with God, thanks to Jesus who made that possible. This truth about Jesus is something I have always known is true and never doubted ever since I can remember. I know I don’t deserve eternal life, but that is the beauty of Jesus dying on the cross for sinners like me.Thank you Jesus.

Two Zombies

It is nearly midnight this Thursday night and I have finally settled into bed hoping to wind down after two wild and crazy days. With my pillows all fluffed up behind my back and the reading light beside my bed highlighting the latest stack of books waiting to be explored, I sit ready to write a blog. My mind struggles to let go of what I have seen and heard and experienced these past few days, hoping to concentrate on Susan and her life here with us. I think about her doctor’s visit yesterday, her bright orange outfit that she has worn since Tuesday, her desire to help in the kitchen in hopes of hurrying dinner along when she is hungry and I remember finding her in the kitchen drinking a cup of instant coffee before the sun was up this morning. My hands wait patiently on the computer waiting for my mind to begin to organize its thoughts and tell them what to type. My overtired brain struggles in my lighted corner of this otherwise dark room and I feel almost like I am floating in a sea of thoughts. Suddenly, the midnight silence is broken with the sound of my bedroom doorknob jiggling. “No,” I scream inside my head. “I am off duty now. Come back tomorrow- or the day after!" Jiggle. Jiggle. It is Susan wandering the house, checking for neighbors and seeing to it that we are all locking our doors. She can’t stand open doors, and unlocked ones don’t allow her to rest. Mine is locked. She doesn’t get in.

My dilemma begins. My tired back looses and my feet slip into their slippers and begin walking me toward my now silent door knob. I meet Susan in the hall headed toward another locked doorknob. Shake. Shake. “Susan,” I ask, “What are you wondering around for at midnight?” “I’m looking for the baby.” She states flatly, almost as if she is really asleep. I have heard the baby story before, in fact, she has been looking for this baby for over a week now. “There is no baby. Go to bed before the boogie man gets you.” I smile as I hear myself say that. But I have no energy to say anything else. She doesn’t argue with me tonight. We resemble two zombies of the night. She turns and heads toward her room, almost as though she is thankful not to have to worry about the baby tonight. I make sure she enters her room and as the door is closing I add, “I love you.” “I love you too.” She responds just before she disappears. As I walk back toward my cozy spot in my own bed I hope that the sound of her door locking really means this is it for the night. Tomorrow will surely begin early. When does she sleep? I wonder. When do I sleep? Myself wonders back. Good night.

Runaway Mother

Last month Oklahoma’s Governor Henry passed the Silver Alert, an alert to handle missing dementia adults, similar to an Amber Alert for missing children. I was especially interested and frankly, relieved because I have had several incidents lately that made the thought of the possibility of losing Susan very real. She so easily gets lost. Today Susan challenged me in a new way. She literally walked out of the house with purse on arm and high heels on feet; she locked the door, walked down the long driveway and right down the road away from the house.

I knew she was looking for her car that she believed she owned. She had looked for it in the driveway earlier and upon not finding it decided she had parked it just down the street. She had been obsessed all morning with going to the bank and to Sams Club. I had repeatedly told her that we were not going anywhere today, that tomorrow was our day out and today I needed to get things done around here. Susan was persistent and her plans evolved throughout the morning. Remember, she is a fighter and doesn’t give up easily.

Her black dress shoes and the purse on her arm alerted me that Susan was on a mission. Since twisting my arm had not worked today Susan must have decided to drive herself. Not that she could actually drive anymore, but try telling her that. Saying her goodbyes she exited the front door before fidgeting several minutes with her keys in the front door locks. I chuckled at the familiar sound of her securing doors, knowing that she would be forced to come right back in after discovering no car waiting for her in the driveway.

I snuck out the back door with my camera to snap a few pictures of her looking at the cars. I thought that might give Jeff a good laugh later on. My pictures became of her backside as she walked tall and confidently, one foot in front of the other walking her further and further away. I expected her to turn back at the end of the driveway but she surprised me with her left turn that took her to a stop sign on the corner where she made a decidedly daring right turn that led her out of view of the house and into unfamiliar territory. She increasingly looked smaller and smaller as she walked on.

I hid at a distance and followed her as she braved her new world. What surprised me most, I suppose, was how she never looked back, not once. The thought of her repeating this without my being aware frightened me. Might she ask a stranger to take her to the bank? What about the wild dogs that I just saw running the streets yesterday? I followed her like a paparazzi snapping pictures of her big adventure. She never knew I was there but walked boldly forward until, thank the Lord, she came to a dead end and had no place else to go but back. Back to me where I stood like her guardian angel ready to escort her home.

The turnaround in her journey somehow created a turnaround in her mind. She now insisted that she was on her way to Cook Whitehead Ford, which her and I both know is in Florida. Obviously she hasn’t checked the walking map lately. If she had she would have known that the walk would have required a backpack and some bottled water, perhaps even a change of clothes or two.

As we strolled together laughing about her adventure she made me a promise that she would walk with me every day (now that I knew how far she could walk). I knew how quickly that promise would be forgotten but the thought of it seemed like a potentially really good idea or possibly a really bad one.

Coincidentally the big story on the evening news was the first Silver Alert, an Alzheimer’s woman across town had walked away from her home this very day. Maybe she and Susan were looking for one another. We made Susan watch the story that included police, helicopters and search dogs but ended with good Samaritans’ and a happy reunion. Susan promised she would never just run off again. Two promises in one day. We’ll see if they stick.

Everyday Feels Like Ground Hog Day

I feel like I am in the movie Groundhog Day. As in the movie, each morning that I wake up it is again Ground Hog Day. The same day continually repeats: the same events -big and small, the same conversations, the same problems and the same weather. That is how it is here in my life with Susan; each day we wake up only to repeat what happened the day before. Things may take a different twist from time to time, as there are slight variations in each day’s events. Unlike Bill Murray, who stars in the movie, it is not my alarm clock that wakes me each morning. Here, it is Susan that brings me out of my sleep and into my day; my day that will be much like yesterday, which was much like the day before and the day before that.

If Susan manages to rise before me, she ensures that I quickly follow her by making lots of loud familiar noises in the kitchen that draw me straight up in my bed and sleep no longer is an option. Usually it is the microwave that inevitably ends up on ‘fan’ instead of power. But the sound of the running fan tricks Susan into thinking that her water is being heated. Finally I hear the microwave open again and than slam back as Susan replaces her cold cup there and tries other buttons for power. Over and over this is done causing all sorts of buzzes and beeps until eventually (by chance) the right button is pushed and the water is heated for coffee. Than the usual slam- slam- slam as she again attempts to find the instant coffee that is always in the same familiar place; still she can’t seem to locate it. I feel my brain repeating the words as though mental telepathy will send them her way, “corner cupboard, Susan, corner cupboard. Get the clear jar or you will end up with lumpy coffee again.” Cupboards bang and I hear other things rattle and slam. With the vision of the dirty dishes I have seen being neatly tucked into the cupboards lately and the clean items I have found in the garbage, I feel compelled into fast motion now. I wonder as I hurry what food items Susan might attempt to prepare for her self. It is like she is the magnet and I am just a piece of scrap metal being drawn directly into the kitchen, usually before the sun is fully peeping through the windows.

Or on luckier days when I am up first, I tiptoe desperately around the kitchen as I cook the oatmeal and two separate pots of coffee (hers is decaf) along with toast or whatever else Susan and I might be having for breakfast that morning. I probably resemble a house mouse that doesn’t want to be discovered by the cat that is surely lurking nearby. No, I don’t want to be found out. Just a few more minutes of normalcy over one cup of coffee with no noise will directly determine how I can handle the rest of the morning. Each moment of peace gives me a few bolts of psychological power that boosts my ability to deal. So that is why I sneak about my own kitchen morning after morning desperately trying not to bang or pop or squeak a thing for fear that the noise of it will travel beyond the kitchen border and without fail will bring Susan scooting toward the kitchen. Nonetheless she comes right on cue.

Her daily “Good morning, Karen; Did you sleep good.” never fails to give me hope that today will be different, perhaps somewhat normal. But within a few minutes I inevitably realize that this is all just wishful thinking on my part. But I never fail to hope and wish. Breakfast is made and we eat by the window looking into the back yard. I always attempt to have a pleasant conversation, which usually starts with pointing out what a beautiful day it is outside, to which Susan agrees, but always adds, “But I am cold Karen. I am so cold that I had to get up to drink coffee to warm up my stomach.” I am sympathetic on cold days and skeptical on warm ones. I look at the layers she is wearing topped off at the neck by her silk scarf that falls haphazardly over her always-unmatched ensemble. It is cute in a way but it makes me sad, sad that this once stylish woman is now adorned with stylish things in unstylish ways. My heart grows softer when Susan’s vulnerabilities are more evident.

I know that I must be gentle and kind and protect her mostly from herself. So I linger at the table longer than I really want to because I know she wants to talk, to feel normal, like she is having breakfast with another person and having a normal conversation. Part of our conversation is normal: the weather, the food and how she feels. But the rest of it is so 'out there' that I am always tempted to get up and do something important, something real. But my heart tells me that this is important and very real in Susan’s mind. Her things are not missing, her children in other states are not about to arrive, her mother was not there last night and her husband is not fishing. Steering the conversation so that Susan is not constantly confronted with the deterioration of her memory is something I am becoming good at. Surely the thought of her own forgetfulness scares her and causes her to become more feisty and irritable, probably because she wants to fight it away.

Having a fighting spirit is not new to Susan. The sad thing is that this fighting upsets her and I worry that it threatens to worsen her condition with the stress it brings her way. She often insists on things that are not true and fights to make us believe them. When she realizes she has forgotten simple things she often screams that she is not crazy yet. She says it almost as though she feels insanity lurking but is desperately hanging on to the sanity. I don’t blame her. It must be such a scary and confusing thing that she is going through.

As the day proceeds I am bombarded with the same questions as yesterday and the same struggles as the day before. “Who is coming today? My things are missing. Someone is sneaking in when we are not home. When will Stefanie arrive? Can we pick up my car at the apartment? When will Jeff come to visit us? What are we going to eat? What are you cooking?” Déjà vu. It is Ground Hog Day again. Like Bill, I can’t seem to break through to the next day where things are not the same. I can picture myself mouthing, as Bill did, the lines that will be said next, because I know, because we’ve done this scene before. I am saying something like, “Susan isn’t really going into her room to sleep, she will be back in two minutes.” I watch my clock and she comes back into the hall right on cue as if we have rehearsed this scene over and over. “Now she is going to ask me if she took her medicine and I am going to say, ‘yes you did’.” Nothing is new. Nothing is really the same.

Never Say Never

Never say never. That is one thing I know for sure. Surely the word never is a lesson waiting to be taught, for me at least. Things I knew would never happen to me... well, you know what comes next- have. It is as though it is girl’s night out on a nearby cloud and those assembled there sip their glasses of wine as they sit watching life's players down below. They look at me. “Okay girls, here is another Chick who thinks it will never happen to her. Looks like it’s time to teach her a thing or two.” They toast to their brilliance as I, on earth, begin to eat humble pie or to experience the very thing I knew I never would. No, not me. It seems that it’s been a repetitive occurrence these past few years. Is this adulthood? I must wonder, hoping not.

For most of my married life I have been all too aware that as my husband and I are growing older, our parents are too. Over and over I proclaimed my willingness to care for those I loved: my mother and father, Jeff’s father, even my step mother and step father. I always stopped my allusions of grandeur with Jeff’s mother, Susan. It wasn’t as though I didn’t love or respect her. I did. I suppose it was more her overpowering persona as she ruled the roost that blew away any of my own confidence that any sort of assistance offered on her behalf would in any way be accepted, let alone appreciated. With that clear, I was able to easily say “never”. I could care for all the rest, but never for Susan. Even if I were one day inclined to do so, surely her controlling dominance would make it impossible.

Ironically, that is where I am right now, lost in my own Never Never Land. That’s right. My days are now spent mostly caring for Susan. She has Alzheimer’s. Life these days seems to resemble a roller coaster neatly seated with a variety of emotions as it whips it's way up and down the valleys and peaks of each day. The lashings of emotions are not just mine, but are Susan’s as well. Honestly, I am not sure where to draw the line as to where Alzheimer's stops and where it is simply just her being Susan. No matter the cause, each day is bound to reveal emotion driven behavior from every realm of the emotional spectrum. Today for example, was touched by confusion, happiness, excitement,nervousness and anger; which incidentally, is usually the case.

We began with Susan’s morning cheer interjected into my self willed grumpiness. I was already impatient at the barrage of questions and answers we were about to go through. A daily re-orienting, if you will. “Did you see Jeff? Where’s Phillip? Can we go to the bank? Is my new car ready for me to pick up? If the nurse calls tell her I can’t shower today because I don’t feel well. Can I be in charge of my own medicine?” I politely answer the same questions the first two times they are asked each day. “Jeff lives here. This is his house. You see him every day. Phillip lives in Florida. You don’t have a driver’s license and there is no new car. We use mine. I drive. You will shower tomorrow. No nurse comes today.” Eventually I don’t want to explain this anymore.

Later, at the garden center we cheerfully oohed and aahed over flowers and pots as we planned and plotted our spring garden. It has to be Susan’s green thumb and her love of flowering plants that put her in her element in a plant nursery. There she had a mission and seemed to be excited by all the blooms and colors that abound. She seemed like her old self and our conversations were nearly normal.

Our next stop, the department store, produced no new pants for Susan as I had hoped, but was overflowing with giggles and laughter because of Susan’s gassy butt noises and her silly reaction to them. She had me laughing so hard that I nearly wet my pants. There we stood with legs crossed and bending over trying to contain our silliness as we searched the accessory department for just the right scarf for Susan. After trying on many pinks and blues she finally settled on a green scarf with soft fabric that she hoped would keep her neck warm as the spring breeze was in the air. With Susan’s neck now draped in pretty green and miniature pink roses at her side we headed for home.

Home is where Susan became slightly confused and fidgety as the evening dimness rolled into an already overcast sky. Susan doesn't do well with nights and darkness. The threat of evening automatically flips on Susan’s shut down-turn off-lock up mode as though she is head security guard over a top secret building. Our unusually lovely day ended with Susan nervously pacing between windows and doors like a dog waiting to be let out. Only Susan doesn’t want out. She doesn’t want to see out and she doesn’t even seem to want to know that the outside exists. Not tonight; not any night. But I do. I need to know the rest of the world is out there. I need to know that I am not sentenced to life in doors with Susan. I want to know that this home will again see the sunshine in its windows. That I will run freely through life’s meadows without Susan pulling me back and locking me in. I won’t say that I would never want a day like today again. It was one of the better ones; besides I know better than to say never.