Wedding Bells Are Ringing

My daughter is getting married in five weeks. Planning her wedding has involved many meetings and appointments and shopping trips as we have thought about places, clothing and décor. Most of these events Susan would not have comprehended nor been able to tolerate, with the exception of two: cake tasting and dress shopping. Indeed, the cake tasting was her favorite of these. Just yesterday was Susan’s day as Grandmother of the bride. We took her on a girl’s day out with the main objective to find her a modern pretty dress to wear to the wedding.

It is no secret that she doesn’t have the energy for shopping that she used to have, although she can still get excited about looking at things and asking for prices. Yes, she still enjoys finding an item that she really wants or thinks she might have a need for and bringing it home with her. Yesterday was no different. She ranted and raved over furniture as we passed through on our way to and from the elevator. She suddenly wanted to look for a bed for her spare bedroom (which she doesn’t have). But we were there for a dress and spare energy was in short supply.

What we weren’t prepared for however,was how much her shopping endurance has diminished since our last girl’s day out. We chose all the pretty dresses that we thought might do well for her before we were escorted into a rather large ‘special needs’ changing room. Susan leaned on a wall and found it difficult to stand up while we slipped her little self in and out of dresses of many styles, sizes and colors, about eight in all. She liked looking into the mirror while admiring herself in the different styles, but changing in or out of them- not so much.

After a collage of dresses, we changed her back into the outfit she had worn there. She looked admiringly into the mirror and asked how much that outfit was. “Silly you,” was our only reply since we knew that any attempt at explain that this was her own outfit would likely exasperate us. Once she realized her modeling day was over, she attempted to lie down onto the dressing room bench. Instead, we directed her to sit on the seat of her walker where we wheeled her back through the stores, again passing the highly coveted furniture and eventually out to the car.

Perhaps her favorite part of shopping is going out to lunch since that is the only time she gets to drink a large glass of Pepsi. She loves eating out. But lately she is soooo slow about downing her food that we almost dread taking her. Always, she ends up with most of her meal in a to-go box that she continues to munch on and delight in as we travel from place to place.

Upon noticing that the back seat munching noise had stopped, Katrina motioned for me to look back at Grandma. She was slouching over in an awkward position with jaw down and eyes shut- obviously exhausted from her outing. At first glance she appeared dead and I stared at her face and neck to check for breathing! Whew! She was alive! Susan had truly shopped till she dropped!