A New Take On Easter

I was mom's caregiver on Easter because that is one of the ladies' paid holidays. That part, at least, gives me joy. I picked her up in the morning and brought her to our house. She dozed off during the baseball game. Big sis and her husband came over for breakfast, which was fabulous because I haven't seen my brother-in-law in two years and he just turned 88. Mrguy made breakfast. And then mom was soon agitating to go home.

I made soup the day before, and we were going to have soup and grilled cheese sandwiches at her apartment, where I would take care of her for the rest of the evening. Or so I thought. 

She'd had a hard week. The caregivers asked us for help on several occasions when mom was crying, angry, throwing things, out of control. There was little we could do to help, because she's missing a hearing aid. She both can't hear and can't listen, and having us on the other end of the phone isn't very satisfying.

I knew that Easter was going to be sad, but I didn't know that my mom would act out all afternoon. She insisted that we were lost, needed food and needed help. She prowled the hallway both as we returned to her apartment and after we returned to her apartment to look for that help. 

She gave me a hard time for not wanting to go to the front desk and ask them for help. I kept telling her that we had food, and that I knew where we were, so we were all good. She sat down to write this note:

As we approached her apartment she pawed through people's mail. She passed by her neighbor's door (which was open) and said "SHE OWES ME TWO SLICES OF BREAD!!) which she probably does. 

Once inside, the agitation continued for hours. She couldn't articulate what kind of help she needed (physical, mental health) but insisted that she was sad because she was asking for help and no one was helping her. "I can toss this recycling out in the hall and then someone will check on me" Obviously I was no use. I went off to make our dinner, pausing to stop her from doing weird stuff. At one point she pulled open the tool drawer and I seriously considered whether she was looking for something to harm me with. Then she went into another drawer, pulled out cards (one of grandmother's bridge sets with standard poodles, white and black) and started flipping them one by one into the hallway and on the floor.

Occasionally she'd make a break for it and walk down the hall without her mask, causing me to trot down the hall after her with her mask. Needless to say I burned dinner while trying to contain chaos. "Does *your* sandwich have any cheese in it?" she asked, while wagging her sandwich at me. Fuuuuuuuck.

Eventually we made it to her bed, where she spent a full hour telling me all of the ways in which I made her sad. I can understand how having a seemingly normal conversation with the power dynamic reinstated in her favor would make her feel calmer. In this cocoon within her apartment she could revert to talking about the size of my breasts and can recount the times I have disappointed her and can indicate that my father was a less-than-stellar person "I knew him better than you" she said, while also tearing up a picture of him.

In the night I heard a sound and got up to check, slightly before the motion sensor went off in her room. "Did you see your father? He was right here. I don't know why a grown man would walk through a bed like that". 

And then it was morning and I went home to work for a few hours before curling up like a ball. I made an appointment with her neurologist for next week.