On this day I went in and mama had on a pair of stained pants and top and no bra. I asked her if she dressed herself and she proudly said, yes. I asked the aid, why she looked like that and she said that she had dressed mama in her pink P’J’s for pajama day and mama had a fit and said she wasn’t wearing that and next time she looked, mama had taken them off and put on what she had on. The aid said mama had hidden her glasses and hearing aids in her drawer and they had to hunt for them. I found a cookie and cup in another drawer. She’s back to hiding things. She has a roommate that doesn’t know anything and she gets in mama’s bed and takes mama’s stuff, so we’re going to have to change rooms. Then mama messed herself and had to be changed and she doesn’t even know it.

Today they called and said mama had fallen but they didn’t think she was hurt. When I got there she would never admit that she had fallen. That night she kept calling my house and saying she was scared of the old man that was in her room. He was the roommate’s husband. I told mama that he wasn’t staying in her room and who he was, and that he was visiting his wife, but it did no good. The next day, she fell again, still didn’t hurt herself and still wouldn’t admit it. They put an alarm on her chair, where she can’t get up and fall and she didn’t like that one bit. Every time she leaned over, it came off and rang. I’m there every day but it’s never enough and she’s always bored and says there’s nothing to do. She won’t join in anything they do down there. It’s May, 2004 and she can’t walk at all anymore. They don’t even try. We bought her swing from her house and donated it to the nursing home and they hung it out back. She was so happy to have her swing to sit in and wanted everyone to come out and see her sitting in it. She was thrilled but no one else cared. They put her name on it and she thought that meant that no one else could sit in it but her. She liked to have driven them all nuts, asking them to come outside and look at her, sitting in her swing.

One day I went there and she had on shoes that I hadn’t seen before. She said they were hers but I knew better and I went looking for the roommate and found she had on mama’s shoes and mama had on hers and they didn’t even wear the same size and neither of them knew the difference. We went in one day and she was real quiet and I knew she was mad at me again. I knew her so well. I asked her what was wrong and she was mad because Irv and I were going off for a couple of days rest and weren’t taking her. She doesn’t care if we need a break and says,“ what could we possibly need a break from“? Mama is very selfish. It’s funny what she can and can’t remember too. It sometimes seemed like selective memory.

Mama had no money and at 3600.00 a month to live at Hudson and buy her stuff, and buy meds and everything else, I knew we had to sell her house. I knew she wouldn’t know the difference ‘cause she wasn’t ever going back there. I hated the thought but we started cleaning out, so we could get it ready for sale.

We took mama for a ride one day and got her a blast from the Sonic and it took us days to get the blast out of the backseat. We didn’t try that again either. Live and learn. Doc came down to get the stuff he wanted out of mama’s house. Everyone just took what they knew she wanted them to have. She had told us a long time ago and had even written out names on stuff in her house. Michael came down and took what was his, Melissa got hers and Bill and I got ours. Then we cleaned out the rest of the junk and Bill hauled it off. We cleaned it up the best we could and sold it to a realtor. It was in bad shape ‘cause she hadn’t done anything to update it in 40 years. We sold it quick because it was in a good neighborhood in town. But they had to redo the whole house because no one but mama would have lived in it like it looked. She couldn’t see any of the bad points, she loved her house. I hated it so badly, that she didn’t even know it was gone and by now had forgotten it. We drove her by it one time, when we had her out riding and she didn’t know where she was. She would always say, I want to go home, but she had no idea where home was. Sometimes she would be talking about her home with her mama and daddy and sometimes with my daddy and sometimes the house we sold. Sometimes she didn’t know, just that she wanted to go home. She said that till the day she died.

One day, Bill decided he and Terri wanted to take mama to Memphis to see her brothers. I thought that was a bad idea but he had his mind made up. I tried to tell them how bad she could be and that she wouldn’t remember and she would get really bad at sundown but they still wanted to do it. They left here planning to stay the night in a motel and come back the next day. They packed her up and took off early one morning and drove to Memphis. Four hours with her in a car, I can only imagine. He took her to see the brother in the nursing home and then to see the brother still at home. Then he decided ,he wasn’t going to spend the night and turned around and brought her back, 4 more hours in the car, after she was screwed up, sundowners was in full swing and she didn’t know nothing. They got back to Hudson, in the middle of the night and dumped her off on the staff to fool with and she was in bad shape. They told me the next day how bad it was on mama. I knew Bill was trying to do something good, but in doing that, he made her worse and she didn’t remember a thing. There are something’s she can’t do anymore and going on trips are a thing of the past.

In October, Hudson always has a roundup party and they have supper and a band to come and play and all families are invited. Mama loved the music and singing and she likes watching the people dance. She would clap her hands and had the best time. Things kinda rolled along without any really bad stuff till Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving that first year, Bill decided to take mama to Ryans’ for lunch, and wanted us all to go. I thought she should have stayed at Hudson, because that’s something else she couldn’t handle. But, he took her and we all went along, but she couldn’t see and she couldn’t feed herself and I had to sit by her and feed her and the food was everywhere in her lap and on her clothes. She didn’t know but what she was at Hudson in the dining room. But we made it.

We had gotten rid of the first roommate and got Francis. This wasn’t going to work because two Alzheimer’s residents, that thinks the other is stealing from her all the time, wasn’t’ going to get it. So they moved Francis out. Mama got Beverly. Beverly was young enough to be mama’s daughter, had a good mind but in a wheelchair and she helped mama out a lot. Mama couldn’t do anything without Beverly to tell her what to do and mama depended on her all the time. It helped us out too. But Beverly would go home on the weekends and it was hell to pay, for the ones left with mama. Beverly was mama’s roommate for a long time ,but when mama got to where she was driving Beverly crazy and keeping her up all night, Beverly asked for another room. I couldn’t blame her one bit. But there wasn’t a room free right now that she would want, so she would have to wait. HOORAY for us.

In Dec that year, they put in a buffet type bar at Hudson and the residents that were able could walk by and pick out their food. The others had to wait till the aids got theirs. But they had menus and could choose from it what they wanted to eat, 3 meals a day. But for my mama, she could never make up her mind. She couldn’t even do that when she had sense and sure couldn’t now. Years ago when we went out to eat, she would always wait till I ordered and then say” I’ll have the same as her.” It would drive me nuts. I would try to wait her out, but never could. Anyway, the bar is a great idea, but doesn’t work for mama. They had a Christmas party every year too for all the families and residents. We all went and they had a group come and sing and had Santa Clause and gifts, for all of the residents. It was nice but mama is sitting there and says” does the church pay for all this”? I’m so tired of her always thinking she lives in church. She spent her life going to church when the door was open and I guess that’s the reason she thinks she lives there now. Right after the party, mama’s glasses came up missing. We searched and the aid who gave her a bath, took them home in her pocket the night before. Seems like she can’t see with them or without them anyway. Her eyesight is just fading away.

I had tried to be nice and bought cups with candy for the aids that take care of mama. One of them was so stupid, that she got hers and went and told all the aids that I was handing out gifts and to come and get theirs. I was embarrassed when I didn’t have enough for every aid in the place. I had to tell them I ran out and some of the ones that I had bought one for didn’t get theirs. The next year, I didn’t give anything. I learned from another mistake.