I got back home from vacation and wondered if mama would miss me. Well, not only didn’t she miss me, but she didn’t know who the heck I was. She said, “I know your face but can’t think of your name.” She said, “OH, you’re my old friend, Nancy(her childhood friend). I’m so glad to see you.” I was surprised and I tried to tell her I was Patty and it went right over her head and she kept asking me if I remembered her mama and daddy and brothers and sisters, their old boyfriends ,they had when they were teenagers, old neighbors, etc. It’s a hard thing for me to play like I’m someone else and go along with this. I didn’t know how to be 92, mama’s old friend and talk to my mother, who looked right at me and saw Nancy. Now that’s hard.

I called Bill and he said he had been there on the weekend and she didn’t have a clue who he was either. The nurse said she won’t eat and has lost another 12 pounds. She asked me about a feeding tube and I told her that’s why I have hospice, NO feeding tubes. The nursing home will try to push it but mama didn’t want it and I don’t want it and I reaffirmed my wishes that I didn’t want her force fed either.

The whole nursing home is sick of the name, Patty. They hear it from the time mama wakes up till she goes to sleep. And it doesn’t even matter if she knows me or not she still is used to asking for Patty. She asked me where Patty was and I said right here and she said, “Well, Patty was hear a few minutes ago singing” and I said, “I don’t think so, cause Patty can’t sing”. Heck, I’M ready to change my name. When we got ready to go we walked off and Irv had to go back for something and we were standing right by mama and she never saw me, just kept asking others if they had seen Patty. One worker said, “That’s all we hear,” and she rolled off still asking for Patty.

When we got to Hudson today, mama was at the table but had eaten 0%. We took her out back and it was a beautiful day. Melissa came up and had a bag of pork rinds. I handed one to mama and she ate it. We kept talking to her and handing her pork rinds and she kept eating them. I bought another bag and she ate a whole bag of pork rinds. She won’t touch all the good food that they try to feed her. That’s so strange. I guess tomorrow I will buy more pork rinds and see if she will eat them. Who knows, tomorrow she probably won’t. The next day I went and she was in bed asleep. They had made her go to bed cause she was driving them crazy, saying, are my folks here? is Patty here? Is my daughter here?, so they put her to bed hoping to shut her up. I really don’t blame them. She was asleep and we took off and came back later. The next day she ate some more pork rinds. What a strange thing to pick to eat, when you won’t eat anything else. They have started giving mama a pill for agitation and it’s making her sleep more. I know the staff is thrilled.

It was Oct 3rd and night time and Hudson called and told me that mama had been sitting in her chair , listening to singing and passed out cold but didn't fall out of her chair. They took her to her room and put her to bed and she was unresponsive. They called hospice to check her and they thought it was either another stroke or a seizure. Either way there’s nothing they can do for her. By the time they called me, mama had woke up and told the nurse to stop when she patted her, so I didn't go. When we went the next day, mama was slow and had slurred speech and we figured it was a stroke last night. No one knows if she feels anything or knows when she has these strokes.

I came on the 5th and mama had her hearing aids in upside down and backwards. I went straight to the head nurse again and she got on the aid that did it. I got mama more pork rinds and she spit them out. I guess that this stroke has taken the rest of her taste. She won’t touch any food now. I reached and tried to turn her hearing aids up, real easy and she hollered, “That hurts me”. I knew it didn’t, and then she asked, who did I think I was, bothering her.

As I said, I never know what I will find and it changes from minute to minute it seems. When I went in the aid said she had taken mama out and mama had sang her a song, Amazing Grace. I was again surprised, but it’s getting where nothing should surprise me. I can’t get her to say one sentence that I can understand, and she SANG? We went out front and I said, mama, sing me a song and she said, I can’t sing anymore and I said try to sing Amazing Grace for me and she thought a minute and then started to sing Amazing Grace , how sweet the sound. She couldn’t carry a tune but she remembered every word and three verses, it was clear and she didn’t jumble one word. Irv and I sat there amazed. It was the sweetest thing I had ever heard. We clapped and told her how pretty it was and I asked her if she might sing me another and she didn’t remember any and I asked if she could sing Old Rugged Cross and then said, “Oh yeah” and she sang the Old Rugged Cross and sang it two times. NO one would believe this. It would touch your heart to hear this poor pitiful little lady, blind, deaf, no memory, no speech, sitting there, singing to the Lord. The tears flowed from me. There’s no explaining why she could do this, but God’s Amazing Grace and one day soon, God will take her to heaven where she will have that beautiful voice back again. That day, my mama sounded like an angel. The very next day mama didn’t know us at all and asked to go to bed and they put her to bed and she went right to sleep while we were there, so we didn‘t stay.

It was a old rainy stormy day when we got to Hudson we had mama by the couch. I asked her who I was and she didn’t know and then who Irv was and she said, Patty’s husband. I told her she was right. We told her it was rainy and wet outside and she ducked and said she didn’t want to get wet. I told her she wasn’t going to be wet cause she was inside and she looked up and said she felt the rain on her head. I told her it’s not raining inside and she kept looking around and being scared because those people were all getting wet. Boy, we can’t say nothing right. It’s hard to talk to her anymore, heck , it’s been hard to talk to her for a long time.

Mama told me her foot hurt and I took off her shoes and looked because she couldn’t tell me what toe hurt. I found they had not been cleaning and drying between her toes or cutting her toe nails. Her toes were stuck together and really smelled and I let them know I didn’t like that one bit either and went and got head nurse and she cleaned and cut them but mama would yell about how much it hurt. She kept jerking her foot and screaming, “You’re hurting me and I don’t like it.” That’s probably why they don’t fool with her. I kept a check on her feet from then on, though.

The next day was the Round-up again. They had a band and dancing and supper. Mama used to like it but now she didn’t even hear the loud band and it upset her to be out there with all those people. Crowds bothered her. She told me she wanted to go to bed and so I took her to her room and they put her in bed and she went right to sleep with all the noise and the band playing right on the other side of her wall.

Mama’s little hand was purple and she said it hurts. It was swelled up too. They say it’s because it just hangs and she doesn’t know it’s there. It was the Halloween party and mama didn’t know I was even there. She couldn’t see anyone or anything. She called Irv, Eddie Smith, we don’t know anyone named Eddie Smith. Smith was her maiden name. She jabbered and we couldn’t understand one thing she said. She’s so bad.