Each day it gets worse. The same things were happening with mama. Getting weaker, so tiny, not eating, having no mind, being sad, asking to go home. She wouldn’t have a clue where home was.

It’s January 5th and mama said that someone hit her. I was scared of the room ate. We have no way of knowing, because mama can’t really tell us. Also she had her only hearing aid broken. It looked like it had to have been stepped on. I told them to forget it cause mama couldn’t hear anyway. I figured it was the roommate. Mama had to go to the bathroom and the aid was in there cleaning her up and mama started hollering that she was treating her ugly and that she had used a cold rag to wipe her with. I had watched the aid use warm water. I got mama and she was still hollering about the girl that was being so mean to her. Bill came in and she didn’t know him and asked him who his daddy was and he said “Earl King” and she laughed and said, “That was my daddy’s name“. He said, “I’m your son “and she said, she didn’t have a son.

We came in and when it’s cloudy outside the residents go crazier. This man came up and told us that the nursing home dog was his dog and he heard a aid call the dog a girl and he had a fit and said it’s a boy dog and I will turn him over and show you and she said, never mind. We wondered how he would have proved it on that girl dog. Mama was also on the sundowners thing but then she’s getting to where it’s a everyday thing with her. She has started back wanting to go with Patty again and she doesn’t even know me as Patty. It’s so hard for me. I leave crying every day. Paulette asked mama what she wanted Patty to do and mama said, “Just stay here with me all the time.”

That’s exactly what she does want alright. I got some M&M’s out of the machine. I put a few in her hand and she would push them away. She wouldn’t eat them. She won’t eat anything. She asked me how long he (Irv) had been hanging around and I said about 30 years. She just passed it over. Tomorrow will be our 30th anniversary. Patty is not me. Patty is just a word that she remembers. She asks everyone if they are Patty and says that she is Patty. Irv asked her if she knew him and she said,” No” and he said,” I’m Irv “and mama said,” Your telling a big one, cause I know Irv and you ain’t him.” Sometimes she says some funny things. Another resident had tried to give mama hot coffee and spilled it in her lap and burned her legs but didn’t hurt her bad. Then she told me that her name was Patty Smith, BOY, she’s so screwed up. At the Easter party, mama was like a one year old. I had to say, don’t spit, chew it up, no don’t spit it out and then I gave up.

It’s April 9th , Hudson called me and said, my poor mama was sitting in her chair in the dining room and all of a sudden she took a flying leap out and on the hard floor, flat of her face. People saw her, but no one was close or quick enough to catch her. No one knew if she tried to get up, or if she passed out, had a stroke or what happened, but, she broke her nose and blacked her eyes and face and chest. She had a cut on the top of her nose and she looked just awful. The doctor said at her age and in her condition, there’s nothing to do but ice packs and Tylenol. I came right away and sat by her bed for 3 hours and held her hand and tried to quite her and held ice on her nose and she never knew I was there. She asked for her mama. She didn’t understand why she had a stopped up nose. The hospice nurse came in and checked her. When I left, she was sleeping. Bless her heart. She had had enough. I knew this would finish her.

The next day when I went mama looked so bad. Her little face was all bruises and the bandages were across her nose. I was glad right now that she didn’t know anything. All she did was sleep. I took her 3 pair of warmer P J’s down there. I hoped that somewhere deep inside she would know I was there with her. I knew mama was close to dying. Her face is so black and I just had to stay with her as much as I could. I know that she won’t live much longer, she couldn’t and I knew she wouldn’t ever be upright again. She will be bedridden. I’m just sick to see her like that.

This morning she was wild and loud. She was lifting her arms to the sky and saying, come here, come here, and then I want to go home, we thought she was talking to God. She has been a tough old girl, she’s 92, very hardheaded and stubborn and she fights hard but I don’t think she will beat this. She’s too weak and this has to be what will do her in. She said she wishes her mama and daddy would come and see her and that breaks my heart. I told her she would be seeing them soon.

By April 20th , her face was looking a little better. She was just laying and saying she wanted to go home or she was asleep. One minute we think she’s about to go and the next minute she’s trying to raise up in bed. When she took a small drink, it made her eyes red and they watered and ran. She had trouble swallowing. She had no life left but she kept on breathing. I would be sitting ,holding her hand and she says, Is anyone there? She can’t feel it. I would be so thankful if God would take her home. She’s ready, wants to go and she would never want to live like this, she told me a million times.

She asks for mama and daddy and George and Gladys’( her sister and brother in law) all have been dead for many years. This is the hardest thing I have ever done. I have cried so many tears as I have been there while she went through all the stages of Alzheimer’s, each one worse than the last. They say music is the last thing to go and it was with her except now she doesn’t hear the music, even if I put it to her ear. On April 23rd, the hospice nurse guessed, maybe a couple of weeks before mama died, but is quick to say, we don’t’ know. I prayed everyday as I sat by her and held her hand that she would go on. I can’t stand to see it. Watching her get weaker, day by day, it’s awful. She had gone in to the fetal position. She was too weak to move by herself and they turned her, every two hours. Every day she dies a little more.

Alzheimer’s is the worst thing in the world. It seems so cruel for her to lay and die a slow death but we don’t know God’s plan. I have to keep reminding myself that he has a reason. Every time the phone rings I think its Hudson. It’s so awful, just waiting for my mama to die. BY April 28th she was weaker and choking on water or juice. She’s skin and bones, slept most all the time. Her left arm had swelled badly and she didn’t know it was there and when they moved her they had to pick it up because she couldn’t. Her oxygen level was worse and she grew weaker by the day. She says, daddy, come and take me home. It killed me to hear it.

I walked in this morning and they had mama laying on top of the covers, dressed in blue jeans and shirt and wearing her glasses, socks and shoes. I blew up. I was so tired and I went to the nurse and told her, WHY? She said they thought maybe getting dressed would make mama feel better because she seemed better today. Maybe it would be NICE? I yelled, NICE FOR WHO? She’s NOT BETTER and she doesn’t have a clue, the women’s DYING. She at least needs to be comfortable. I want her back in her PJ’s and under those covers. They acted like I was crazy, but they did as I asked. They HAD to. The nurse told me, I needed to stop coming everyday and staying because it was hurting me and I told her, I would do what I had to do. I was really mad and I didn't understand how they could have been so stupid. I was going to finish the job of taking care of my mama.

Hospice told me that no one knew when mama would die and I knew that, but she hadn’t eaten in months and she couldn’t live forever without food and drink. As soon as mama got comfortable, she went right to sleep. We went to Wendy’s and ran in to a couple that had a son in there and she said she was so sick of going there and it had been 12 years. I said, Lord don’t make me have to go for 12 years. She told me the nursing staff made her mad a lot also. They mean well but sometimes do things really stupid. Like dressing a dying little lady.

It’s into May now and mama was still hanging there. We were watching and waiting while mama slipped away. She was sleeping all the time and was SO very weak. I talked to a lady today that’s grandmother laid without food or drink for 44 days down there. They watched as she starved to death but they knew she didn’t want a feeding tube. People don’t understand that feeding tubes hurt them more than help and also prolongs the dying process, so they have to suffer longer. Mama wouldn’t ever want that. She had a living will and had told me over and over, never do that to her. Mama still has no pain that we can tell and I’m grateful for that. I lost her a long time ago. When they put anything in her mouth, she will close her lips tight. She doesn’t want food.