So, I told you already how independent ma was inclined to be. When I first got involved, she was still not only staying home alone while R was off at his store (8 - 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, back then) - she was also taking care of the house, and the lawn as well, even though she wasn't really 'allowed'. R would tell her constantly to leave the lawn alone. It was an ongoing thing between them. R liked the grass longer - better for the lawn, better for the environment - and oh yeah, less work, too. Ma, on the other hand, liked the grass short. Very, very short. She might have Alzheimer's, and forget that he had told her to leave the lawn and the lawn mower alone, but she sure didn't forget how to change the setting on the lawn mower no matter how many times he changed it back. Hiding the lawn mower out of sight didn't work either. At least once or twice a week, we would come home to find that the lawn had been shaved bald.
She continued to cut the lawn no matter what he did until eventually, she couldn't figure out how the plug worked any more. She would plug the extension cord back into itself, and not be able to figure out why the heck it wouldn't work. By then, we were not leaving her home much any more. I would be there and rather than incur R's wrath by letting her shave the lawn again, I would just tell her it must be broken, and we would tell him to fix it when he got home. Usually that would do. Of course, shortly thereafter, she would forget that it was "broken", and out she'd go to mow the lawn. So then we would have the whole conversation again.
Anyway, one day, she was out puttering around, and we had had the "broken" conversation several times already, and I was beginning to get a ~tad~ frustrated with the whole thing and took myself off to have a bath. When I finished and went out to check on her I discovered that ma had had a ~brilliant~ idea. She had tried to mow the lawn, but it wouldn't work. So she decided that perhaps it was the plug that was the problem. She thought she would try plugging it in upstairs, in the porch. A reasonable enough solution - except that rather than unwrapping the cord from the mower and just bringing the end up to plug it in, ma had carried the entire lawn mower up a flight of stairs to where the plug was! 70 years old, with Alzheimer's and a serious heart condition and she managed to carry that lawn mower upstairs to where she wanted it. Ma was independent - and also very, very determined. And me - I was just a big old worrywart that fussed too much! And tattled, too! That's what she told R when I ratted her out when he got home :-)
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Comments: 33
Blessings
Bless you for taking care of her, Flit.
My MIL had the same symptoms of memory loss, disorientation and loss of cognitive ability that caused some traumatic moments for us then but seem just funny now in retrospect.
I miss her still.
"But Mom, Dad died 30 years ago. Do you still celebrate an anniversary after half the couple has died?"
"When did your father die? I don't remember him dying....it must of been the cigarettes!"
So, that's the conversation this afternoon.