One Hundred Years - 10/28/13

Today is my father's birthday. He was born exactly 100 years ago. He died on January 2, 2002.

This morning Ken and I visited my mother in a dementia facility in Maryland. She was happy to see us. She is 94. She was a little surprised to hear that today was her husband's birthday, but she was not very curious about where he is or what happened to him. At least she still knows when her birthday is.

There was a gentleman in the facility who was very surprised to hear that his wife had died some time ago. Not upset, just surprised. In fact, he didn't believe it. We went through that stage with my mother already. The first time I had to tell her my dad was dead, I thought it would be awful because I thought it would be very upsetting for her to suddenly find out that he was dead. Maybe on some level she did remember that he was dead and so it wasn't particularly upsetting to hear me say that he was dead. Dementia works in odd ways.

After visiting my mother, we drove to the cemetery in Virginia where my father is buried. It was a sunny day and it was peaceful there. I left some stones on his grave as a way of saying I had been there and I remembered him.

Afterwards, we drove to a mall and bought my mother some sweaters and some new shoes. We also bought her a new walker. Her old one is pretty scuzzy. The new one is RED and it has black and red designs on the crossbar and little pockets on the sides for your tissues or glasses or whatever.

We went back to see my mom  and brought her the new clothes. Ken set up the walker and adjusted it to the right height. I think she likes it. We left her at dinner time and she still seemed quite happy and did not fuss at all that we were leaving.