The Reluctant Servant

(I wrote the following piece a short time after my mother was diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer's. It seems a fitting piece of writing with which to begin this new blog.)

Grabbing the steaming iron, I force it down on the thick polyester pant leg. I have pinned my mother’s slacks a hem-length shorter. This is an easy project and, even so, it’s taken a good deal of self-talk to finally be standing here at the ironing board.

Eight years ago when she was 77, Mom moved into the efficiency apartment over our garage. Back then I thought, she is across the drive way, not 2 ½ hours away anymore. It’ll be easy. I made sure it was easy—for me. “I can’t be your companion, Mom. I’m here for you, but I work, I need down time.”

Mom had her own car, her license, her independence. It worked well. She got her own groceries. Drove herself to White River to see her old friends and neighbors, visit her sisters, spend a night or two with my brother Dana, and sometimes had lunch with her niece Susie who was suffering from metastatic breast cancer. I always worried when she pulled out of the driveway. I’d whisper a prayer for her and all the other drivers’ safety for the hour and a half trip. In those early days, I knew deep down it wasn’t really going to be easy. Receiving the news last month that Mom was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s made that sentiment a gross understatement.

I have decided while steaming the new hem into place that I will do the hand stitching as I visit with Mom. “Did you bring my book up from the car yesterday?” Mom says, alarm in her voice, as I trudge up her stairs. No “Hello.” No “How are you?”

I picture the 8X10-inch hard covered, blue spiral-bound sketch book bulging with loose papers; a thick rubber band around the middle keeping it together. It had been on the back seat of my car and I remember grabbing it and hugging it to my chest like I used to carry my books in high school. I had carried it and two bags of groceries up her stairs and deposited everything on her kitchen table.

“Yes. I’m pretty sure I put it on your table.”

“No. It wasn’t on the table. I’ve looked and looked everywhere. I don’t even remember seeing it after we got back from Mary’s.”

Several years ago, Mom began to illustrate some of the stories of her life that she’s written about. We pasted typewritten copies of the stories with the illustrations in the sketchbook. And in recent months, she has expanded it to be more of a scrap book with pictures of all her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. It is Mom’s big project. She often speaks about how much fun it will be for people to look through it. We had taken it to her granddaughter Mary’s house a couple of months ago. We brought it home yesterday.

I check my car. The sketch book isn’t there. I go back to my house, her laundry in hand. After throwing her dirty clothes in the washer, I look for any sign of the sketchbook at my house. Did I absentmindedly take it home and put it on my dining room table? Nope. I go back to her apartment.

“Mom, are you sure you didn’t pick it up and put it somewhere? I’m positive I set it down on your kitchen table!”

“No, Donna. It’s not here,” she insists.

I look on her storage shelves in the garage. Nothing. I return to my car, look in the way-back, look on the floor of the back seat. Nothing. I’m beginning to think I’m crazy. Perhaps we didn’t have it with us when we left Mary’s after all.
“Do you remember us actually taking it out of Mary’s house, Mom?”

We both do. I know it has to be in Mom’s apartment somewhere. I look in the refrigerator. I look in her bureau drawers, her closet, the bathroom. I scan her shelves full of magazines, arts and crafts supplies, self-help books, Tupperware containers full of who-knows-what. It’s not in sight. Then I spot it. It is neatly tucked onto a shelf with magazine-size craft books down behind her rocking chair.

I sink onto the couch across from her, positioned so that I am lined up with her good ear—the one with the hearing aid. Mom is watching Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? I proceed to hem her slacks. Mom sits in her recliner and tells me for the second time that the people at the senior center want her to paint another scene on their storefront window. I had dropped her off in the morning at the senior center for several hours. We are experimenting to find out if she will find companionship there at least three of the recommended five days a week. This is one of the three-pronged approaches we need to embrace during these early stages of Alzheimer’s: 1) a medication called Aricept, 2) 4-5 hours of socialization each day, and 3) physical exercise.

Three years ago, Mom failed the mandatory driving test when she tried to renew her license. After much discussion, she decided not to try again after the required 10 days’ waiting period. She gave up driving and now I have a new role, chauffeur. As I drove the 15-mile round trip to the senior center earlier, it felt like my life had played some kind of trick on me. In my late-thirties and early-forties, I gladly chauffeured my two young teenagers to various school functions, music and dance lessons, or back and forth to friends’ houses. I was invested in their futures. Sacrificing my time was not only my duty, but my calling. This is altogether different and I balk at the thought of sacrificing three mornings every week to transport my mother back and forth. Is this a glimpse of what life is going to be like? I wonder.

These are the early days following a serious diagnosis. Even though it wasn’t unexpected, it still is new and I’m on a learning curve. I suddenly find myself much more patient and understanding, no longer so annoyed by her behavior. Only a few weeks ago in the grocery store I badgered her about a bag of pitted dates.

“Oh my! Look at how they are packaging those dates now,” she said.

“Mom, you have been buying these, two or three at a time, for the past three years. You seriously don’t remember?” She seriously didn’t remember and I wanted her to remember, so I kept trying to jog her memory. I wouldn’t let it go until another shopper who was within ear shot glanced our way and I realized how I must have sounded. So, I finally said, “It’s gotta be the new packaging that’s throwing you off.”

I continue to hem the pants as we half pay attention to the game show on TV. During a commercial, Mom asks me, “What would you do with a nice chicken breast? How would you cook it?”

I hear her question but am distracted with visions of multiple weekend visits with her after Dad died when she cooked parmesan chicken breasts with mashed potatoes and a can of green beans for our dinner. “You used to make parmesan chicken.”

Mom looks at me and I can tell she’s trying to remember. She says she doesn’t. I realize another startling and complicated aspect of what the future might hold: Mom may not be able to continue to cook for herself before too long. I recall she recently said, “I’ve never made apple sauce before. How would you go about making it?” Mental note to self: keep an eye on more than just making sure the oven is turned off.

“Let me show you that chicken breast,” Mom says. She goes to her freezer and hands me a frozen, plastic-wrapped, fully-cooked turkey breast that has a date from nearly a year ago. I explain what it is and she exclaims how thankful she is to have me to rely on. She opens the refrigerator and says, “I’ll put it here in the bottom part and let it thaw. I’ll heat it up tomorrow.”

Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? ends, the hemming project is complete, and an hour has elapsed. Mom has come up with several options for her dinner. “Pancakes wouldn’t be too many calories, right?” she asks.

“Well, it would be better if you had something with vegetables.”

“Oh, I eat vegetables every day. Fruit too.”

“You wouldn’t have a vegetable if you had pancakes for dinner and you didn’t have a vegetable for lunch,” I remind her. I wonder if I should take more of an active role in her menu planning. I don’t want to. I want to believe she will be able to take care of her own meals for a while longer. She has been gaining weight. Perhaps I need to pay more attention. It was clear I needed to take control of her medications a couple of months ago. Probably should have done that a lot sooner. But I am a reluctant servant and I decide I won’t decide about her meals today. It is time to leave and let her cook what she wants for her dinner—at least for today.