A Palpable Sense of Sadness

It's one of those nights I really appreciate living in the city.  I have a trial on Friday so after the boys went to bed, I drove over to Blvd. on Belmont Boulevard (about 1 minute from my house) and camped out to work on one of the picnic tables in the bar.  It's one of my favorite nighttime work haunts, where I can settle in with a glass of wine when I really need to prepare for a deposition or trial.

After I finished working, I went for a walk and called my sister to talk about - what else? - my mom.  I can't remember the last time Tracy and I had normal conversation about our children, a television show or book I gave her to read.  Our relationship has changed - irrevocably, I am afraid - since my mom really began to struggle with Alzheimer's disease and we moved her into assisted living last November.  I miss the days when we talked on the telephone late at night just to catch up with each other and not to compare notes about how rapidly my mom is deteriorating.

I am still struggling with the decision to move my mom from her 1 bedroom apartment (2 rooms total) in the assisted living section of Maristone to an efficiency (1 room total) apartment in the memory care section.  Tracy strongly feels it is the right thing to do and that it needs to be done now.  Other people I trust feel the same way.  I know it's the right thing to do, too, but I am having a hard time accepting that this phase of my mom's life is over.  Moving her to memory care section at Maristone is an acknowledgment that she will not be with us much longer, I fear.

I am in denial, I know, but I am struggling with the loss of independence she will experience when we move her.  The doors are locked and she will not be able to come and go as she pleases (not that she does a lot of that now).  Her apartment will be much smaller and that makes me sad.  I worry that it won't be comfortable enough for friends or family to sit and visit with her for extended periods of time.  I worry that she will wonder where the rest of her furniture - her stuff - is after we move her.  Most of all, I worry about the transition for her, about how she will handle being in a new apartment.

The constant, ever present worry is so draining emotionally.  The feeling of  helplessness is overwhelming at times.

This afternoon, when I stopped by, one of the nurses I talked with (Beth) told me mom had been tired all day, napping on and off.  When I peaked in her apartment, she was fully reclined in  her lift chair, covered with blanket, asleep.  I gently touched her arm and woke her, just to say hi.  She looked up at me, confused, smiled and went back to sleep.  I quietly slipped out and walked to my truck, tears in my eyes.  I felt as down as I have felt about her situation in a while.

That's the hard part - every time we hit a plateau with my mom and how she is doing and I get comfortable where she is, her conditions further deteriorates and we hit a new low.  Damn, it is hard.

Looking back to November of last year when we moved her into Maristone, it's hard to believe we convinced her sleep in the bed for a while and that she could call us on the telephone.  She new who my children are and who my wife is.  She could climb in and out of my truck, with difficult, and even attend Kaitlyn's basketball games.  None of that can happen now and it never will happen again.