If you had seen Florence the first couple days that she was here visiting, you would have seen a disoriented, confused and depressed woman who had limited mobility and memory. Throughout the past few weeks that she's been here, I have been taking pictures to show that she has made awesome progress---in fact, she's sharp as a tack, only gets a little confused about names and dates, her hands (which are curled around and limited in usage) are now loosening up and she can do much more with them than she could before, she's even doing the dishes on occasion! Today, as a matter of fact, she decided that she needed to be "assigned" some chores around the house, to contribute something to our living arrangement with her. So, I divided the place up between the four of us, and now the chores list is as follows:
Nate will mow the lawn, keep the yard looking nice, and take out the garbage on Tuesdays. His living space is down in the basement so he'll just take care of that area himself and do his own laundry, etc., and he'll also be putting his dishes into the dishwasher whenever he cooks or brings them up from his bedroom.
Pete is in charge of cleaning the upstairs, including our bathroom, our bedroom, and his own small room/office area. That's not to say he'll be cleaning up MY clothes or messes, but he'll be the one vacuuming the rug in our room and dusting off the ceiling fan, etc., and scrubbing the tub and toilet and all that fun stuff.
Florence asked me today if she could be in charge of taking care of the deck outside, that is, growing some plants in the hundreds of pots we've got strewn about the place, (the home owners had very green thumbs and left us at least 100 huge flower pots everywhere, some with nothing growing in them, some with fresh blooming stuff), and she'll wash the patio table off, sweep the deck, and help with anything else out there that needs it. Of course, I said SURE!! I could use the help!! And I haven't got ONE green thumb anywhere on me unfortunately.
So of course, I will be the one taking care of the kitchen, dining room, living room and cleaning Florence's room every other day (her cats shed so I vacuum, and change the kitty litter and make sure she's got clean bedding and a clean bathroom). She said she would also help me out with those chores in the kitchen and in her room as well. I think she really likes being able to help out, and I'm not going to say "Oh no ya don't woman," because she NEEDS TO BE NEEDED. So, I'm going to need her all over the place!! You should have seen the sparkle in her eyes when I said, "OF COURSE you can have the deck, this will be YOUR domain, YOUR project, YOUR garden...you can do whatever you like out here, I'm all for it." She loved it even more when I said, "So this will be a big responsibility you know, because we like to grill out and eat here on the patio table a lot, and have people over for social gatherings out here..." she said, "Oh that will be so GREAT!" It was like seeing a young child light up when given his first allowance for a chore well done.
We sat down and made another craft today, she used to make crafts all the time for Christmas and she misses doing that sort of thing, so hey, since I like that stuff too, I got some things from the craft store Michaels (where I used to work for several years part-time for "fun money"), and the Dollar Store (which Florence has never shopped at before in her whole life, and LOVES), and we made a gift basket of baby items as well as a small decorative pink and blue wreath (with ribbon, blocks that say BABY on them & round pastel colored cotton poofs all around it), for the new baby that we're going to visit this coming weekend in Rochester NY. She's pretty good with a glue gun, this 88 year old woman, I'm tellin' ya, she can CRAFT!!
She wanted to bring a gift for the baby's mother, Pete's daughter-in-law, so we sat down today and I taught her how to fold a sheet of tissue paper in half like a taco, and then put your first finger and thumb in the center of the folded part, and just wave it hard in the air a few times, to get a perfect fold for the basket or gift bag that you're putting it in. She shook her head, and said, "All those years, and I never knew that trick." I said, "Well now you do, and you're going to be a tissue paper GURU soon!" I told her that would be one of her official house duties, whenever we have a gift to give somebody, and she laughed.
People, I gotta say, this country SUCKS for taking care of the elderly. I mean, we treat our old folks like they are invalids, like they can't do anything for themselves, and we act as though they are fragile infants who can't think right or accomplish tasks or even feed themselves....but in my experience, that is a crock of crap. This woman is 88 years old, she reads voraciously, she needs projects and assignments and a list of things to do, to stay active, to stay fit, she loves to take walks and exercise, she simply wants to be busy with things that keep her BRAIN going.
If you plop down a loved one in a nursing home and let them hang out with people who sit and drool in their hands all day long, or chanting a nonsense word over and over without any intelligent conversation, without activities that are interesting and fun, without any type of stimulating outing somewhere, etc., all you're doing is sentencing that person to an early grave. You're just killing their spirit and their brain.
Florence has been feeling rather depressed the past few days because she has a lot of things to think about, she said, regarding this decision to live with us. Her first concern, is that "people might be upset at her for doing this." She is referring to Pete's cousins, who talked her into moving to the nursing home. The reason they did that, is because she fell at her home and could not get up. It is an understandable reaction, but it is also one that caused Florence a lot of heartache and upset. She said she wanted "the gnats to stop buzzing around her head" (meaning they were constantly at her to move to the nursing home) and that she expected that to cease once she was there, but it didn't cease, and she's exhausted from so much micro-managing and constant coddling and babying all the time. She just wants to be left alone. She does not need somebody to grab her by the arm to lead her around like a 3 year old child, she says, and that gets on her nerves the most when they do that to her. She said they act like they are the mother and she is the child, and she wants to smack their hands away, but doesn't.
She's also concerned that, because the cousins have taken away her checkbook and bank card, that they might be spending her money without her knowing it. She said she wants her check book and her bank card back, ASAP, so that SHE can be in charge of her own money. She said they took them away because "they were afraid I might just up and leave." I laughed and said, "Are you a terrorist or something? A national FLIGHT RISK at large? What are you gonna do, hijack a plane to Tahiti or what?" She just laughed, "Yeah, I know, it's just plain silly." She said she couldn't even get $10 to buy a pack of gum or a little something for herself whenever she wanted it, and that made her very angry. I really can't say that I blame her for feeling that way.
So, Pete and I feel that, for her quality of life and for her continued improvement (she even said today, "I think my hands are getting much better, and will be right as rain before too long, I really do)," having her here with us is the best solution. In fact, the "win-win" solution is that if the cousins want to come visit us anytime, it's only a four hour drive instead of five and half hours up to Rochester, (where one cousin lives) or to Allentown (where the other cousin lives). So it's a shorter distance for them both to come see her, and Florence wants them to visit soon. She said, "When they come visit me here, and see how well I'm doing, and how much happier I am, I think they will like the house and know that it's a good thing for me." I agreed.
I've been taking pictures of her doing craft projects, enjoying the beautiful trees that are blooming all around our house, helping with the dishes in the kitchen, and smiling in every one of those pictures, loving every minute of it. Nobody can argue with photos of a happy woman. In fact, we're going to videotape her with a lawyer, so that he can ask her specific legal questions about her goals and plans and decisions regarding her moving in with us, and selling her house, and her car, and discussing aspects of her will, so that everyone in the family will know that she has all of her mental faculties and can think and decide things for herself. That way, if there is any question of her ability to make decisions, the videotape will hold up in a court of law. I asked her about this idea, and she agreed, and wants to do it soon.
So, last night for the first time in her life, she sat down with me to watch "A Night At the Opera," with the Marx Brothers. She had never seen it before, and laughed all the way through it. I love that movie, too. Harpo is my favorite, I absolutely love it when he goes around with scissors, cutting off men's ties...that cracks me up every time!! She now has a newfound appreciation for the Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers, and for a very conservative, serious- minded ex-nurse of many years before retiring, that is quite an accomplishment.
I'm glad to have Florence here with us. She will add to our enjoyment of this house, she will give us happy memories, and we hope to do the same for her, and though it will be a challenge for us all to adjust, I think it's going to work out very well for us all.
Love, Becky ps. Of course, this puts the KABASH on the San Francisco trip though, Pete is notifying his boss that he will be unable to go. (Bummer). Oh well, maybe someday.
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