Mom and Me

Pro tip - clear polish keeps print from rubbing off! She's approaching 86 years old now, but during the last few years of her working life Mom was a registered nurse with a four-year BSN degree. She wanted to be a nurse for a long time, finally graduated at age 53, and worked at our local hospital for 9 years before she retired. She was proud of being a nurse, and we were proud of her accomplishment. As we were growing up Mom carefully (ok, maybe obsessively) managed her diet and exercise, especially her diet, for a long time. She didn't want to be overweight, which was an uphill battle with her genetics, and I'd say she won that battle. She also battled high blood sugar, and through her self-management, was able to avoid medication for at least 20 years. Eventually, though, the cocktail of diabetes meds and the pills for blood pressure and cholesterol became part of the routine. Mom was fastidious about maintaining her pill caddy, organizing the a.m. and p.m., and carrying...

In the 3-1/2 years Mom and I have shared a house, she has become a different person than she was when we started this project. For her, being almost 86 is a lot different than it was at 82. My assumptions four years ago were that I'd work during the day in my home office, take care of the pets, and do the yard work, she would share making dinner and do the bulk of the routine housework. Housework had always been her specialty and her purpose. (She was, and is still, obsessive about doing laundry). In Fall of 2020 when we made our new house plan she was still doing her own shopping and cooking, and going to her various medical appointments. Then about a year and a half later my brothers (who live a few states away) noticed before I did that she wasn't retaining the information they were sharing when they called her. She was repeating herself.  I had taken over paying her bills for her when we moved to our new house, and she was glad for that. The money management was always Dad...

Mom will tell you that she has never been great about directions. For 62 years, Dad was the primary driver, with Mom's Honda Civic mostly short-hopping from home to church, the grocery store, and her favorite department store. During mid-life, when they bought their cabin, she would sometimes drive solo for the hour it took to be in the woods and relaxing on their front porch near the lake. But that was about it. Location was important when we moved to our current house. Although it wasn't in her customary 10-minute radius from her condo, we chose a spot nearby some landmarks from her teen years. I thought that would work, even for someone not known for her directional proficiency. I was wrong. The pull of habit caused Mom to drive PAST about 4 grocery stores on our new side of town to shop at her old familiar one. She deplored the expressway and the traffic-filled bypass, so she took the back roads to get there. Then one day she called me. She was lost, confused, and tearful. ...