Taking Care of Those That Took Care of Us

My mom died last week.  Oh, it's OK.  She lived 97 full, robust years.  And her health had declined quite a bit in recent years.  More on that later.

You wouldn't know it to look at her, all 5'2" and 104 pounds but she played basketball.  She was a senior in 1936 and girls in Sweetwater, Tennessee played that old half court game.  She was a guard which means she never got to score. 

My favorite story about my mom is about a trip to Philadelphia that she took.  The year was probably 1943 and World War II was going on.  She was headed to Philly to visit with my dad who was stationed there. 

She got on the train in Sweetwater with a sandwich and $2.00 that her mother had given her, headed to Pennsylvania to see the man she had not too long before married.  She had only the dress that she was wearing and knew nothing more than that she was headed to Philadelphia.

She had no idea how to reach my dad and surely didn't realize what a big place she was visiting.  Somehow, she found my dad, secured a place to stay, and had a couple of weeks of glorious sightseeing with my dad and some friends she made.

What an adventure!

My parents were married for 54 years when my dad died in 1997.

In recent years, my mom had developed a progressive case of Dementia.  I've talked about my mom in this space on several occasions but have never mentioned that fact because she would occasionally read my column and I didn't want to embarrass her.

When she died, she had been living in the Memory Unit of the Morningview Assisted Living Center.  This is a wonderful place that deeply cares for their residents who face so many challenges. 

Despite advancing Dementia, she often knew who people were.  It really wasn't often that she didn't know me when I walked into her room but she did sometimes mistake me for my dad.

There's a lot more of this out there than you really can imagine.  That's why I'm writing this.  There are a lot of Pat Summitts out there.

It hurts to walk in and not be recognized.  My mom would sometimes get lost in her own residence and walk for hours looking for home.  She had no idea where she was.  One day it was Chattanooga, another Sweetwater.  She always wanted me to check on her mother for her and asked often about her long deceased brothers.

It's hard to deal with even family members when they can't function as we would expect them to.  There are not adequate resources available to take care of everyone that needs that care.  My mom was one of the lucky ones. 

We need more research.  We need more compassion.  We need more resources dedicated to those that can't remember basic functions like how to eat and where to use the bathroom. 

If you get a chance, show some love not just for these most vulnerable of our senior citizens but for those that care for them.  And if you get a chance, be generous with your checkbook to those organizations helping to fight Alzheimer's and Dementia.