What happens now is a lull in phone calls. There’s no firm, “Call on Tuesday by 10:00″ schedule between us, but six days will stretch to eight without Mom or Middle calling. Low dose nervousness ratchets up, so I’ll call, and no one will answer. Those two information points are
Usually, my mom just says “It was a bad day” when my dad… well, has a bad day, dementia wise. But she confessed recently that Dad gets up in the middle of the night agitated, having been woken by the hallucination of a crying child, somewhere in the house. He’s
OK, so first, this happened at my local park for Easter: In a way, it’s this perfect metaphor for life with my parents these days. A good 80% of my brain occupied with logistics. How is this even happening? Am I somehow misconstruing the weirdness of this situation? How did
My dad is sometimes sly now. Middle sister coerced my mother into taking him for an evaluation. Apparently my father became irritated at the tester asking him a bunch of questions he couldn’t answer, so when she stepped out for a moment, Dad slipped out of the room and hid.*
We spent Christmas Eve at my parents’ house. Both my sisters, their spouses, and all children. 100% attendance by the DePlume family. It’s the first holiday in memory my mother has commanded our presence rather than request it. “This will probably be the last Christmas,” she added, trailing off. Last