Sharing this story may help some of you... My mom was no picnic lol. She would lose stuff, hide stuff, the things I wanted her to find she couldn't, the things I hid from her, she found. I'm sure a lot of you know that chapter. Mom could not be left alone, for 30 seconds, she got into trouble. Mischievous she was, you'd say. So one day... doing errands with her all day, for me and her, etc. We were both worn out. I got her comfy in front of the tv and said " I know your hungry, I need to go upstairs and put the laundry away, then I'll fix dinner. Ok mom?" She says "Ok"... so ...I come down stairs thinking ooh she's quiet, good yeah... so as I'm walking down the steps I say "mom" just to check on her in the living room down the hall opposite end of the kitchen. She says "I'm good" then I walk into the kitchen .... it looked like Ernie and Burt had a food fight ...YIKES ! There was bread all over, peanut butter and jelly all over the cabinets counters walls.... I count to 100... so I go in where mom was sitting... She's eating a pbnj sandwich, the biggest one I had ever seen. With her mouthful and covered in pbnj. She says "this is the best sandwich I ever had" how could I get mad!? with a huge smile on her face. The image comes to mind when I hear the word sandwich, still.
My mother gets frequent UTIs and when she has them, it affects her and everyone else very badly. She gets so paranoid and confused.
So she was insisting that my husband stole her mailbox key. I knew that he had offered to get her mail for her and did it once a week. He had to go through it because she was getting so confuse by ads and got into big debt with Pub. Clearing House mail. We had to ask them to stop sending her mail.
She kept insisting she wanted the ONLY key, she had, back so she could get her mail for herself. I asked her..."isn't there another key here?" "No" she insisted my husband had the only one and took it without asking permission.
I looked where the keys were hanging and there one was...marked Mailbox!
So I gave it to her.
The next morning my husband went to give her the key...not knowing I had found the other one. She says...."Oh I looked all over and found it. And I want you to keep getting my mail."
So thank you for sharing!
As always when we return home from any outing I help remove her shoes so she can remove her slacks and her protective underwear.
Today was no different. After I returned from the mail box, I hear her holler for me from the bathroom.
When I entered she is holding her underwear out at Arms length, it is full of urine and she is hollering "Democrat."
I am still laughing when I think about this.
I got her a donut and coffee, delivered it with a flourish and said, 'that will be $100." Without missing a beat she pointed at the dog and said "He'll pay."
To me this shows that there is still something left inside of her that is from the real past. A good memory for me.
my mom cant wear her wedding ring because she has arthritis in her fingers and her knuckles are large. (from medical transcribing on those old typewriters we think)
so I search out in stores or on ebay for those stretch rings. some are over the top, but some are more conservative. I get her some of those, and she is so proud to wear a ring.
I know she felt bad not wearing a ring, she felt it is was sending the wrong message to anyone seeing NO RING ON LEFT HAND lol.
idk I sometimes think its sad, she has a beautiful diamond wedding ring to wear...but shes seems satisfied with her -/+ 10$ rings.
also I took her pecans I had cracked that came from her tree at the house where she lived for 50+ years. she thanked me several times for that.
I can bring her an orange from my tree to share. and just sitting together eating our orange I can tell she enjoys that.
I have some funny stories that I could/would share, but I don't think they fit with what you are asking "its all worth it"
either that or I just cant think of any right now. which scares me, cause I always think im getting dementia myself.
My MIL does not have the best reasoning skills, put mildly. She's not dumb, just has a really weird way of looking at life.
Some years ago, she calls me. "Hey, where do I get like 50 lb bags of D-Con?" I say "Why in the world would you need that much? What's going on?" "well, I saw a mouse in the yard and it was looking at the house like it wanted to come in, because it's getting cold now and they want to come in where it's warm. I know you have had horrible problems with mice (we live in the country, so yes, at times we'd get mice)--I want to sprinkle D-COn around the perimeter of my house to warn the mice away."
After I got through laughing hysterically, I explained how D-CON WORKS and thought I had dissuaded her from doing just that.
Nope, DH comes home from work and she had called him about it. He wasn't quite as nice as I was. Said D-COn didn't work like Kryptonite to Superman--it actually ATTRACTS mice. She didn't believe him either and called her other 2 kids and some neighbors.
BTW, lived in the same house for 62 years and has NEVER had a mouse.
One day I was I visiting her and a woman. I’d never seen before came into Mom’s room with a basket of snack crackers and candy.
“Hi!” She said, “I’m Joyce!” She and Mom proceeded to have a merry conversation about the people at mom’s old apartment, where they’d first met. Someday I’ll share the “people coming through the walls” story.