I’m not really sure how to deal with what I’m dealing with this weekend.Hopefully no one in my family will get angry with me for airing a bit of laundry. I promised my Mother I’d help her when the time came to put Grandma in a nursing home. And wouldn’t you know it , three days after me Ma returned to Florida from Toronto and I returned to Boston – Grandma is off the nursing home waiting list and we have to turn around and go straight back.
So I’m sitting near gate C34 at Logan waiting for JetBlue to scurry me off to Buffalo. I’ll then drive over the border to Toronto and we plan to basically ambush Grandma on Sunday night so she doesn’t have a lot of time to mull over what’s happening to her. She will never go quietly from her home until she is dead, and there will be bloodshed when she figures out that her time in her house of 30 years is up.
I don’t know if we have a strategy. I suppose my mother has contacted our social worker, and perhaps employees of the senior residence in question, and I won’t be expected to slap a straitjacket on the old girl. Are we “looking” at homes for future reference? Going to a bingo parlour (I have to learn to start using ‘u’s again), Attending a matinée of Cocoon? I don’t know what the gameplan is. There might not be one. I’ll be hanging out with JJV, Amy, Richie, Ryan Weaving and the rest of the gang Friday and Saturday before reporting for duty Sunday morning.
When she was lucid, I was very close with my Grandmother, and I take some degree of solace in knowing that 10 years ago, if she could have looked ahead through the reflection in a magic birdbath or something and seen what we’d become she’d have appreciated my family (Janet was absolutely terrific with Grandma at Christmas) trying to help maintain her safety and quality of life.
Unfortunately, the woman we’ll be dealing with Sunday is the most stubborn, vindictive, uncooperative creature you can imagine. It’s going to be something else.
When my grandparents became unable to live on their own they both moved into my mothers house; their house in Needham was left as it was the day they left and my mother’s house was turned into a nursing home with round the clock live in nurses. Grammy suffered strokes which left her in a wheelchair and Granddad suffered alzheimers which left him unable, sort of hilarious. There is no easy way to take someone out of their home and move them into a new place- my grandparents were never happy once they moved…but it had to be done. In their hearts they knew it and in your Grandmother’s heart she knows it.
Sending lots of good thoughts and stuff your way. Know that you & the Fam are doing what needs to be done for your Grandmother’s health and safety. You know my number if you need an ear!
{{{{HUGS}}}}