| Today is Halloween, the beginning of the fall holiday season… |
It has been nine years now since the last holiday season of my mother’s life, but I think of that Thanksgiving and Christmas every year as we settle into autumn.
Here’s what happened.
It was 1998, and our three-generation household had abruptly turned into a one-generation affair. In mid-August, my mom, who had lived with us for nearly three years, moved to a nursing home. About two weeks later, our only child Elizabeth left for college. Marge and I found ourselves in an empty nest.
As Thanksgiving approached, we began to plan a real Norman Rockwell holiday. Elizabeth would be home from college for the first time. We decided we would bring Mom home from the nursing home for the long weekend, and everything would be perfect.
Just thinking about a long weekend should have been a red flag for us, but we were lost in a romanticized fantasy. As we planned our holiday, we seemed to forget that Mom had gone to the nursing home when her dementia reached the point at which she could no longer be left alone, even for a few minutes. She had nearly burned the house down on the day of Elizabeth’s high school graduation - a graduation she had no memory of attending two hours after it was over. The events of that day had frightened us into admitting that we couldn’t go on as family caregivers. Mom needed far more care than we could give her.
Finding a place for Mom had been hard, but once she was there she had adjusted well to the routine of the nursing home. There was even talk in the family that she seemed generally more lucid now that she was receiving skilled nursing care.
The night before Thanksgiving we brought Mom home and helped her settle into her old room. Elizabeth was home from college, and she and I made apple and pumpkin pies, as we had done every Thanksgiving eve since she was three. It was as if we had managed to turn the clock back to a happier time.
On Thanksgiving morning, we all woke up early. Mom seemed to know where she was, that she was visiting us for Thanksgiving and that she would be spending the day with us. We had a nice morning getting the turkey in the oven and all working together to prepare our Thanksgiving feast. So far, so good.
At about 2:00, our usual time to eat Thanksgiving dinner, we gathered at the table. In keeping with our family tradition, Marge offered the holiday blessing, and we began to eat. The day seemed to be everything we had hoped for.
Somehow during the meal we didn’t notice that Mom had taken charge of a bottle of wine. She filled her glass again and again until she had consumed the entire bottle. She ate almost nothing, and by the end of dinner she was drunk. Her speech was slurred, and she couldn’t get out of her chair.
When she finally began to fall asleep, we half carried her to her room. She lay down on the bed and was sound asleep in seconds.
She slept for hours, and we decided that when she woke up we would have to take her back to the nursing home. When she finally awoke, she knew who Marge was, but didn’t recognize me and didn’t seem to know where she was. We weren’t really able to orient her, and the talk about “taking her back to the nursing home” didn’t make any sense to her. At one point, she shook her head in puzzlement and said, “I just don’t know anything about this nursing home you keep talking about.”
I finally got her into the car by suggesting that we go for a ride, something she and my father had done often during their 57 years of marriage and almost daily in their 17 years of retirement together.
When we arrived at the nursing home, Mom got out of the car and headed for the door. Once in the lobby, she knew where she was and walked straight to her room. When she was settled, I told her I needed to go home myself. She smiled and said goodbye to me. She clearly knew where she was, but she still didn’t recognize me.
When Christmas came that year - Mom’s last Christmas as it happened - we brought her home just for a few hours on Christmas Day. And we kept her away from the wine.
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There are One Response to “A Caregiver’s Holiday Memory”
#1 wendy - 16 November, 5:21 PM
What a beautiful story, filled with love. I laughed about the wine. My mom almost did the same thing. We had taken her and my Dad to a special restaurant to celebrate their anniversary. Mom had had a stroke the year before and her memory was impaired.
She kept filling her wine glass also, until I noticed and took it away.
My Mom, and my Dad both passed away in l998. It was an emotional year for our family.
Wendy