Category: Family

Today is not a good one for Mom.

Initially after moving to the Home Mom was generally sweet and uncomplaining. If she was in pain, that could change, but she was mostly easy to be with.

Today was very different! Today Mom seemed very frightened and very angry. She was not happy to see us children nor the staff at the home.

Cheryl and I have had Sunday lunch with Mom, I think, since Dad died (2002). At first Cheryl and Mom would come to my house after church. We continued the tradition when she moved to the Home, bringing lunch (usually soup) with us. We normally have a pleasant lunch though Mom has contributed less and less to the conversation over the years. There was little pleasant about today.

Today her greeting to me was, “You think you’re funny,” and told me to “Get out!” within 30 seconds of my arrival. Over and over she asked, “What changed overnight?” “Why are you different?” “Why don’t you help me?”

No question was answered except with, “You do know what is wrong,” “You know what I need,” or simply, accusingly, “You know.”

When I or Cheryl told her we loved her, she responded, “No, you don’t. If you did you wouldn’t act this way.”
We were helpless in the face of her confusion, her anger, her fear. No words could reach her. She wanted no touch.
Though we did set the table and eat some lunch her hostility didn’t abate. In the end she told us, “It’s not nice. To put the whole blame on me. It’s not nice!”

Where is she? What is happening in her mind? Why does she suffer like this? Where is God, the God she tried so hard to serve all her adult life? Will this be the end of her life, this anger, this confusion? It’s not nice!!!

And is this what is ahead of me? Will I too, one day, lose my grasp on reality, see the people who love me as against me? Be unable to see the love, the care, the beauty around me?