Losing Independence

I just finished reading a post by "clawless" regarding what happened to them when "Big Momma" and "Big Daddy" could no longer safely live independently and needed to be move to an Assisted Living facility. It got me to thinking (which can sometimes be a dangerous thing!). I started thinking about my mom, and her journey from independent living to living in my home.

My father died almost 6 years ago. While he was alive, my mother took care of him...taking him out to lunch everyday and looking after his medications. When he physically began to fail, my mother decided to hire someone to come in and help him get up out of bed, walk to the bathroom, get dressed. During that time my mother (who was in her late 70's at the time) continued to work two mornings a week. She said that she worked to give her some time away from my dad, I think she liked feeling wanted/useful/needed, plus I think she enjoyed the mental stimulation and personal relationships that she developed at her work.

After my dad died, my sister and I began to notice a gradual change in our mom. Over time (about a 12 month period) we noticed that she began restricting her driving to two places in her long term memory ( a restaurant that she and my dad used to eat at a lot...and the pharmacy where she picked up her prescriptions). We started to worry when she no longer went out to lunch everyday... saying "I was too tired", "I didn't feel like going out" or "I didn't feel like getting dressed today". When she went to the doctors, she had lost weight... we figured out that she probably was "forgetting" to eat. It wasn't that she was depressed and wasn't eating (although she may have been depressed missing dad)... she was truly "not remembering" to eat.

My sister and I started comparing phone conversations that we had about our mother, noting that mom was having a more difficult time remembering what she had done that day. We realized , after leaving the state of denial, that our mother... the woman who was self-sufficient and fiercely independent... should no longer be driving., and we realized the only way to take away her driving privileges was to move her out of her apartment. The big question was "Where would she live?"

Both my sister and I realized that it would be too stressful for us, if our mom moved into some sort of "assisted living" place. Why????? Because, we both knew, since mom's memory was failing and we could no longer count on her to be a good historian, that we would feel that we "had to" each visit her at least once a week, just to be sure that she was o.k. With two kids, working part-time while they are in school, and then dealing with their "extracurricular activities" I couldn't figure out when I would find the time to visit her. This was stressing me out big time. My husband (for this story ONLY I will call him "Saint") suggested that maybe my mother should move in with us. Now in a movie, the music would reach a crescendo, my mother would be happily ensconsed in my home and the scene would fade away, and you would just know in your heart that my mother was happy in her new home. But hey, this is a blog, not a movie although if you need a bathroom break right about now, go right ahead.

Fast forward about 8 months (it took that long to build a bedroom and bathroom downstairs for my mom to live in). My sister, mom and I cleaned out 30 years of apartment living and tried to reduce moms life into that which would fit into my house. So moving day comes and Mom moves into my house. Both my sister and I figure that we can relax now...we know that mom is eating 3 squares/day and we're figuring that she is being well cared for and so the logical conclusion would be that mom would be joyful and blissful in her new abode. WRONG!!!!!

About 1 month after mom moves in, I find her crying in her room. Now you must understand that this is the same woman who only cried when HER mother died or when she was watching a sad movie. Yet...there she was, crying! My first thought was to sneak away and pretend that I didn't see her crying. (I tried to rationalize it as "giving her privacy to work through her feelings)...Of course that was b.s. I was uncomfortable seeing her cry. Yet I tentatively approached her. Just my luck, she actually felt like talking about her tears. (Why couldn't she have picked this time to wipe her tears and tell me that she was fine??????? Couldn't she see how uncomfortable I was...isn't it supposed to be about me, me, me?????) But I digress...

It turns out my mom wasn't unhappy that someone else was making her meals, she wasn't unhappy because someone was doing her laundry, she wasn't unhappy with all the activity that was now going on around her...she was depressed and trying to come to terms with her Lost Independence. She was frustrated that instead of being able to "go to the store, or the post office, or wherever", WHENEVER she wanted, she now had to ask for someone to take her. She didn't like having to ask to be taken somewhere and really, who could blame her after a long life of being able to pick up and go whenever she wanted. I know that I wouldn't like it one bit!!!!!!!

I guess the point of this epic is that it doesn't matter if someone ends up in an "assisted living" situation, or living with a relative...there will be a time of adjustment as the person says goodbye to their independent life and works to accept their new dependence. As for how my mom is doing now...well that's a story for another blog.