COMING TOGETHER--42

This is Saturday, the first day of bad weather since I moved in with my mother. It is raining now at 8am, cold and overcast. I know I'm going to have trouble getting my mother out of bed this morning. We go through this many mornings. She wants to curl up like a fetus and never get out of bed. I've been told this is really wrong, but for now we go on.

I have no way to stop this; even when we have good days the next morning she doesn't want to get out of bed. At times, I'd like for her to be in an assisted living place where I wouldn't have to struggle with her every morning. But I have no plan, no place that looks good. We just go on as we are.

Later, she did get up and eat well. I read Mark Twain to her, Innocents Abroad, which she enjoys. Her vision is so bad, she cannot enjoy reading anything. She has to use a magnifying glass to see any bill or anything at all.

Then we watched the Rangers on tv at 3pm until 5pm when we had a good dinner. She slept and I slept. A Beatles tribute band came on channel 13, but the music was almost boring, hearing it now. Not the same as 1965, when they were personalities and we were young.

So we went to bed kind of early, awaiting Palm Sunday tomorrow.

It is Sunday, cold and windy, almost like late Fall rather than late March. But Dallas always gets one cold front before Easter and then after Easter the summer heat begins to arrive.

It is 8am. I am up and ready to get dressed for church, but Mom is still in bed. We don't have to make any real move to get up and dressed until 830am.

Mom got herself up and dressed. We left in plenty of time, had a good time in church and ate at a new place. Mom ate well and we had ice cream afterward here at home. We are waiting for baseball at 3pm.

What I have realized now is how much of my mother's life is finding something to do. Fortunately she doesn't mind doing many of the same things every day--like reading in her favorite chair, sleeping in the afternoon, reading the mail, eating at 10am and 6pm.

But it's finding other activities, especially with those her own age. That she really doesn't like.

We ate steakburgers at Steakk & Ale,which she likes. It's the taste, not the nutrition and that's going to be a problem for her for the rest of her life. But she is eating well enough to be stable in her health. We are going on day-by-day. She seems to be all right, even at her age.