primarycaregiver2022

  645 am - When I woke up this morning and Mom's ceiling bedroom lights were on and her room was flooded with bright, electric light. She was turned on her bed with her face to the wall, deep asleep. The lid to the commode bucket was up and I could see she had a bowel movement. 8 am Mom has had her juice and tea. I could hear her heavy sleepy breathing from her room and then I heard her speaking softly. I wasn't sure if she was awake or asleep. I went into her room and her eyes were open.   I turned off the lights and emptied the commode bucket. I refilled Mom's water glass and set her morning glass of juice on her bedside table. As I sit quietly reading and writing on the couch, I hear her finish the juice.  "Do you want me to adjust the bed, Mom?" I asked. "Yes. Mom visited this morning." She replied. A little later, I hear an odd sound from her room and hasten to see what is happening.  Mom is up on her feet, rummaging in a basket on her bookshelf. Sh...

  2024 02 01 - Jenny Notes 844 am Thursday morning. Mom is still asleep. I took in her dentures, refilled her water glass, and brought her glass of cranberry juice. The kettle has boiled, ready to make her cup of tea when she wakes up. It is a strange place to live. Knowing that we don't know how many days she has left. Knowing that the next time I walk into her room she may not be breathing. Hearing the slap, slap of her slippers as she shuffles out from her bedroom to the big green chair. Finding my last nerve plucked like a raw piece of wire when she sings through her recitation of nursey rhyms for the umpteenth time. Finding my brain misfiring as it tries to make sense of her insistence that she needs a new envelope from her desk so she can write the word "Cop" on it. Then putting a chocolate bar in the envelope and telling me to put it in the mail. Laughing with her when I put the envelope with the chocolate bar in it in the freezer and say, "There, I mailed it....