Changes

Near the end of August, my mom broke her hip. The exact details of how it happened are unclear as noone was there except my mom and her memories are blurry to say the least. The most likely scenario is that her 9 month old ram lamb ,whom she had bottle fed for many months, pushed his way into the house and somehow knocked her down against a table. He had already done this a number of times and so it seems likely that he was involved somehow. She apparently managed to get herself to a phone and call 911 after some period of time.

Hip surgery went well and she had pins and a plate put in to stabilize her hip. so the hip is healing well, but her brain and memory took a big blow. Not that she physically hit her head, but that somehow the trauma of the injury and surgery left her brain out in left field. She went from being able to hold a conversation, with some problems with memory and reasoning, to now being totally unaware of her surroundings. She speaks of shopping and fairs and visits with the President and the Archbishop of Canterbury, but she doesn't or can't acknowledge that she is in a Rehab hospital/nursing home undergoing Physical therapy.

I've had some conversations with my sisters about these changes, and the thing that keeps occurring to me is that Mom doesn't want to be in a nursing home and somehow her brain is letting her believe that she's not. Maybe it really is a blessing although its hard to see it this way at times. Mom wouldn't have ever wanted to live this way, this much I know. She keeps saying how she's in her kitchen, with her dog, on her farm, so everything is ok. And yet, she knows she's confused at times and will sometimes say that her brain feels fuzzy.

Lemon meringue pie

You never knew what would come out of a Freighoffer's animal bag. Sometimes it was just various kinds of bread; rye,white, wheat and even party rye which was little tiny pieces of rye bread. Sometimes there were cakes and danish or cookies which were often broken and squooshed from being thrown into the bag. But the most unique item of all was the lemon meringue pie. Sometimes it was a bit broken too, but if we could manage to get it out of the bag in one piece, we would have a feast. The crust was actually quite soggy from being "day old" and the meringue had lots of little beads on it, like the meringue was sweating. The lemon filling had a special buzz to it which added to the zesty flavor of the meringue. We dug into the pie like it was a meal fit for a king.

At the farm's peak, we would get bakery animal bags every few weeks and fill up the back of my fathers truck with them, 10 or 15 bags.The contents of the bag were either put into our freezer or fed to the various goats, sheep, chickens and ducks that were on the farm.

Much later on, I discovered that lemon meringue pie wasn't supposed to have those special flavors. Maybe we were getting buzzed off the pie, I'm not sure, or maybe it was a sugar high, but I'm certain that all of us kids have that memory of the fizzy lemon meringue pies.

The long good-bye

I went home for a visit a week or so ago. Home ? It's not my home anymore. Its just the place I grew up, so many long, hard days ago. I want it to be different, but it not going to change for the better now.
My mom has Alzheimer's disease. Its such a hard pill to swallow. We've been calling it dementia for a few years now, the result of a fall on the ice. She seemed like she was getting better, stronger for a while after rehab. , but things never really came back to normal. Now it's Alzheimer's. Its called the long good-bye for a good reason. Pieces of your childhood slowly disappear , as though they never happened at all. Mom's childhood memories seem to be there and she clings to them for proof that she doesn't have "that thing". That thing that she can't remember what its called, but she doesnt have it. She tells me over and over. That's the recurring theme of my visit with her. Over and over, the same stories with the same inflection, the same surprise when I say that I've heard them already.
I know in my head that she she has Alzheimer's, but some part of me doesnt want to accept it. My sisters and I keep getting hurt by the stories she tells. Her brain has made up new stories as though they were the truth and now these are told over and over. We try to rationalize with her, to show her how the stories can't be true, but somehow that information does not enter her brain. We get mad and indignant and say "how dare she say that" and "that's just not true", but we are still learning that its Alzheimer's speaking and not our mother.