It was only two months ago that I drove by Foundation Park after meeting a friend at Colbert Hills for a drink. Mom had been talking about feeling lonely and wanting to check out retirement communities again. Se we made an appointment to visit.
I loved it right away. The staff was so friendly, the facilities beautiful, the family style patient centered approach perfect. A little dog greeted us at the door. They said Mom could take her piano. There appeared to be potential friends there, a swat resident in the kitchen doing dishes. Mom seemed to love it too.
Then she set her mind against it. Hard. She was convinced the rooms were too small. She wanted to look at all the options. She stopped listening to me and I stopped listening to her. Meanwhile, she got more afraid at home, wobblier on her feet, less able to retain and process information. She started making random calls with her phone.
I did make some calls to other places which just convinced me more that this was the right decision. Slowly, she came around. In just 6 weeks time, she wanted to from hard no to “I think I’ll love being pampered here.”
The entire process of transitioning to assisted living has gone smoothly but was still incredibly stressful. first it was deciding what furniture to take, what would fit in the room. Then it was filing the insurance claim to see if it was even financially feasible. Calls and forms and visits to the doctor for assessments, writing out mom’s limitations. The stress took its toll and she began slipping even more, lost the ability to text.
The came the process of sorting out all of her belongings, seeing what I wanted to keep and what the kids and grandkids wanted. I reconnected with Glenn to see what he wanted. It was so hard to see all the memories and know we couldn’t keep it all. Even though she had downsized when she moved to Manhattan 7 years ago, there was so much junk mixed in the precious memories and keepsakes, antiques that had been on the family for generations, photos galore, all of Lee’s belongings, his momentous and photos. It was dainting. The house became a shambles.
The moving day went fairly smoothly. The piano went first the day before. The furniture we had chosen fit nicely in the room. Settling I was hard for her. She couldn’t see and couldn’t remember where things were. Her stress made her demanding of all of us. We all did the best we could with the staff reassuring us.
She’s been there two weeks now. She continues to demand but it’s because she can’t remember what or who she’s asked until we made a list. She can find things now. She has adjusted her schedule some but also insisted on some things which is fine.
It’s not perfect. Most of the residents are below her in functioning so she’s much safer and well taken care of, she says she’s still lonely. She’s eating better so she has more energy which makes her bored. Her vision is really going so it’s hard to enjoy the things she did before like words with friends. She is making friends despite the challenges.
We go see her daily. The estate sale happens soon so she’s having to accept that we can’t run to the house to grab things she thinks of anymore. Going to the house is so hard. It’s a total wreck. It would devastate her and I have to tell her no, she can’t make another run there. I had to make so many hard decisions about what to keep and what to toss. It’s hard for me not to grab more and more when I’m there.
The kids came up and each were able to take quite a few things that meant something to them. I gathered a ton of precious things for Glenn. He said that meant so much to him. We grabbed the genealogy stories and the old photo albums. We have yet to go through all her old paperwork and her computer.
dianegclark 