Really???

I know its wrong to giggle at someone else's discomfort, but sometimes I just can't help myself.  The other night after dinner, we went by to check on mom.  I'm talking me and my partner here.  He is always willing to go--I just try not to ask him very often.  Seeing the effects of Alzheimer's tends to make him want to run screaming and punch the code to get out of there.  I definitely get that-- but sometimes going with him just makes it so much easier.  He makes me laugh or maybe it's the shared load.  Dunno.  All I know is sometimes it just helps.

While we were there, a lady blew his ever loving mind.  She seemed pretty normal.  Walked up, started chatting, and all was good.  He was chatting her up back, until she started telling him "I have to go home now and help momma cook" and "Merry Christmas".  Oh, man...the look on his face was priceless.  The only reason its at all funny to me is because I know exactly how that feels.  You think for a nano second you are on solid ground, only to feel the rug suddenly ripped right out from under you.  Then you start looking around wondering "OK...who here is normal and who's not...who's visiting and who is a resident?"  Watching him try to make sense of what she was saying just made me snicker harder.  Finally I told him under my breath "Just go with it ", and he relaxed.  Before we left, we wished her a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and she seemed delighted.

One lady I visited with had a bunch of The Plaza's linen dinner napkins shoved into the waistband of her pants, clutching the top part in her hand.  I asked her about them and she tried to tell me.  For the life of me, I still don't know what that was about, but because she told me "You look like you would know about these", I took the one she gave me and just held onto it.  It seemed to make both of us feel better and that's all that really matters, isn't it?

If I've learned anything about this disease it's that it's just loads more fun to roll with it than to try to fight the current.  Honestly, to hear me talk when I'm over there visiting, I sound like a resident.  I tell mom everything under the shining sun I can think of that's present day and just pretend she gets it.  But when I'm visiting with some of the others and I am clueless as to what they are saying, I just make stuff up.  My goal is usually to see if I can make them laugh.  If I do, I feel like a million bucks.


I will say its so much easier when the funny stuff happens to someone else's mother.  There's just no way in this world its one bit funny when its my mother.  Someday it may be, but not today.  No sirree.