Josephine

Josephine was 85 but I quit counting at her 78th birthday.
"Happy Birthday Mom" I had greeted. "Whose birthday is it?" she asked. I reminded her that it was her birthday. "No it isn't. I would know. Now, who are you?" That was when I quit counting. It was a surprise that it was 7 years since that time. A foreverness exists in the lives of those dealing with Dementia/Alzheimers. There were times when it felt like I had always been trying to agree with ridiculous thoughts, following crazy conversations, being mistaken for her mother or no one she had ever met. Truly, that is one of the hazards of the caregiving position. You forget the mother, the grandmother, the women she was.
I especially remember the Lewey Bodies part of it all. Small little people she would try to talk sense into or yell at depending on what they were doing. Originally, we liked to believe that she was "seeing" young versions of ourselves or our children. But, it is a symptom of Dementia...nothing remininiscent in that. Mom had developed Leukemia and we were doing a program to kill it and the pain. She was in the hospital. We couldn't stand the thought of her being tied or belted down so we took turns with round the clock supervision. What a great nursing staff we worked with.
That night, she was telling them to get off the ceiling. They were bothering either George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. She told them over and over to get down. I said, let them learn their lesson the hard way. Let's just lie here and ignore them. She answered, "They could fall down and die." I said I didn't think a president would let that happen. "Well, they want me to die you know. But I don't want to go alone." I replied, Dad is there, your mom and dad and brothers. It could be good, I suggested. She would have none of it. I said, "Why don't you take Evelyn with you?" She paused, thought about it then used my name in the first time in so long, that I was taken aback. "Patty, I should take you with me. You won't get in otherwise I'm afraid."
Dementia has a mean core. She did many mean and hurtful things before we were aware of what it was. She said viciously ugly things. It was all part of the damn disease. It stole my mother and left her hurting, dying slowly and oh, so hard. I laughed that night. My brother Tom reminded me of that story as we stood in her bedroom the night before she finally fought her way out of this world. We laughed.
And that is how I will remember her. Laughing when it was hard, crazy and impossible. Laughing when her mother was gone, when she went to work at 14, when her second child was born with major physical handicapps, when Dad broke his back, when baby after baby showed up in her Catholic home, when all the ills and troubles of life threatened to win...she prayed, laughed, and loved her man. Till the disease took her. It had her prisoner for 7 years. Now, she is laughing at it. Na na boo boo Dementia.