My brother and I just spent our very first family Christmas together, alone, without our parents. It’s something I wasn’t prepared for. With mom in memory care and Dad in the hospital it was just us and our four children. I made the kids wait until my husband woke up on Sunday morning before we could open presents. It just felt too weird not to have another adult there. Like some sort of bizarre plot twist in a time travel movie.
Overall we had a good time. We did go visit my parents and the kids opened gifts from them that Grandpa paid for but never saw. Dave ordered them and I wrapped them and the kids gleefully tore into them, unaware and unconcerned of what emotional price I was paying. We went to Babe’s chicken one night and ordered pizza the next. No traditional Christmas dinner was planned nor cooked. No cookies were baked and no pies were devoured. My nephew watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas four times. I’ve had “wa hoo wa hoo wa hoo wa hoo something something Christmas day” stuck in my head ever since.
The two girl cousins had a great time until there was a misunderstanding over a stuffed unicorn and both girls were in tears and tired of each other. I was done drinking and ready for bed before my brother was, which we were probably both disappointed by but there’s only so much I can handle before I need to escape. I’m still recovering.
Today is Christmas Eve. Tony and Baby Girl and I went to see my mom and took her gifts for Christmas. Her room at the memory care center is always fairly destroyed when I arrive. She spends her time moving her possessions around, packing them up and stuffing them in bags and cabinets. She is clearly confused by her surroundings at the best of times. I tried to decorate her apartment with all the things she loves best: pictures of her and Dad, pictures of me and David and all her grandchildren, things my dad made for her and things that belonged to her mother. My grandmother loved yellow roses, yellow roses were all over her house, especially on these fancy plates. There are big plates and small plates, gold rimmed plates and plates that should be hung up and plates that sit on fancy holders. There are cups and saucers, too. They’re all beautiful and they’re all extremely old. And precious to my mom. Oddly, I feel absolutely no nostalgia for these things except for the fact that I know my mom loves them.
Today I found a broken saucer. Did she drop it? It’s split clean in half. She had shoved it back in a cabinet and I found it there and sadly pulled it out. Oh no! I cried to Tony, look! I was devastated. Mom couldn’t tell me how it happened. She told me not to worry about it, she seemed very unconcerned. And as she was sitting there WITH BABY GIRL NEXT TO HER, she asked where is Baby Girl? I looked at Tony and he looked at me and neither of us said anything at all. She opened one of her gifts, a shirt, from me and told me she loved it. Later, when we were getting ready to go she said “oh I don’t need that thing.” Referring to the same shirt.
We took her to Whataburger for lunch. She was overjoyed and kept repeating “this is just incredible” and “you are so sweet to do this for me.” But at the same time she was very worried about being in the truck and absolutely unsure what was going on at any time. When I took her into the restroom I noticed that once again there was a wet spot on the back of her pants. She also told me that the place smelled but I am pretty sure it’s just that she gets STUFF under her fingernails. STUFF that I don’t want to spell out. Because she can’t remember to use toilet paper and gets confused in the bathroom. THIS is why she’s in memory care, this more than anything else. It just guts me to realize that it will still happen, even with the best of care. You can’t tell her, either. She’d be extremely embarrassed and she wouldn’t let you help her wash her hands. So there’s no point but to just endure the outing and get her back to her apartment as soon as possible and hope that someone there notices and does something about it.
Like the saucer, I am broken. I can’t enjoy this season. I am sad and angry and not yet ready to relax about it all. I wish my Dad was at home, I am not sure if that would have made any difference but it would have been nice to have him with us at our Christmas celebration. The thing that tears me up most, about the broken saucer, is that Mom wasn’t concerned about it. What was once precious to her has been forgotten.
Sometime, in the not so distant future, my brother and I and our children will all be just like that broken saucer.
