I Don't Think I am Here

This story is a bit out of the norm. What I mean by that is, please do not take offense to it. My Mom is anything but a racist or judgemental. This all has to do with her confusion as to where she is from day to day —even though she is still at her house with her beautiful roses and apple tree.

As I have mentioned, there have been a lot of caregivers in and out of Mom's house since last January. It all comes down to chemistry between the care giver and Mom. In most cases a soft spoken, polite, fairly older care giver seems to be the right mix. She loves someone who can cook, drive and have a little fun on the side.

My brother had a missed call from Mom. Not out of the ordinary. Then another call came in. We all know that once the phone keeps ringing with Mom's number, we need to take the call. The calls can be anything like talking her out of something like wanting to drive, calming her down because she thinks the care giver is stealing her clothes or just reminding her over and over again about an upcoming appointment.

This time she said to my brother, "What is my address?", he replied "XXXX Pasadena Drive", She replied "I don't think I am here". He kind of chuckled and said "Oh, I know you are there Mom". Not convinced she said "Well then, what is my phone number?" and he replied with it. She then said, "Well, if you say I am at home, then what the heck is this black person doing here?". Honestly it was a legitimate question. At the time we did not know the service had sent a new care giver out. This kind of event causes us to decide who is most available to go in person to talk Mom off the panic wagon. I was the best candidate that day.

I rush over to the house and before I can get to the door Mom is outside without her walker asking "Who is this?" and I say "She is your new care giver". Mom then says "Well why didn't one of you tell me?" It wasn't the person's skin color that she had a concern with. It was the communication. Lesson learned. Even though Mom will forget what you tell her ten minutes later, she still wants to be in charge. Goes back to her days at the secret service and courthouse. God love her.