Wisdom Nuggets
While on the Island the neighbors to the north and east each offered me sage words of wisdom. They have both cared for family members with mental illness and/or dementia. When sharing with the northerly neighbor that we’re working toward moving mom’s furniture to her AL apartment, I explained how we were going to handle […]
Direction Book
A week after my father passed away, almost five years ago, it became very clear that, amongst other things, mom’s ability to navigate around our mainland neighborhood had evaporated. We were, mostly chalking it up to stress, but it in fact her navigator was gone. Little did we know how much she depended on him. […]
Photos
I woke to a beautiful frosty and misty morning on the 15th… Looking west from the house to the lower and upper barns. Southeast. Shed and the Marlin bird house my grandfather made for my parents. Alder stands to the southwest. Straight north over frost kissed fields. Shed and the two open storage buildings, […]
March 2018 Island Trip – Day Five
I ran through the usual property closing checklist this morning. I spent time last night advancing the closing routines, and so was feeling pretty relaxed. The neighbor to the east stopped by to check in on the work I’d been doing and thinks a renter will think they’ve ‘scored.’ Her response felt really good. Five […]
March 2018 Island Trip – Day Four
Today was another fun packed day including: Taking two big loads of what is now meaningless stuff to the dump. I found myself feeling angry while loading the truck, and sad as I drove to the dump. I definitely have my father’s penchant for starting and not finishing things. What I don’t have is 7 […]
March 2018 Island Trip – Day Three
Having gone to bed at a much more reasonable 12:30 this morning, I was up spontaneously at 7:30, and by 9:30 had: Taken a shower. Emailed the referred carpenter regarding cabinet doors. Reviewed the layout of mom’s apartment over one of those perfect little mangoes. Taken photos of the perfectly lit and frosty morning. Applied […]
March 2018 Island Trip – Day Two
Having stayed up until almost 2AM, I was slower to start than I would have liked this morning. I went through the next swath of my father’s clothes for donation. It was hard to put his handkerchiefs in the donation bag. I have my grandfather’s never-used handkerchiefs in my sewing room awaiting some flash of […]
March 2018 Island Trip – Day One
I drove from the ferry straight to the local hardware store where there’s a magazine swap setup, and added 50 of my older, but lovely gardening magazines. While there I ran into a friend of my parents from the days of the coffee club. We walked to tea and spent a wonderful 45 minutes catching […]
Honda Keys
Over the weekend my husband found mom’s second set of Honda keys in his desk. He brought them to me, and I took them off the split ring they shared with two mailbox keys, and threw them away. While putting some of mom’s recent year’s files into storage, that ought to keep mice at bay […]
Sunday Chat with Mom
Mom left voicemail late this afternoon, and again at 7PM. In between her calls, the nurse at her community called to let me know flu was in the building, and ask permission to start mom on Tamiflu as a preventative. I asked the nurse if mom’s description of residents being ‘under quarentine’ was accurate. The […]
Dementia Dance - Travels with Mom 