Someone Grumpy And Mean To You?
It was 2016. My dad had passed away the year before. My mom was in the beginning stages of dementia before his death. After he died her mental state deteriorated exponentially. This was understandable, my dad was everything to her. She was sad, confused, and frightened which showed up in her behavior as defensiveness and anger. It was a complete turnaround for my normally kind and sweet mother. She would accuse me and the other people that cared for her of bizarre things. One day she phoned her younger sister who lives in California and told her, “Lisa put me in a hotel room and has her friends from Hawaii staying in my house.”
I’d been getting angry, upset phone calls from my mom for a couple of months already. I felt bad for her caregivers who looked after her everyday. They were patient and kind and seemed called to that work. This was the best personal care home that I could find. It was newly renovated, fresh and clean, with tons of natural light. Only five other seniors lived there. But it was not what my mom was used to. It was not her own home where she spent sixty-three years with my dad.
These phone calls from her came at least twice a day. I would do my best to try to soothe her upset, calm her down , and make her feel better, but I wasn’t very good at it. It’s hard…
