I took both kids to see Mam today. I found her sitting in her wheelchair in the hallway. That’s where I usually found her when I visit. This time, I found her crying and sobbing. This was the first time I actually saw her crying after she moved here.
I asked her what’s going wrong. She never could explain. In front of her, stood an old lady. At first, I thought she was a nice old lady. She was trying to ask Mam why Mam cried. I explained to the old lady that Mam was sometimes crying if she was left alone doing nothing. Old lady kept trying to talk to her. I explained that Mam no longer spoke English. Old lady did not want to move.
I finally started motioning to the old lady that I needed to wheel Mam off to the TV room. Old lady still stood in front of Mam, so I could not move Mam. Mam was still sobbing. Kent was running around in the hallway, unsupervised. Ananda was no where to be seen. I really needed to move Mam.
Finally, I said to the old lady, could you move away please? Then the old lady stepped aside.
I wheeled Mam to the TV room, called the kids to come over. Ananda brought her diary and she sat down at the table and immediately immersed herself in writing something in her diary. She’s completely oblivious of her surrounding. Kent played around, climbed around, ran around, laughing out loud. Mam immediately got distracted of this little somebody that had lots of energy. She stopped crying.
At some point, Kent got a little out of hand with his climbing the couches, tables and chairs. So I sternly scolded him to climb down and sit down next to me. He refused. I gave him a count of five and he started crying. Interestingly, Mam started crying too.
Uh, oh, I guess disciplining Kent did not work well in front of Mam. So I let Kent be. Mam stopped crying as soon as Kent started laughing again. She even attempted to play with Kent, making funny noises and smiling at him. I guess for this, I am kind of glad to bring Kent along.
When it was time to go, I left Mam in the TV room. I went to Mam’s room to check on her things. I noticed Mam ran out of pants. There was a pile of dirty clothes sitting in the hamper that I had bought for her. This did not sound right. I went to see the nurse. The nurse explained, usually family members bought a hamper if they wanted to do their own laundry. The staff was probably confused seeing the hamper there. I told the nurse, I bought the hamper because someone told me I needed to. She said: oh, no. So she took the dirty clothes to the laundry and suggested I bring home the hamper. Hopefully, this fixes the laundry issue.
When I was talking to the nurse about this laundry business, the old lady that was standing in front of Mam earlier came to me and asked me accusingly: “Have you done anything in your life?”. I told her: “I have done many things in my life.” In the corner of my eye, I saw the nurses smirked. The old lady continued: “My children would not have put me up like this.” Not sure if I understand that comment. I just stared at her. I don’t think this old lady who seemed nice is actually nice.
