Note: My mother wrote this on January 31, 2000
My Mom
My mother, Grace Brown, was born February 10, 1912. She attended high school at Girls Commercial in Brooklyn, NY. She continued her art education at Pratt Institute, also in Brooklyn. During the 30's and 40's, she designed costume jewelry and did some fashion illustration. She married in her late teens and had two children. The first (me) when she was 31 and my brother when she was 38, that was considered late in life for those days.
Her husband, my father died in 1970, she never remarried. At 48 she returned to work taking classes at the telephone company to learn to operate a switchboard. She retired at 65.
My mom will be 88 years old in two weeks. At the age of 70, she entered Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn. During her second semester, she had her first heart attack while changing classes on campus. She never returned to school; and like many of our elderly, that first heart attack was the first step in a continuing downward spiral. Since then, she has had several strokes, seizures and gall bladder attacks. She also has Parkinson's disease and diabetes. She is blind in her right eye and has macular degeneration in her left eye. Until five years ago she was able to move about her apartment, read a minimum of three large print books and paint landscapes and flowers. The last stroke rendered her right side unusable. She is bed-bound and has become a chronic bleeder. She has to go for transfusions every few weeks.
Now I will back up four years. My mom, my son and myself live in a one bedroom apartment. The living room doubles as a hospital room for my mom's bed and commode. Her best friend died about three years ago. They spoke on the phone literally morning, noon, and night. She had no one to talk with or share concerns with, no one outside the family that needed her or cared about her one way or the other. Of course there was always me: "Hi Mom, gotta run I'm late." My son: "Hi grandma, bye grandma." She wanted to paint, but could not transmit what was in her mind to the canvas. She wanted to read, but could not for more than fifteen minutes. Depression and despair. What could I do, not enough. Hire a companion, a trip to a movie cost more than I could handle.
Enter a fellow student, friend and neighbor of fifty years. "Why don't you send her to the day center?"
"What day center?"
"Haven't you seen the little red buses around the neighborhood?"
I had never noticed the buses, but it didn't take me long to find out about them as well as the Center (Park Slope Geriatric Day Center, Brooklyn, NY).
Within two weeks my mom was attending three days a week. She is picked up in the morning and brought safely home in the afternoon.
The Center is everything to her. She starts preparing Sunday: nails, hair, what to wear. She has made friends and she loves the staff. She looks forward to the monthly birthday parties.
She has made friends that call her if she is out a day. There is also telephone reassurance calls made by staff. With help, she is able to paint once again. She joins in with exercises even though she is in a wheelchair. Thursday is her favorite day, because of the group sing-a-longs. She has a well balanced hot meal each day that she eats, at home she never wanted to eat.
My mother's health remains frail but stable, however since the first week this month she is suddenly started mentally slipping away. She used to be forgetful and repetitive, but now she doesn't know where she lives or that she is at home in her own bed. At times she does not recognize me or my son. She doesn't remember how to takes her pills or how to eat cereal without prompting. This is a very frightening experience seemingly for me more than her. She will not be able to return to The Center.
All is not lost; when the weather gets better, I will take her to The Family Resource and Adult Day Center.
It is especially designed and staffed for people with Alzheimer's and dementia. It will be there that she will make new friends, and have new experiences in an environment that will lovingly welcome her, and I will regain some peace of mind.
Note: My grandmother suffered another
stroke and
died a few months after this was written.