Saturday, March 7, 2009

A Visit to Mom's

My mother is 92 years old and does fairly well for her age. I don't know what to call the living arrangement at the building where she lives. She has her own apartment but needs to walk to the dinning room to get her meals. (That's about as far as she can walk). There is no nursing care. My sister Mary stops in at least once a day to check on her, set out her meds, and to do laundry. The rest of us stop by to she her when we can. (I have six sisters and three brothers, some are in town and some not).

On my last stop there, I caught her on a bad day. Her mind is slipping and some days are better than others. After talking awhile I realized this was not a good day to talk. So, I turned on the TV and looked for her favorite show: Bonanza! Of course it wasn't on so I tuned in another show that I knew she watched: Beverly Hill Billies. You know the show: Jed goes out to shoot some supper and up comes a bubbling brew! Anyway, we watched the last few moments of one show before the next one started. When the show started again she commented that the people on the show had not aged at all! Whoa! Was she serious? Oh yes she was because she wanted to know how old those people were now. Anyway, we watched the show and as the next one started, of course Jed went out to shoot some supper and up came a bubbling brew, at that point she asked how many times a day Jed had to go out and do that!

As I walked out to the jeep, all I could do was shake my head. I had to laugh at her comments but it is also sad to see her not understanding.

Ken F

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

First things first...this is Kyle Frericks (Ken and Cindy's son)...I would ask that all of Mildred's Grandkids provide their contact info to Ken for the purposes of potentially scheduling a last hurrah for the family, like we did at the K of C. (Sorry for volunteering you Dad). It seems to me that it has been ages that there has been a concerted effort to get our parents and their children all together for an event and a picture for the sake of posterity. I have no problem taking the initiative if necessary, but I need confirmation that this is actually desired by others than me that we should do this first.