In 2008, 2009 & 2012, she knew something was wrong
All I knew was she was my little mommy. Also, the kindness of strangers
Originally posted May 2012, we’d just begun visiting neurologists, getting her cognitive testing, and started on medications for mild cognitive impairment.
Four years prior, in 2008, she’d suspected memory loss and on her own, went for MRIs, EEGs, Epilepsy testing and sleep studies. At that time, her MME score was 26/30, a range considered “no cognitive impairment,” and the MRIs showed minor chronic microvascular ischemic changes. Translation: conditions that affect the small blood vessels in the brain, including stroke and dementia.
In 2009, she’d be diagnosed with intracranial atheromatous disease, a buildup of plaques that is linked to an increased risk of dementia.
The doctors in 2008 had disregarded her concerns. They did nothing again in 2009, but she knew. She knew something was coming, she just didn’t know what it was. Four years after she first felt something was off, she’d begin treatment.
Click the little heart ❤️ to let me know you’re there.
My mother was born on Friday the 13th, except it was a Thursday. Don’t bother to look it up – she’ll tell you the truth in the same breath she tells you the lie.
She’ll also tell you exactly how much she paid for the blouse she’s wearing ($7.00), how much it cost originally ($63.00), how she finagled the use of coupons, senior citizen’s discount and a well-timed sale to pull that coup off (this part, usually accompanied by a giggle), and how long she has had it (on average, 22 years – she takes very good care of her clothes). Just ask. Or don’t. She’ll tell you either way.
After my father died, she moved out of the house and into a condo bringing with her no less than 11 pairs of white Keds (for gardening), 8 bathrobes (spring, summer, winter, a little sexy, Daddy’s heavy robe, after bath, travel, Daddy’s light robe), and enough earrings to require a special structure to be mounted on the wall. The three jewelry boxes were already overflowing with enough colored beads and trinkets to buy Manhattan, and possibly even Staten Island (at the original price, adjusted, of course, for inflation, and discounted, of course, because, well…really? Staten Island?).
When I was a kid, her side of their closet held just two pair of washable polyester pants, three jackets, three or four blouses and a handful of scarves. Everything was red, white, or blue, which made it easy to mix and match, but also gave the impression that she was crazy patriotic. She was, but in a I’ve-read-the-United-States-Constitution way, not in a traditional my-country-right-or-wrong-book-burning-flag-waving, red, white and blue kind of way.
When she was a kid the Great Depression has just hit. It didn’t let up until she was almost a teen. She’s stuck it out though the Depression, two bouts of breast cancer, two marriages, forty-three years with my father, and twenty years of sleepless nights worrying about her drunken, drug-addicted daughter. She kept a rolodex card with all my vitals: hair color, eye color, tattoos, and scars, in case she was called to claim my body from the morgue.
She’s entitled to have 11 pairs of sneakers, 8 bathrobes, two walk-in closets, an entire wall full of jewelry, and all of the anything she wants.
This is going to be all about her. My little mommy. That’s her before I even had the words ⬇️
Click the little heart ❤️ then leave me a comment, and tell me you love me.
Relying on the kindness of strangers, I’m rarely disappointed. Mom lost one of her stuffies, a sloth. I posted on a local Facebook group, hoping it would turn up. This morning, a giant replacement was delivered, a gift from someone from my local Buy Nothing group,
There’s a new ‘stack in town, life before caregiving, before recovery, life in the dark and on the edge. I needed to do all of this to become who I am today.
My beloved mother died a year ago, just two weeks shy of her 100th birthday. The first anniversary of her death was last week. I read your column as I sat with her daily during the last two months of her life. It was a lifeline that made me laugh, cry and get mad right along with you. I'm truly, deeply grateful.
Keep on keeping on.
So beautifully written. You inspire with such love and humor.