For better or for worse I am now the patriarch of my family. However, this is about my mother. I'm writing this as therapy for myself. When I took my mother and and older daughter to England, Scotland and Europe in 1999 I thought my 10 year old daughter might be difficult traveling with. I was wrong it was my mother who was impossible to travel with.
Then I didn't understand that my mother, then 80, was entering into the beginning stages of senile dementia. I couldn't believe my incredibly mellow mother could be such a problem. For example, she wouldn't get out of the motor home I rented in Munich and drove to Austria, Switzerland and Italy in from Germany. She wouldn't get out of the motor home even once. So, I was traveling with then my 10 year old daughter, my 80 year old impossible mother, and my then 25 year old son and his buddy who had been traveling already on a Eurail pass and youth hostels all over Europe for 2 months already. So Mom and the other 4 of us in a 6 passenger motor home.
Well. We survived Europe but I was angry with my mother for quite a while for making a really great trip much more difficult than it should have been. However, I must admit she was okay in Scotland visiting the birthplace of her father and mother near Glasgow.
Within a year of then I took her out with me for a walk with my dogs. She wanted to stay in the car but when I turned the radio on she started saying while she beat her hand against the side of the car, "I want the words! I want the words!" She was angry that she didn't know the words to the song being played on the radio that she had never heard before as she had always been an excellent singer. I knew something was wrong. Soon, my son who took care of her after he returned from Europe said he didn't want to stay with her anymore because she kept waking her up at 3 and 4 in the morning and telling him someone was coming in through an unknown window(an unreal man through an unreal window).
Soon after that my mother had been alone for about 24 hours when my son dropped in on her to find the stove still on fire from a plastic bowl she had left there. We had told her never to use the stove and only to use the microwave for a long time but she was past listening I guess.
This told us that she must be supervised 24 hours a day. So my son and wife got busy as I was horrified at the choices available and because I had promised my father that Mom would never be put in an old folks home(even though his mother died in one).
I couldn't afford in home care for my mother at that time so I had no choice but to put her in an Alzheimers and Senile dementia facility. Luckily, I found one that allowed her mobility as many homes lock their patients up in their rooms. However, my mother had mobility throughout the facility on foot and then later in a wheelchair. I think this is why she lasted 7 years there. Most other (captive) facilities people don't last very long because for them it is like being in jail.
However, this has never been acceptable to me. As a patriarch of my family even then I had to make the best decision for the living (triage) (IN other words I had to make a decision as if my mother was dead). This has never been acceptable to me.
At first whenever I left the facility I cried and had man psychological problems from leaving my mother with strangers. I felt I had betrayed her and my father who passed away in 1985. Since they were always very good to me and because we were always very close I felt in some ways like I was going insane over this.
However, from the point of view of patriarch and General of my family I could make no other choice. I had to take care of those still sane, of those who still had a future. My mother's life of freedom was over except within this facility.
At first I visited once a week and found I couldn't maintain good emotional stability at home. I finally came to the point of visiting every 2 weeks and finally after the first year once a month. When she didn't know me anymore I found this impossible to live with (during the last 2 years) so I went even less. The first 5 years I took her to a movie or a walk at least once a month or over to my home nearby.
Even though I still can't live with what I had to do, still I'm a man and many times in life one has no choice but to do things one cannot live with to keep oneself and ones family alive. Look at what men and women do in wars. Look at what all of us have to do to keep ourselves and our families alive and well. Life is sacrifice. Though I cannot live with what I had to do, still I would have to make the same one again if faced with it. If you can create a better outcome for friends, relatives or yourself then do it. This was the only choice I and my family could live with!
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