Category Archives: Aging & dementia

My mother writes her own obit

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It could be a little quiet here at iLind.net over the next couple of days. “Could” is the operative word, because I still don’t know what we’ll be facing and how I’ll be coping. If this page isn’t updated for several days, please send along good thoughts.

Here’s the story.

Meda and I cut our Maui weekend short and returned to Honolulu yesterday just hours before a planned early birthday party was to begin. The steaks were in the refrigerator, the cake (“Happy Birthday, Meda” in red letters) on the kitchen counter, when we got word my mother’s condition had taken a dramatic turn for the worse.

My mom fell several days ago when she slid off the side of her bed while returning from the bathroom. It left her with a skinned forearm and a sore back. More than sore. Very painful, probably a broken rib, they say.

The upshot is that it’s a race against time to reach a proper balance of pain medications so that the pain is under control but she’s not left “out of this world”.

My sister, Bonnie, has been at ground zero. She has described the situation in heart-rending detail on her Going on Alone blog.

My mom, who has consistently stated to all who would listen, “I am not dying.” announced yesterday, “I am dying. I cannot do anything.” Pointing to her head she added, “There is nothing there.”

No hearing? No memories? Nothing what?

“Call the doctor. Tell him I cannot do anything. Ask him what to do.”
Had already done that. Doing all we can. Now it is a matter of willingness. Willingness to fight. Willingness to die.

Bonnie said almost all there is to say. I defer to her.

We went directly to the house in Kahala from the airport last night.

Soon after our arrival, Bonnie had my mom sitting up in bed, trying to get her to swallow the next pill in the pain-control arsenal. My mother looked up.

“I’m dead,” she declared.

“No,” Bonnie replied. “You can’t be dead. We’re all here with you.”

But dying had clearly been on my mother’s mind before this latest setback. She recently wrote and then rewrote her own obituary, which we found in a stack of papers on a small folding table that sits in front of her regular chair in the living room.

Born Honolulu. Graduate, Kamehameha School for Girls (before co-ed) and UH Manoa. Former instructor in Food Science, UH Manoa. Also former Secretary, Hawaiian Historical Society.

And so on.

With the obit, her personal instructions on what to do when she dies (“don’t make a big fuss”).

I refer to this area, including her regular chair and its surroundings, as her cockpit. She sits down, mentally straps in, and until just a few days ago, would go to work. The day’s incoming mail is stacked in one spot. Bills to be paid are in another. Piles of ongoing genealogical research notes or references are strewn across another small end table on the right side of the chair. Stacks tend to get out of control, spilling in random directions. Newspapers are shoved down on the floor to the left as they are read. Christmas cards still being savored, notes of things to do, bills with “paid” and the date in my mother’s handwriting, the latest I saw dated January 13. A lauhala basket for papers destined for the trash.

She had one previous episode several months ago when a similar issue of pain management brought her down, but she was able to bounce back. This time, we just don’t know if that rebound is going to occur. As Bonnie says, much of this depends on her decision.

A willingness to fight, and live. Or a willingness to die.

Tough choices just four months short of her 99th birthday.

My mother’s New Year visit to Kaaawa

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We spent New Year’s Day at home. After a gray, damp morning walk, we prepared for my mother’s arrival. It was a planned hand-off to free my sister, Bonnie, to spend the day with friends in Punaluu.

I admit we were worried. My mother turns 99 in May. She gets around her house in Kahala with a walker, which is an improvement over a few months ago. The house is small, but she tires easily as she moves from her favorite chair to the dining table, then back to her bedroom. Getting from Kahala to Straub Hospital is now a long trip for her, and I thought perhaps she had made her last trip out to see our house. But I was wrong. Given the choice of having us drive into town to stay with her for the day, and driving out to Kaaawa, she chose the drive.

We knew getting into our house wasn’t going to be easy, especially since she has trouble with stairs. When they arrived, we explained the choices. My mom is very hard of hearing, so getting a message like this across took a lot of slow talking and repeating, a little acting out. The choices were simple. Take the concrete walk which involves going down and then back up a few stairs before reaching the stairs up to the front door. The option–maneuver across the front lawn, which was wet, possibly slippery, and a bit muddy after the morning of rain, then get up the stairs to the front door. Fewer stairs on this path, but just as many obstacles.

She surprised me. With a little assistance, she made good time across the lawn. Then, with continued assistance, she slowly made it up the stairs, one at a time, pausing briefly to recover at each level, a few quick breaths, then challenging another step. Repeat. And then we were in the house!

Another little shuffle as Meda retrieved the walker, attempted to clean the mud off the wheels, and then gathered my mother’s supplies while she propelled her walker towards a chair on the other side of our living room.

Her stuff went with her. There was a colorful paper shopping bag with a ribbon, containing presents for us that she had put in a “safe place” and then couldn’t find in time for Christmas delivery. A book about varieties of grapes and wines. A large paperback book, “The Illustrated Cat,” with classic cat drawings, photos, and paintings, a sure hit in this feline-friendly household. A small plastic container with some of Bonnie’s freshly baked cookies. A second wicker bag had the morning’s newspaper, her reading glasses, a baggie with medicines, each carefully labelled with instructions for us.

After getting settled, she gave the house a careful inspection. We know that she’s sure to find the dust and cat hair missed in our quick pre-arrival sweeping, the cobwebs in hidden corners, and other signs of our sometimes half-hearted attempts at cleaning. Today she didn’t say anything. Relief on our side. She took in the paintings on the far wall. The kitchen, looking pretty neat for a change. Then she picked up her newspaper and disappeared into it for a while.

That gave Ms. Kili an opening. She was the first cat to come out of hiding. Whenever someone else comes to visit, the cats disappear. But today, Kili soon strolled back into the living room, looked around, and went straight to my mother’s chair. Her first approach was at ground level, sniffing the bags at my mother’s feet, checking out the walker. Then she moved up onto the little coffee table in front of the chair. The next move with a more direct greeting. I managed to find a camera in time to capture the moment.

(click on either photo to see a larger version)

Mother

Mother

Within an hour or so, after finishing the newspaper and a cup of peach tea, my mother decided it was time for a nap. We escorted her down the hall to our bedroom. There had been three cats sleeping on the bed, but only Romeo stayed put as she lay down and got comfortable.

Perhaps she thought I had shooed them off. She looked at Romeo, then looked up at me.

“I don’t mind the cats,” she said. Then she pulled up the comforter, created a warm cocoon, and was asleep.

Another Thanksgiving in Kahala (photos)

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It was a treat to arrive at our family’s home in old Kahala yesterday and find my mother already in her regular chair in the living room, dressed in a nice Thanksgiving-colored shirt, and fully alert. She’s half-way through the year towards her 99th birthday, and has had some ups and downs. This was definitely an “up”.

My sister, Bonnie, prepared a beautiful meal, complete with the traditional turkey & bread stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans, a plate of cranberries and olives, and a nice spinach salad. Meda and I came armed with champagne, a huge Costco pumpkin pie, and a bunch of dinner rolls. Oh, and my camera.

It was a feast. And my mother joined in, eating more than I’ve seen her consume in months, and enjoying every bit of it. She even imbibed a bit, as evidenced in the middle photo below.

Here are a few photos. As usual, just click to see a larger version.

2013

2013

2013

We ate early, allowing us to hit the road a little after 6 p.m. in order to get home and deal with Silverman and Duke, the special needs diabetic cats.

Earlier in the day, we briefed our friend and favorite cat sitter on the felines current needs, and he’ll take over cat care when we fly out tonight for a week in Auckland, New Zealand.

I’ll be blogging during the trip, although I could have trouble keeping on a schedule. We’ll see.

Two years is a long goodbye

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I was up early this morning, checked my calendar, and realized it is the second anniversary of my dad’s death.

I took a few minutes to look back at what I wrote at the time. Two entries strike me as capturing the feelings I had at the time.

I wrote about what happened after getting the call from the nursing home that I should get there ASAP, and I was stuck in Kaaawa without the car and, worse, I missed the bus.

On Friday morning, when my father’s nursing home called and advised that we come as soon as possible, I was at home in Kaaawa without a car. After dressing and walking quickly down to the bus stop on Kamehameha Highway near the post office, I was a minute too late. The 11:01 a.m. bus slid through Kaaawa and headed off towards Kaneohe while I was still a block away. It was a short block, but at that moment it seemed like the longest block in the world.

I was frantic. For nearly two years, we’ve known he could die at any time, but he didn’t. Then, when the day actually arrives, I wasn’t ready, and I wanted to kick myself for being caught unprepared.

Then, after he passed away, there was a return to pick up the things he had at the end.

My sister and I returned to my father’s nursing home later in the day of his death. Their staff had already taken down the photos of each of our cats that had been on the bulletin board, and put magazines and books, stacked up over the past two years, into a box on the floor under the window. We stuffed most of his clothes into clean garbage bags, and decided to donate them to the facility, where they will be reused by other men. His shoes, some with lots more wear in them, would go to Goodwill.

We carried out a small chest of drawers Bonnie had put together for him, and his walker, two photographs taken on May Day 2009, and just a few odds and ends. The rest stayed behind as we walked, for the last time, back down the hall to the nursing station, past the common room that his mind often transformed into the 1940’s Commercial Club on Bethel Street, and to the elevator, down to the small lobby, and into the cramped parking lot.

There just wasn’t much left.

In any case, that was then.

For the record, in the two years that have passed, I think my dad only appeared in two of my dreams. Both times he was angry. I’m not sure why my dream would construct him that way. Someday, perhaps, it will become clear to me.