Embedded in Rochester

I’ve been in Rochester about a week now. The flight was good - I am liking Lufthansa quite a bit. I flew into Boston, then took a United commuter flight from there, actually flown by US Airways. And my checked luggage made it! Everything was on time.

I have visited with my folks 3 times; I head over to their apartment around 11 and we stroll to the dining room and get lunch. The place, Woodland Village at Park Ridge, is pretty nice. Their apartment is big and hold most of their furniture from their house. The food is good and all the staff I have met so far are cheerful and patient. Which is good, because many other people in the place are in about the same state as Mom - short term memory shot. She sets something down and then doesn’t recognize it; she asks the same question 3 or 4 times during the course of lunch.

Dad is doing OK, getting around with his walker. He’s been making lists of things to bring over from their house. He does OK with Mom, keeping her reoriented and answering the same question several times in an hour, keeping track of the various doctor appointments, and the items Mom says she needs. I think it is quite a load on him, but he’s not asking for help. They’ve been at Woodland a couple months now and he seems to be settling in. I have retrieved some of the things he needs, and have been starting to do a deep sort and discovery at their house.

A plea - people, clean out your houses! Have integrity - if you haven’t fixed that thing or done that craft in the 10 or 20 or 30 years since you started, pass it on to someone else! If the clothes don’t fit you, pass them on! If you have kept 30 empty glass jars from the applesauce, etc. and have only ever used 2 to save something in, get rid of the other 28! And please, please don’t make your kids clean out your house.

I am cycling through such emotions as I work at the house. I’m clearing out clothes that Mom hasn’t worn in 20 years - lovingly ironed, pinned in place in a hanger that she padded by wrapping with plastic bags. I’m angry that so much effort was spent on clothing, sad because she must have entertained hopes of wearing the nice clothes again, upset that the house chores seemed to keep them both bound to the house - they never really traveled, even after the kids left. The time & effort they spent on that house - all non-work time seemed to be dedicated to raking, mowing, weeding, planting, washing, ironing, cleaning, painting, modifying. And they weren’t big on making it any easier for them, ever. Us kids have escaped that, probably as a reaction against how much work they did, repetitively. I have not lived in a house with a big lawn since 1987. Haven’t ironed more than quarterly in decades. (This may be different in Germany, as the dryer doesn’t seem quite so ‘permanent-press’ friendly). Have a clothes dryer & dishwasher. My brothers similarly make it easier on themselves as they can.

I had thought that there wouldn’t be quite so much to do in my folks house, as in Logan’s Mom’s house last year, when we moved her to a smaller, single story house. Well, I think I was wrong. I have gotten to half of the scary attic place - where there isn’t a floor but just boards on rafters (I hope to not fall through the ceiling of the room below) - but I glimpsed the stash in the finished part of that attic yesterday. Full full full. So I will go over there today and work on getting all that hauled out into the main room, which thankfully is cleared of furniture, as it all went to their apartment. We will be making a Goodwill run soon, with all the clothes that are impossibly too big for Mom. (She’s probably a size 6 now, and had clothes up to a size 16. I found some size 14 pants with notes on them ‘Adjust waistband’. Nope, they go OUT - she puts on something that big and it swims on her & upsets her. The same for lovely tops with fiddly tiny little buttons - out they go.)

If you have kids, when your kids leave the house, make them take all their crap with them or threaten to throw it out yourselves. And then do it. I dunno what to do with some of the stuff I’m finding, it has memories for me but in this moment it’s hard to let it go. Would have been much easier 20 years ago. I’m setting aside things for Greg & John to go through. The folks apartment is spacious, but we cannot clutter it up with stuff. That just confuses Mom and makes it harder for them to get to the stuff they do need.

Dad kept fewer clothes, so his closet is much easier to deal with. I bought him a long-sleeved polo shirt and took it over on Monday as a test, he promptly put it on and it looks great on him. No fiddly little buttons there either, so we will be getting him more of these. And then I think, why couldn’t he think to look for something different to wear as his tremula increased, making it darn near impossible for him to button a shirt? It’s a thing with them, not living in a universe where they can seek out help/better/different outside of themselves and what they’ve always known. It has been hard for them to get used to using the driving service at the Woodlands. When I first visited, Mom said she was out of lipstick. So, Mom, I said, reserve the driver and have the car take you to the store. “I can’t do that.” she said. Well, yes, it’s what it’s there for. “No, I can’t do that - please mister take me to the store.” (the last said in a pitiable, begging tone.) I told her that she needs to use the service because Dad should not be driving. That threw her for a loop.

Dad driving - be afraid, be very afraid. His reaction time to anything is very very slow. He has been taking a driver’s assessment class & tests, the first part was written and the second will be an actual driving experience. I am hoping that that pierces his veil of self-deception. He thinks he’s fine behind the wheel. He’s got a lot of this city in muscle memory. But if anything has changed, or anything happens fast, he won’t react to it fast enough, I fear. But, he has been moving so slowly on everything that he may just give up on getting his car.

Time to breakfast and get over to my day of emotional roller coaster, dusty hard work. Whoo hoo!