Mom takes it as a personal affront that Raley’s has rearranged their stock. She understands about marketing techniques, that Raley’s needs to stay sleek and modern looking, that they are going to change things around so it’s always new and exciting. She gets all that. But, it is easier to blame Raley’s than face her own inability to adapt, to learn new things, to admit her ‘age-related forgetfulness’ has progressed to dementia.
When she forgot her grandchildren’s’ names it was unnerving but, she never thought about losing the ability to solve a problem. That just sideswiped her. She’d been warned that she’d forget names and dates and what she had for breakfast but, she never imagined shed forget how to do things. It frustrates her no end that she can’t find the oatmeal in a store that has misplaced it.
Now she uses the little family-owned market just down the hill from her retirement village. She complains that she doesn’t like it, that it’s too small, that it doesn’t have the brands she likes, that its always out of Mini Pepsis. And, of course she complains that she can’t find anything. But, she refuses to go back to Raley’s, the store that betrayed her.
In Mom’s quest to adapt to a brain that can only process a few things at a time, she’s narrowed her grocery list to about ten items. And still, when I go to visit, I find the cupboards are bare. She tells me she was planning on shopping ‘tomorrow’. I know she’s waiting for me to visit so she can have moral support while deciding which chicken thighs to buy.
Together, we go down the hill and slowly push the cart through the cramped aisles. It would be so much easier for me just to go and do the shopping. I know those ten items by heart, I could be in and out of that store in fifteen minutes. But, there is more to food than just having it. For most of ninety-two years Mom has been the one shopping and cooking and providing the nourishment that goes on the family table.
It’s painfully slow but, for the umpteenth time, I let her discover the raisin bread is on the far aisle and the Splenda is in the middle. As I take deep breaths and calm my impatience, I notice a place in my heart that is growing softer and fuller. I am coming to love my mom more and more as we nourish our fractured mother-daughter relationship through the simple act of leaning on a red-wired cart and discussing the nutritional value of Campbell’s Chunky Chicken vs Progresso’s Clam Chowder.
Lauri Rose is a 66 year writer living in Northern California. You would think, with a background in palliative care, she would have been prepared for her parents’ dementia. She wasn’t, Just like everyone else, she fuddled along and she did the best she could.
