My mom isn’t yelling much. This is a new development. It wasn’t long ago that she would howl when I would walk into her room. “Shhhhh. It’s OK. Shhhhh. I’m here. Shhhhh.”  She’d turn her head, look at me with this terribly anguished, almost twisted face, and yell. “Shhhhhhh. I love you. Shhhhhhhh.” I would hug her. She would yell I would hold her hand. She would yell. “Shhhhhhhh. Los pollitos dicen, pio, pio, pio, cuando tienen hambre cuando tienen frio.”

Shit, why can’t I remember the rest of the song?!

“Shhhhhhhhh. Please, no grites. No grites. I’m here. I love you. No grites, por favor.”

“Los pollitos” was a song my mom used to sing to me as a little girl. I try to sing it to her, but, somedays, it just made the yelling worse.

Did she know the song? Was she telling me, “I REMEMBER!!! I AM YOUR MOTHER!!!”

Or, was my singing voice truly that offensive to her sensitive ears?

Eventually, her yelling would subside, and I would sit on the arm of her big, beige pleather sofa and massage the top of her head.

We are living in the Dark Ages when it comes to dementia and dementia care.

This disease is unpredictable and change can happen overnight. Now, when I walk into her room, she’s mostly quiet. Even as I move the sliding glass door along its warped track and the thing grinds, she doesn’t yell. She sometimes doesn’t even look up.

There’s nothing.

She doesn’t know who I am.

My morning with mom. A composite:

I walk over to the small black clock radio, turn on the classical music station, and hide the radio in a cupboard, so the other residents don’t pocket it when they wander in and out of the room. I walk back to my mom and sit on the arm of her chair.

I gently rub her head.

Though her room is quiet, but it doesn’t stay that way. Margie, her roommate starts talking about the kids in the yard (the residents who are walking back and forth); Jim knocks on the glass door and waves. “Hi, Jon,” I say with a smile (I wish I could be as happy as Jon; Jon’s wife once told me that he’s always been so sweet and the disease has made him even more so). Alice slowly creeps into the room. She’s carrying a man’s white sneaker in her hand. “Hi, Alice.” Alice slowly stands no more than a few inches from my face. I think she has something to say, or she wants something, but her words, lost and twisted in her tangled mind, are lost. She walks out of the room, and slowly paces back and forth. She’s young. She can’t be more than 50 years old. She wears diapers and they sag.

James shuffles along outside mom’s room. He’s fast. And very tall. The cold morning air doesn’t seem to bother him. Finally, he stops in front of our room and walks in. I’m happy about this visit.

I love James. He is one of my favorite residents. On good days, he’ll tell me that I’m beautiful. He makes my day every time I see him, especially when he flashes that chipped, toothy grin of his. He makes me smile. 

“Hi, James.”

“Hiiiiiiiiiiiiyyyyyyaaaaaaahhhhhh.”

James sings his words. He sits next to Margie and they start talking………………….. their conversation makes no sense, yet they laugh and carry on.

They speak their own language.

Mom sits and stares out at the sliding glass window. I make the sign of the cross on her forehead. I tell her I have to go to work and I kiss her goodbye.

>>Flickr photo by Andres Rueda