Where's Bud

1/17/2003

It’s been almost a week since the funeral and for 4 of the last 6 days my mother-in-law has been here at my house. She was married for 62 years and now she is floundering.

She suffers from dementia and has absolutely no short term memory.

One sister-in-law has remained here while her family returned to Alabama.

Sundowners is the name given to a condition that manifests itself in the elderly with a fear of the night, or a fear of being out of their own surroundings when night falls.

Night terrors – well that’s kind of easy to imagine.

The conversations go like this:

Where’s Bud?

He’s gone mom.

What do you mean he’s gone?

He died Mom

HE DID?

When did he die?

Was I there?

When was the funeral?

Insert light sobbing

Whose house is this?

Yes, but where do we live?

Who’s going to sleep with me tonight? I’m afraid. I can’t sleep alone.

Where’s Bud?

Insert answers

Repeat
Repeat
Repeat

Every 2 minutes, Repeat.

One bit of relief is in the knowing that the grief is so temporary, since the discovery that her husband is dead is new every couple of minutes.

Then she forgets….

Shortly before he died Bud told one of the daughters that he was being kept up all night with her frantic questions and fears.

I think she wore him out.

The daughters are working frantically to place her in a home, and it just might work out that she can get a bed in a converted mansion that is less than a mile from our house.

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The transition to the new position is starting to take form and I have been accepted with a great deal of enthusiasm.

I’ve moved a computer to the new place and have taken up temporary digs until the official office moving day of February 1.

In order to keep up with the other staff members, I’ve become a new Palmaholic with my Tungston Palm. I’ve already got it stuffed with some really nice wedding pictures.

Oh yeah, and the scrabble game, I’m using that to learn the shorthand thing. Besides, anyone who knows me knows that I can’t spell for s*)# and it’s a short course in spelling, right?

Manager's meeting? You want me to go to LA for a week in February?

NSR looks at thermometer this morning - 8 degrees F (-13C)

Sure, I can handle that.