During my extensive reading and searching on the internet I came across two revolutionary new retirement homes, one explicitly for people with Dementia including Alzheimer’s.
Here is the link to the first one, a retirement home for the general population of seniors.
Here is the link for the second, a most remarkable and beautiful place.
I am trying to peer through the glass at what tomorrow will look like. At this point all I see is dark glass – a shade of inky blue. My nose is pressed up against it and I can feel the coldness. My fingers seek out the cracks and craters of this piece of blue glass. Blue is her favourite colour – strange how dark it can be. I will it to change from inky darkness to royal blue. It can give me no comfort this night. I cannot see through the glass at what tomorrow holds. I cannot see the craters or mountains in the way and so I lay here awake. Imagining how long until the inky blue turns to the blush of pink? Tomorrow is the day we sign my mom up for her vacay at the Assisted Living Home.
Vacay ha! Is that how we will try to “sell” her on her new home? One website said to use “loving lies”. Which one shall we use? Which one will seem less painful? I question my motives – is it my pain or hers that should be less? Is it possible to be both? If not, I wish for her. Shall we tell her that Dad is doing repairs on the house and so she is here to get away from all the noise and dust? Shall we tell her that this is their new home and the reason that Dad isn’t always going to be here is because he has to go to work? Maybe that she is here to visit someone else?
Or shall we tell her the truth? The truth that Dad can’t take care of her anymore without damaging his own health. That she needs more care than she can get at home? That we can’t keep her safe? That we talked about this in the beginning and although you begged us not to put you in a home, you are too much and we must.
That although you lovingly raised us 5 girls on a farm, mucking it up with the sheep and getting in to have supper on the table by 6pm, we can’t repay the debt. That your years of nursing us through chicken pox, measles and mumps are not enough and we are going to put you away because you are now sick. Running the farm while dad had back surgery and carrying on your own chores doesn’t compare to the ravages of this disease and the difficulty it puts on US.
The guilt is consuming, insidious and heavy. I expect that tomorrow I will revisit the guilt in hundredth fold after leaving her in her new home. I have none of the answers I wanted tonight. I turn back to the stained glass. I remember a Bible verse that may bring comfort:
“Now we see only an indistinct image in a mirror, but then we will be face to face. Now what I know is incomplete, but then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 1 Cor. 13:12
I look toward the blue pane in the glass window and raise my finger tips to sweep across it. Is it, is it possible? Is it actually resembling more of a royal blue? Pressing my nose against its coolness I whisper a thank you to the God that grants peace and takes our guilt upon himself. I pray for the blush of pink come morning.
stained glass memories 