Moving Day
The slow departure
Last month, my husband and I moved my mom for the fifth time in five years. This was by far the “easiest” move because it was simply to a smaller, slightly less expensive apartment within the same senior living building. However, it was also the hardest because of her cognitive state. She was diagnosed with mixed dementia (Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia) over a year ago, and every change to her routine causes disruption. That, combined with recurring UTIs (urinary tract infections), has accelerated her decline.
As a child, I lived in eight different homes and five different states. Most of the moves were due to my dad’s career changes, followed by my parents’ divorce and my mom trying to survive as a single parent on a teacher’s salary. My brother and I lived with our aunts and cousins during different periods of our childhood. We lived in apartments and townhomes, sharing bedrooms, and eventually moved into a house where we each had our own room. No matter where we lived, our home always looked as though a professional had decorated and organized it. My mom always had an eye for interior design and took pride in her home.
I have personally moved nine times as an adult, and every time I moved, my mom was there to help. She loved moving because it was a new opportunity to decorate. When Ken and I moved into our house, she came over on a weekday and unpacked and decorated our entire downstairs. Everything had its place, and it looked like we had been living there for years. (It hasn’t been that clean or organized since.)
This past week, I went to her apartment ahead of the movers to move a few things ourselves and got a glimpse of what she works so hard to hide. She is very good at masking her disease.
I found grimy bedsheets. Laundry detergent was spilled all over the washing machine, evidence of her attempt to guess where it belonged. Plastic disposable cups sat in the dishwasher alongside dishes that had clearly been there for a while, food still stuck to them. The Cascade detergent (with “Dishwasher” written in bold letters after two previous incidents involving dish soap) was sealed shut and dried up inside.
From the outside, most people don’t see this version of her. Other than repeating herself every few minutes and struggling to recall names, she appears fairly normal. People often tell me, “She’s not that bad!” or compare her to a relative who wore bright pink lipstick and told everyone she was a famous actress.
My (amazing!) therapist reminds me that most people won’t understand why my stomach dropped when I opened her freezer and found mysterious containers filled with who-knows-what. Or why seeing clothes we bought together last month (after she insisted she needed new clothes) still hanging in the closet with tags attached felt like a punch to the gut.
The move itself wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was realizing how much she can no longer do and how successfully she has hidden it from me.
My mom’s decline began after an extended hospital stay on June 10, 2021. Since then, there have been many different versions of her. Every time one of those versions disappears, I experience another wave of grief.
Hopefully this is her last move for a while. Hopefully the seas are calm for both of us.