Guilt Trip

Mom has always been the champion of guilt trips. She turned the guilt trip into a very effective way of influencing our decisions. After stopping at the hospital to visit Dad (who is doing very well and will be home tomorrow), we went to the Cottage to see Mom. When I walked into her room, she recognized me immediately and began to cry. The good news is she knew me even though she hadn’t seen me in over two months. The bad news is I immediately felt guilty for not making the trip up here for over two months.

I thought she was in pretty good shape today. I told her we’d been to see Dad, and she immediately looked at me and asked, “Where’d he go?” I explained that he was in the hospital. I’m not sure if she understood, or not, but she seemed satisfied. I sat with her as she ate lunch. At one point she looked at me and said, “You’re cute.” I’m fat and old, and it has been many years since anyone called me cute. When I told Sister, she observed that Mom’s dementia has become very advanced. I suppose that is a more reasonable explanation than that I’m actually cute.

We took Dad’s watch to a jeweler to get a new battery, and after stopping by the hospital again, met Sister and her family for supper. Niece is the cutest, smartest 3 year old I’ve ever seen. She has decided that she is Violet, from The Incredibles, and informed the waitress that we needed a chair for her brother, Dash. After supper we stopped at a department store to get the new sheets Dad wanted us to buy for his new, thicker mattress.

Daughter cleaned out the refrigerator and the kitchen today. I need to tackle the cupboards. I’m supposed to remove all the food he’s no longer allowed to eat. I’m also supposed to go meet Mom’s new nurse practitioner tomorrow morning, and before I go, write a letter about why we requested the change. I think that the powers that be will find our reasons compelling, given that the old NP kept insisting that Dad wasn’t in congestive heart failure but was just getting fat, even after he gained 60 lbs. of fluid. We’ll bring Dad home whenever he’s discharged tomorrow and get him supplied with groceries. Whatever time we leave, I will once again leave with the feeling that I should have done more.

I spent this evening writing newsletter articles and planning the worship service for Sunday so I could email all the information to the church for the secretary to work on tomorrow. I’ll have the same feeling of leaving things undone when we get home tomorrow evening, too. Sometimes it feels like it doesn’t matter where I am, I feel like I should be someplace else.