Saturday, January 31, 2009

Home Sweet Home

Recently she has been convinced there is a plot and I am the master of the deception. For some reason, she remembers a neighbor from the house where I grew up. She has decided that I have purchased their house and moved us all there. I’m not sure how, even if this were true, that this would be such a horrible plot, but she is very unhappy about it.
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She has asked a friend, as he was leaving, if he was going her way. He took notice and asked why. She wanted him to take her home. When asked where that is, she turned to me and said that I knew. When I asked, she got very angry and insisted that I knew. I tried to tell her that she lived here now. This just seemed to make her sad.
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The caregiver told me one morning she woke up convinced she was in the wrong house and that she really lived two doors to the east. This is interesting as it has reoccured and she has asked me also why we are in this house, when we live two doors (followed by a gesture to the east). When I told her of the names of the people that lived in that house, she then pointed west. Normally I try to go along with anything she thinks is true, but I would be unable to follow through with this and actually go to this house and move in (though it is a nicer house). So, I had to tell her the names of the people living there too.
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Occasionally she must think she is back in her childhood home in Evanston. She will tell us that her brother is just upstairs. We don't argue with that. Though he died several years ago, we just tell her he will be down when he is done with what he is doing.
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One morning she did not want to leave her room. She believed it was her apartment and the rest of the house was the lobby. We convinced her to come have breakfast in the lobby.
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She has asked me several times why I am here and if I live here. When I tell her that I do, she finds this hard to believe. I tell her it is my house and she says that I am "spoofing"her. She asked me when I moved her and she can't believe it was almost ten years ago.
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Home is an important place. Is a place you can relax and wear those sweat pants with the holes in them, walk around with no makeup and in the matching grungy tee shirt and bunny slippers.

What if you had no home?

And worse than being homeless, you never recognized where you were?

How terrifying would that be?