Gotta Love Her

Oh, Eunice, you gotta love her.

Tonight at the nursing home, an aide was telling us that she has traveled around the world with her husband and talked about their recent trip to China.  At the end of her description, my mother asked her if her husband came home with slanted eyes (from China).  I just gasped and said, "Mom..." but she had no clue that what she said was not kosher.  The aide, who is from Jamaica, just smiled and continued on her way.  She wasn't offended, which I was thankful for.  We tend to hold our breath before my mom says anything out loud, because you never know what it's gonna be. 

It's really interesting, though, watching her at the nursing home.  She talks to the aides and nurses like she's a little girl or pretending to be mad at them or just plain silly.  They all seem to like her - it's probably a nice break from the mean, mentally ill ones - but I don't know what to make of it.  I know she loves the attention she's getting because she talks to everyone who comes in her room, whether they came in to see her or not (she has a roommate).  She knows all their names and all their backgrounds and if I didn't know any better, I would say that she's so comfortable there that she doesn't want to leave.  She kept telling my dad and I tonight that her physical therapists don't think she should leave yet because they don't think she's ready.  So instead of July 24, we decided for her to come home after I return from Madison, about August 4 or 5.  That way she won't be alone with my dad, which is hard enough as it is, without not feeling well.

I know that my mom was "secretly" diagnosed with the beginning of dementia - "secretly" because we haven't told her - so I take what she says with a grain of salt.  I don't want her to know this because I think it will make her very depressed and my dad and brothers agree.  Her mother, my Nana, died from complications of Alzeimher's Disease, so I don't want to put fear or sadness into my mother's psyche.  I just don't think it's necessary. 

But my mom has always said things that were inappropriate or weird.  I had a boyfriend once that came over to dinner and my mom happened to be there as well and he had a cool, bright-colored shirt on, that I actually gave to him.  The first thing that came out of my mother's mouth after meeting him was, "My, your shirt is quite loud."  I, of course, cringed and changed the conversation, but she had no clue what she said could be interpreted as offensive.  I actually tried to warn my boyfriend before he met her that sometimes she says inappropriate things, but it was still embarrassing to me when she said it. 

Once when I was young, probably around 11 or 12, an extremely heavy woman crossed the street in front of our stopped car and my mother looked at me and said, "Now, you need to stop eating so much; you don't want to look like her, do you?"  I was too young to talk back to her then, but it embarrassed me nonetheless.  SHE was the one who said, "Sticks and stones can break your bones, but names will never hurt you."  She really had no clue all the times she hurt me by criticizing me about my weight.  But then most parents don't know how they've hurt their children until it's way too late, looking back in retrospect.  I know her mother hurt her, she hurt me and I'm sure I've hurt my kids in one way or the other. 

Forgiveness is the key.  It's what mends relationships and heals hearts.  If I can't forgive others, then how can God forgive me?  I need His forgiveness every day, and so I try to repent and forgive every day.  After all, who am I to hold a grudge against someone who has offended me, when I have also offended others?  It's such a simple concept, really.  So simple that lots of folks haven't grasped it yet.  And the very cool thing about it, is that when I forgive, I unload a lot of pure junk which I carried as a burden on my shoulders, sometimes for years, that feels wonderful when it's lifted.  It's like the weightless feeling of floating in the pool.  And you know, I really dig that.