Mother

We moved Mom from her two bedroom apartment in the semi-independent wing of the care center to a one bedroom apartment in the extended care wing last Saturday. We have know all summer that she needed to move where she can receive more supervision/care and finally a place was available on the ground floor. She did not want to move and gave us a rough time but some anti-anxiety meds helped her (and therefore, all of us!) to cope with it all. We were exhausted but, had her all situated, with pictures hung and decorations arranged by dinner!We were worried about her being disoriented during the night so Judy spent Saturday night with her and I spent Sunday and Sunday night with her. The good news is that the staff check on her every three hours while she is sleeping. She insisted she was not going to stay in "this place" until two friends came to visit after lunch on Monday and just raved about what a lovely apartment it was - now she likes it! Guess peer pressure works at any age!
We were fortunate that the facility has an annual rummage sale and told us to leave anything we didn't want in the old apartment and they would store it until the sale and then donate what did not sell to the St. Vincent  thrift store. I don't think they expected a whole bedroom full of stuff! What a blessing not to have to cart it all away.
It was a trip down memory lane to go through picture albums and family mementos. I found two diaries written by my father's grandmother, his father's mother, during 1946 and 1947. This was the time my Dad, his only brother, Uncle Bob and many family friends were returning from the War, getting engaged and married. She was especially worried about Dad, "Dickie," because he didn't come home from Calcutta until March of 1946.