My Fucking Father called the place she's in now like a "four-star hotel." Oh, St. Paul is definitely a seat of luxury. Just off a highway overpass and blocks away from a nursing home where my stroke-ridden uncle is housed, the parking lot is only three rows long, and it's housed in a spot that's far away from Summit Avenue. Is it dirt poor? No. But a "luxurious hotel" would be in a great area, and this is not a great area.
The thing that surprised me most about this assisted living nursing home is that it felt exactly like my dorm room from college. There's a central living room with a couch in the middle of the complex which is divided into two wings. In college it was between men and women; here, there's the "normal" wing and, what I found out just earlier this past Tuesday, the Alzheimer's wing.
I follow the turns to Grandmother's dorm room and knock. I had to wait awhile; My Fucking Father said she had made friends at the place, like it's fucking camp or something, so if he's telling the truth she'd be in another room braiding a girl's hair.
But after a couple minutes Grandmother opened the door. She hugged me. She never hugs me. She didn't hug me when I was a kid. The only time she has hugged me harder was when she was loopy on her pills that one morning and cried that I was the only person in this world who loved her. The loneliness she expressed that day I kind of felt when I saw her last week.
But then Grandmother asked me how did I get here -- "Did you fly?" Fly? What the fuck are you talking about? And then she asked me if I took a taxi here. She didn't know where she was, so I told her that she's about a half-hour away from the home she can no longer come home to. She later told me that she was whisked directly from the clinic that Tuesday morning to this place, and she had no idea where she was going. I understand that; I doubt she had ever been to this part of town besides the two times I took her to see my uncle. So I don't think it's dementia; it looks like My Fucking Father didn't care to tell her where exactly she was going.
This is a dorm room, not a hotel. But it's a pretty fucking big room, at least -- bathroom, shower (no tub), sink and mini-fridge (but no kitchen, lest Grandmother burns things on a stove), and a huge room with not one but two small closets. The bed that used to be mine was shoved into one corner, right next to the only window in her room, one that overlooks the beautiful parking lot and the expansive row houses that mark where the old money in the city was. Her desk (the one where the TV was) now sits to the side. The TV now sits atop the big dresser drawer, at the corner facing the foot of the bed.
When I was there Grandmother wasn't unpacked at all. My Fucking Father filled all her shit with garbage bags and gave them to her, but she hadn't taken them out yet. I want to think she was so depressed for being thrown in here that she didn't care if she ever took them out. She did say that she never used those clothes.
But as I was talking to her she was, for lack of a better word, planning to move in with her best friend, who now lives in a similar home but just mere minutes away from us. She had discussed this possibility before, but when I talked to her best friend she said there's no way in hell she'd take her in, for two reasons: 1) Her daughter lives with her and would forbid having another roommate, and 2) she doesn't ever want to see Grandmother's "boyfriend" again. (Have I talked about him? Maybe some other time if I haven't.)
She doesn't know how to even fucking turn on the TV, and if she ever would, she doesn't have an antenna or a converter box to watch anything, and even if she did, she says she doesn't watch TV anymore because it's ... well, she said something in Chinese that I didn't understand. So I was confronted with the image of Grandmother spending her waking day doing absolutely nothing. It certainly felt like it, being in there and seeing her in outside clothes (not her usually pajamas) that may have been the ones she was wearing when My Fucking Father dumped her here.
Is it dementia? Maybe it is dementia. During my hour-long talk with her Grandmother obsessed, again, about money. She had no idea how she was going to get it now that she was in a home; I don't think she knows that most her welfare money now goes to pay the rent. But maybe she didn't like it here and wanted to leave. She never wanted to leave home. So maybe that's why she hadn't unpacked; she was planning on going somewhere. Always thinking ... or slowly going senile.
Visiting hours are over at 9. She saw me out, but when I saw the nurse on-call, I got to thinking. She asked me if I had the number of her "boyfriend." I thought that my parents would be upset if I told him she was here -- he even called me that afternoon to ask where she went -- so I said no. But if the nurse could give him the information, then I wouldn't have been the one to tell Grandmother. So even though it was 9:15, I turned on my phone and called her "boyfriend." It seemed like a way to tether Grandmother to something familiar so she wouldn't feel so lost. It was pure comedy how I tried to tell him what was going on, then handing off my phone to the nurse so she could tell him the address, then him asking me what the address was. Idiot. But even though Grandmother started to talk too loudly into my phone, seeing her chat it up with her boo brought out the chatty Grandmother I know, far from the confused, quiet, bored and lonely one I spoke to in her dorm room.
That idiot "boyfriend" of hers said he'd be coming over, even though I told him visiting hours are over. But the nurse it was alright if it was quick, and I left Grandmother as he was waiting for him in the waiting room. Later, as I was at My Favorite Coffeehouse (Late-Night Division), I returned his call. He once again asked for the address and wanted to know directions. Fearing reprisals from my folks, I told him he was on his own.
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I have decided that I will try and see Grandmother, for the time being, on Mondays and Tuesdays. That's when Dancing With the Stars is on, and at the very least I'll be able to spend time with her by watching the TV show we both watch anyway.
It's a bitch unplugging my antenna and converter box. My Fucking Father said he had one, but didn't. So I have this daily pain-in-the-ass to do twice a week for the next, oh, 2 1/2 months. But I've got to see Grandmother.
This Monday she was in better spirits. Not as happy as My Fucking Father continues to insist, I don't think, but she didn't seem to be as desperately relieved to see as she was that Thursday.
We didn't talk about money all that much while the show was on. The only thing she kept asking was whether she should close her checking account. I told her the same I always tell her when she keeps asking the same questions about her money: Don't worry about it.
However, she was unpacked. Whether or not she did it herself, or whether she she cares about the clothing she has put away, or whether she even wants to stay, is unclear. But it looks like her "plan" of moving in with her best friend is now out of the question.
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Unbeknownst to me, my parents dropped by to see Grandmother Tuesday afternoon while I was at work. Actually there were still more things they wanted to give her, including a reclining chair.
But I didn't see her in her room. I saw her door ajar, so I just went in and set the TV up. I guess you can do that in this old folks' home.
When I came out of the bathroom I saw, of all things, her "boyfriend." He was here? Doing what? He just came in too, and he was looking for Grandmother. The administrator at the front door pointed us to the Alzheimer's wing, where she was sitting, happy as a clam, watching TV in the communal area. I tried to communicate to her that she could watch DWTS in her room too.
When we finally went back, she sat down on the chair, happily. I had to ask her if she was as happy as My Fucking Father obnoxiously continues to say she is. "I'm not happy, but I'm OK," she said, "It's best that I come here because your parents kept yelling at me."
That I understand. That isn't being happy going into assisted living; that's being relieved of the daily stress of being told the people who house you don't like you. Big difference between the two.
So at the very least I think My Fucking Father is exaggerating how Grandmother feels put into a nursing home, and he does so because he's justifying his feelings of throwing her out. So he is, largely, lying. Then again, I say this because I might be justifying my feelings of regret and loneliness. Because it isn't quite the same house as it was before she was kicked out. It's weird, but I kind of miss her bothering me and asking me questions and doing things that make me question her state of mind. Maybe she isn't as upset and unhappy as I want her to be by this move.
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Oh, by the way, as she apparently had her outlook change now that she's found the communal TV, on this Tuesday visit she muttered to both me and her "boyfriend" the following comment: "So, this is the place where I'm going to die?"
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