Posted 5-3-19
Don’t remind me of hindsight’s visual acumen. I know… 🙁
BUT, looking back, I should have noticed mom’s dementia getting worse years ago. If I would have had my self-focused head out of my rear enough to take the time to think about it, I would have been more prepared! I would have spent more time with Mom 1.0. I would have wrote out the stories. The signs were everywhere (!!), but it is so easy to just deny change or chalk it up to something like “normal aging” or just “being forgetful”. Once brain mass is gone, it is gone. Hindsight sucks.
What prompted this little rant? My sister was going through pictures that she retrieved from my stepdad’s house and she found all sorts of mislabeled pictures. Mom, grandma and great-grandma were always great about labeling names and events on the back of pictures for posterity. It is one thing to mislabel a place, but mislabeling your own kids/grandkids? Yes…that was a Stinking Big Hair Rock Band Screaming Red Flag. 🙁 I will spare you the pictures for the sake of the misidentified, but I was sick when I saw them. She was trying really, really hard…and failing. 🙁 And I didn’t know and should have.
Digital Cornbread is sometimes funny, sometimes serious and sometimes (hopefully) a little enlightening. Let this post be a beacon light for you to remind you loudly: check in on your older relatives. (Not only your 90+ year-old relatives, but your 40-50-year-old ones too!) Encourage their physical and mental health. Ask questions should your pictures get mislabeled or should you hear the same stories multiple times or should you hear wrong stuff…ask questions and get help. The earlier you know, the smoother it will be for you and for them. Ask questions…seek answers.
Thanks for enduring my vent, flowing from the depth of my sadness muscle. If you can’t learn from my words, at least learn from my often bad example and from my attempts to right the ship now.
#EndALZ
Had a good visit with mom yesterday. She is still wheelchair bound, but was happy and verbal. She even told me it was nice to see me. 🙂 The rest of the S-17 ladies seemed well too minus Mrs. L who was a no-show at supper. She is nearing 100, so you never want to miss seeing her. No brawls, no fussing, all happy.
(Sidenote: I worry that the multitude of pictures/selfies society takes these days will go unlabeled and will get blended into the Google collective, gone from their rich historical context.)
