Living with Nancy(Cliff Staten) Living with Nancy

I had just finished teaching my foreign policy class and for some reason thought I should go home early and check on mom. I could hear the television as I opened the front door. She always had it so loud you could hear it throughout the first floor of our home. As always, she was watching NCIS. While she really paid little attention to the show, she still had it on every day. Somehow it gave her comfort and a sense of familiarity. I walked into the den where she was sitting in her recliner. She had several books on the table next to her. I noticed a copy of her favorite, Wuthering Heights.

“Mom, did you read your books today?” I asked.

“I tried but the print is too small.”

Before I could respond, I detected a whiff of the distinctive odor of gas. I hurried into the kitchen. The gas stove was on, but the burner had not lit. I quickly turned off the stove and opened the kitchen windows. I noticed that mom had placed one peeled potato in a pan of water on the stove. I shook my head and assumed she was trying to make potato soup. She loved potato soup. From then on, we always took the knobs off the stove when we left mom alone.

After my father passed away, mom had continued to live in the house where I grew up. She never had time to grieve for dad because her mother, my granny, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s within a few months of dad’s passing. Mom was forced to put granny in a nursing facility. Within a year, her step-father, my step-papa, was also diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She put him in the same facility. The nurses had to keep them apart as their relationship had deteriorated into physical abuse by each of them. Each had no memory of the other. My step-papa passed away the following year while mom continued to faithfully take care of her mother. Within a few years granny had lost all memory of her family. Still, mom continued to visit her, talk to her, and reach out to her almost every day. The disease took its time and it was several years later before granny passed away. Several times over those years the doctors used heroic actions to keep granny alive, despite the fact that she had no memory of the people she loved and was bed-ridden the last two years of her life. At granny’s funeral, mom pulled Shan aside and said, “My will calls for no heroic measures, do not resuscitate me should I be close to dying. I am asking you to make sure that my boys don’t talk the doctors into trying to save me. I don’t want to put anyone through what I’ve had to endure with their granny.” Shan promised her.

A few years later, mom was diagnosed with dementia that only got worse. We finally moved her into our house in Indiana as it became evident that she was not safe to be alone for long periods of time and she no longer was able to manage the house that she had lived in for almost 50 years.

I walked back into our den, turned down the volume on the television, and asked mom how her day had been. She said that a nice young man had come by to visit her. I knew it was my son, Ryan. He always came by to visit with her on his day off from work and classes. I know that it also meant that she had conned him into buying her cigarettes that she always hid outside on the back deck where she smoked.

“I see you are reading Wuthering Heights again for the hundredth time. Do you remember when you made me read it when I was only in the 5th grade?”

“Yes, I do, and you liked it. Didn’t you?

“Yes, I did mom,” as I squeezed her hand. I inherited my love of reading from my mom’s love of reading. She taught me to read long before I started the first grade. I was reading novels in elementary school. My love of classic literature came directly from her. I kissed mom on the head and went back into the kitchen. I heard Shan open the front door and yell, “I smell gas.”

“It’s taken care of babe. Don’t worry.” I peeled several more potatoes and cooked a pot of potato soup for dinner. Mom was happy.

I went to the local library and checked out several large print books for her to read. I bought her a new copy of Wuthering Heights in large print. She asked me to read to her. For the next several evenings I read the classic story of Heathcliff to her. She knew the story so well that she would sometimes finish the sentence that I was reading. It was simply amazing that she could remember that but not the names of her grandchildren. I hated this terrible disease.

Mom started reading the large print books that I had checked out for her. At some point we discovered that she was tearing out pages from some of them. I asked her why she was doing this, and she simply said, “Well, I just didn’t like what was on those pages.” I couldn’t help but laugh and, of course, later had to reimburse the library for the books.

We bought her a recliner which with the touch of a button would move up and allow mom to literally walk out of the recliner. She never remembered to press the button so she would shout for someone to help her get out of the recliner. We always reminded her to press the button if she wanted to get up. One evening prior to dinner, I came into the den and there she was leaning against the recliner in the standing position. “Mom, what are you doing?”

“’I’m watching NCIS.”

I laughed, “Mom, press the button and the chair will move and allow you to sit down.”

She pressed the button and the recliner moved backwards allowing her to sit. “Well, that’s much better. Thank you. What kind of chair is this?” I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Over the next year it was common to find her in the standing position leaning against her recliner watching NCIS.

Shan was very good at trying to keep mom mentally active. She taught her to play dominoes, although we had to teach her again each time we played. But that was OK. She was out of the recliner playing a game with us at the dining room table. Her mind was being stimulated, she was talking to us, and she was laughing. Of course, she also cheated while playing. Honestly, I don’t know whether she cheated or simply couldn’t remember the rules but we let her. Why? Because she always laughed if she won and her laughter meant the world to us. We cherished her moments of laughter.

Shan played bunco with a group of women from our church. She faithfully took mom with her. Mom played but never understood the game and why everyone was switching tables. After the second time playing, they passed a rule that Nancy didn’t have to switch tables. She won that night and the group cheered and laughed out loud with her.

In the first year with us, she had many moments when she was fully coherent and recognized the people she was speaking with but over time those moments became fewer and fewer and more precious.

I did take her back to our old hometown a couple of times. Each time Shan would pack mom’s suitcase for her and then find out that she had taken the clothes from the suitcase and put them back in the closet. Shan asked her why she had done this, and mom explained, “Well, since I am living here now, I can’t live out of the suitcase, I have to put my clothes away.” Shan laughed and told her she was going back to visit with friends in Kenova, so she needed to take clothes with her. Shan repacked the suitcase only to find that she had once again taken clothes from the suitcase and placed them in her closet. At some point I took the packed suitcase and simply put it in the car so mom couldn’t unpack it.

When we went back to our hometown, mom was always confused by the fact that there was no furniture in her house. She thought someone had stolen it all. We visited with family and friends although it was clear she really didn’t know who many of them were. On our last visit she did remember our long-time neighbors and friends, Jim and Katie. Jim, who had cut the grass for mom for all the years after dad had passed, continued to cut the grass at the house for us until we were finally able to sell it. They were such dear friends.

Shan was cleaning mom’s bedroom one evening and she appeared with a red bag and gave it to her. Shan opened the bag to find a small pistol. “Mom, where did you get this gun?”

“I’ve always had this gun, but I can’t find the bullets now, it’s useless, so you keep it.”

Shan yelled at me, and I was shocked to see that mom had a gun. All these years I had never seen it and she had never shown it to me. I checked it and it wasn’t loaded. “Mom, where are the bullets?”

This time she answered, “They are in my purse. You know that I’ve always kept my gun and bullets in my purse. It goes wherever I go.”

I shook my head and found six bullets in a side pocket of her purse. I locked them away in our room and later gave the gun and the bullets to my brother.

During her second year with us mom had a severe stroke and we had to place her in an assisted living center. Our kids would take turns visiting with her every day. They would wheel her around the halls and outside while listening to her stories about growing up. They didn’t mind when she repeated story after story. Mom seemed to recognize their faces or simply pretended to recognize them but she couldn’t remember their names. My kids would often feed her if it was dinner or lunch time. They were so good to her and their love for her was on full display to the nurses. The nurses would tell me which of our kids had visited that day and talked about the loving way each of them interacted with her. The nurses loved to hear my mother laugh when the kids were with her.

In December her loss of memory seemed to be moving at faster pace. She could remember little to nothing. The nurses told us that more than likely it wouldn’t be long before she was gone and that we should be prepared. I asked if anything could be done. Shan reminded me of mom’s expressed wish that no heroic actions should ever be taken to keep her alive. Shan kept the promise she had made to her.

Mom had a small, ceramic Christmas tree that she had always set up for the holidays. She had two sets of plastic light bulbs that would fit into the tree: one set of colored, bird shaped bulbs and the other was simply colored, round bulbs. She never put the bird-shaped bulbs in the ceramic tree because she had always had a terrible fear of birds. The birds never adorned her little ceramic Christmas tree. In fact, I didn’t even know the bird shaped bulbs existed until Shan told me.

A few days before Christmas, Shan set up the ceramic Christmas tree next to her bed in her room. “Nancy, I am setting up your ceramic Christmas tree for you. You remember this don’t you? Look here!" Shan laughed and asked, “Shall I put the bird lights on the tree?”

Mom turned her head and looked straight at Shan, smiled, and said, “No birds. No birds on my tree.”

That same day one of her wonderful and compassionate nurses told Shan that mom’s breathing had changed significantly and that she would pass very soon. Shan called family members, some of whom were already in town, and the minister from our church. I was on my way back from Texas with Shan’s dad. Shan whispered in mom’s ear to just hang on that I would be back soon. Mom waited for all of the family to get there before she passed. She was finally reunited with the love of her life, my dad.

The two years of “living with Nancy” were very challenging but rewarding for our family. We cried and we laughed. It strengthened the ties that bind our family in love. My Mom’s small ceramic Christmas tree is now part of our Christmas tradition. We smile when we put it up. It is never adorned with birds.

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