Dee’s New Digs

My mom went to her new home today. An alter care facility in Brimfield, Ohio, specializing in people with Alzheimer’s or dementia. My sister called me today to give me the derails.

My first thought was one of shame. My mom lives in Brimfield? Brimtucky?

I’ll get over it.

Anyway, it sounds like a nice place. She has a private room just off of the nurse’s station. My sisters went to mom’s house and got her the comforts of home – skeins of yarn, packs of smokes and, knowing mom, a rolling pin.

Hey, she’s Italian. They don’t speak with their hands. They speak with their rolling pins.

I asked my sister what kind of activities they have at the facility. She said lots – crafts, exercise, music…and bingo.

Hoo boy. Bingo. Mom’s an accountant, and she looooves her some bingo. Her and I used to go to bingo at the AA meeting place in Cuyahoga Falls on Monday nights, and mom was one of those people who brings half of their belongings and sets them around their space, marking their territory – daubers, good luck charms, cigarettes, pictures. That woman could keep up with 30 cards and a numbers barker on speed like no one’s business. She would smack-dab those cards then lean over and start dabbing mine that I couldn’t get to.

Black-belt bingo babe.

Mom is, obviously, adjusting. Having dementia, she slips in and out of lucidity, and from what I hear; the times she’s not with us are great fun. She’s skinny-dipping at the blue hole in Peninsula, playing golf with my dad (who died 15 years ago), sitting at an AA meeting bitching about the loud drunks in the back of the room. She wonders where long-dead people went when they were talking to her a minute ago. There are also heart-wrenching moments of ‘When can I go home?’ where she doesn’t realize she is home. Her new home.

But she is comfortable and will eventually acclimate to her new surroundings. And she is going to make new friends and crochet them each an afghan.

And kick their asses in bingo.

Y’all been warned.