Communicating with my Mother, these days, although sometimes frustrating, is more often than not fascinating, and sometimes downright hilarious.
When the wrong word comes out of her mouth, she usually knows immediately that she's mis-fired. I am patient with her, and she is comfortable talking to me, so without embarrassment, she'll try again. I give her time and try to help her along without obviously finishing her sentences for her, when I can. 90 percent of the time she can find an alternate word or description. If she wants to go to "the store with the bullet," you take her to Target.
It's heartbreaking, sometimes, to see other's response to Mom's substitutions. I don't know how many times I'll say it here, but Alzheimer's really does freak people out, and I'm in constant wonder at what others must have to deal with, with their own, or their loved ones' physical and mental disabilities. Mom will say something sometimes, substituting one word for another word lost. I wrote in the last post how she used the word "flowers" when "leaves" was hiding for the day. While some people roll their eyes, ridicule, and avoid conversation with a crazy old bat, I find her absolutely, honorably courageous and brilliant for the attempt—and for usually finding a pretty ok substitute. Don't sweat the small stuff people, does it matter if it's a leaf or a flower? The point was that it's beautiful.
There are often some comical side effects to her word choices. Last summer Mom read in the paper about a murder in Champaign, and an "attempted murder" between a jealous couple, in her neighborhood. Agitated, she was, over all of these murders, and I explained them away to her, trying to lighten up the subject. There was no mass murderer in her neighborhood, it was "a mere love triangle" in which a jilted lover tried to run over his ex. A cheerful murder.
Mom got right on the horn with her cousin Mary, and told her all about the crazy events in her neighborhood. The murder! The attempted murder! Terrible, just terrible!
Only Mom couldn't find the word for "neighborhood." So, she substituted.
It was, I am sure, only minutes after ending their phone call that Mary called me in a bit of a panic. Trying to remain calm, she said, "Uh, hey....your Mom just told me someone was murdered in her house...is that right?"
Well, thank you very much for calling, but that information is wrong (Dead wrong, hahaha)....I hoped. Mom's murder report had come in on the ONE day in an entire year that I had arranged for Mom's dinner ahead of time, so that I could tend to other obligations. I got off the phone with Mary and thought, "Great, now watch. I'll go to Mom's house after work tonight, and there will be a dead guy in the living room."
There wasn't, and there's no point in trekking back to Mom and telling her that she misinformed Mary. I did make it a point to clarify, once again, that a crazed murderer wasn't running the streets, hacking up all of the neighbors.
So there we are. I keep a notebook, jotting down the more humorous Mom-isms, and will start incorporating them into my posts.
Learning another language will be good for you.
