It has been a little over a year since the neighbors that live above me moved into the apartment.  I know some of you have heard of my elephant stories and the noises that penetrate through the floors when they walk and talk and breathe.  I always say they are walking a relay for life as they walk all hours of the day and night.  It is a son and his girlfriend which they have a baby with and the son’s mom and a cat.  My girls talk to this cat and the mom all the time and the mom is always very sweet and soft-spoken.  She always asks how we are doing and the girls always say she is so nice.

Over this past year in the conversations me and the girls have had with her I kind of suspected that she had Alzheimer’s as she would forget mid sentence what she was talking about or the girls would ask her what the baby’s name is and she just could not remember or she would ask me the same questions that she had just asked me the day before.  I could see the sadness in that blank stare she would give me when she just coulnd’t remember things.  She had this puzzled look as if she had no clue what was going on.

Last week I had just gotten home from work when I heard my doorbell ring.  I looked through the peephole and saw the frazzled fragile mom.  It was almost like she had been waiting all day for me to come home so she could talk to me.  I didn’t have the girls so I invited her in.  She wasted no time before a stream of tears rolled down her face.  I asked her what was going on and she started to talk about how she had this thing with her head where she couldn’t remember things; she couldn’t even remember what it was called.  She kept saying what should I do, what should I do.  I asked her if she had a doctor and asked her about how her son and his girldriend are supporting her and she pretty much said what I predicted she would say.  Living in an apartment where you can hear the person above you peeing you hear pretty much every conversation.  I hear how they talk to her and how disrespectful they are to her.  The one conversation that broke my heart is when her son was telling her, “why do you act like such an idiot?” and you could hear the tears in her voice saying, “but I love you guys”.  Based on that when she told me they don’t support her and tell her it is just part of getting old I wasn’t surprised at all.  She was reaching out to me asking me what she should do and all I could tell her is she needs to absolutely see a doctor.  I was in a state of shock to see how a son could act like that to his own mother.  I just couldn’t understand how such a thing was possible.

Tonight when I got home she knocked on my door again waiting for that moment when her son and girlfriend were not home to reach out to me.  Again the tears just poured and she kept saying I didn’t do anything, I didn’t do anything please help me.  I can easily say she asked me more than 10 times to help her.  She said I am scared they will put me in one of those places and I told her based on what you are telling me that is the best thing they could do.  I told her at least there someone will be looking after her and she will have others there to talk to.  She said but why I didn’t do anything and she just wants to die.  She has a fear of going into a nursing home and I know I have heard stories but I don’t think they are all like that.  She told me she gets lots of money each month and that she never sees it and that they take it all.  I see the girlfriend shopping all the time coming home with bags and bags of stuff.  She doesn’t work and he goes to school and works also.  Based on what I know and see I can believe that they are taking her money.  She told me to promise to not say anything to them and to please help her and that if I saw she was not there then ask them where she was.  I didn’t know what to do and I knew that it was not my business but I also knew that I could not just walk away with that “what if” feeling inside.  I told her to figure out how she could get control over her money and when they talk about putting her in a home to find out where and agree to it.  I told her to tell me where she was going and the only thing I knew I could do to help was to promise that I would stay in touch with her.  She looked at me with her eyes welled up with tears and said do you promise with some hope in her voice and I told I promise.

I really hope that she ends up in a good nursing home where someone can look after her and give her the care that she needs.  I know when I was in high school I volunteered at one by my house and I remember the great feeling it gave me to sit down and talk to these people even if it was for 5 minutes.  I know that one particular home was very nice and everyone there was so caring.

No matter what you have going on in your life you always have time to care for your loved ones and most importantly your parents, always!