Coffee Flavored Rubik’s Cube
Feb 24th, 2008 by spaceagesage
It’s just a coffee maker. It’s not a complicated piece of technology.
And yet for my mother, some days it might as well be a Rubik’s cube.
Early stages of Alzheimer’s or senility make it so.
I could make the coffee for her, and for me on the rare days I drink it, but the process allows me to gauge how the day will go for her. I think she sees it as a daily benchmark challenge, too. I know this because of the stubborn determination I see in her face.
Just last year, I would have been secretly rolling my eyes at her morning ritual, directing an exasperated sideways glance at my husband, or just jumped in to make the coffee instead.
Why the change?
Both my husband and I have learned that her aging process is more about how we view it than how she lives it.
Although her ways of dealing with the world appear to be childlike in some ways and there are some things we must control in her life to keep us and our two cats safe, she needs us not to see her as diminished or deficient or debilitated in any way.
My mother is not her condition. My mother is a person who is loving, caring, fun-loving, and feisty.
Just don’t ask her to use the contact list on her cell phone.
She still dials the phone numbers, one digit at a time.
Coffee, anyone?
Very wonderful post! I really enjoyed:
“My mother is not her condition. My mother is a person who is loving, caring, fun-loving, and feisty.”
Best wishes, Barbara
Barbara Ling —
Thank you for your well wishes! I’m glad my mom passed on her strengths to me so I can be here for her now.