We have lift off. (muted)

You know those moments before you tell somebody something...

Shall I do it now?
Or now?
What about now?
While they are still eating?
When they have finished that drink?
When they come back from the toilet?

When shall I tell them??????

Like the moment you break up with a lover, tell someone you are sick, tell someone you are angry with them...

I told Okaasan at 7.25 pm. After the haircut, after she'd walked home by herself, after a nice a deux dinner, after some shared beer....

"There was a special reason you had a nice haircut and perm today! Dear Son has a lovely surprise for you! Look! Here is his letter!!!"

And I gave it to her.

She read it. I waffled on brightly about how nice it will be to visit Kawagoe etc, how exciting, how nice to see her brother and his wife etc..

Her response? Muted. Not negative (thank goodness), but strangely muted. I might have suggested opening the window for some fresh air.....

We talked about it for a while.  Well, I talked and she responded...mutely.

Yes, Kawagoe is where you were born - it isn't where your house is.
Brother's wife's name??? No idea
Yokohama - maybe Chinese food?
Wednesday morning we are going to the airport.
Look I circled the days on the kitchen calendar!

She read the letter several times. She did understand. But her reaction was massively muted.

I guess she needs a long time to process this new information and think about what it means.
There was a news report recently about how changes in sense of humor can signal dementia, with inappropriate laughter at bad news or events etc. I think too many emotional responses are off-balance: lack of empathy "Oh Paris? many people died? Oh, yes" to this muted response to news about a trip to see hometown and family.

After dinner I came upstairs to watch Richard Gere movies and a program about person-centered care for dementia sufferers, and Okaasan sat in front of yet another ice skate program (Japanese TV is full of them) and read her letter.
She kept ON reading the letter...when I was in the bathroom before sleeping I could see her still reading the letter.

So. We'll see how she feels about this trip as today plays out. I have work, but am home to catch cats for pet hell late afternoon, and then home again after an evening class.

Will she get in a panic about the clothes required for the trip? Or get annoyed that a visit to her house isn't included?

Wait and see. :-)

Trudge, trudge..

Onwards Oyomesanning...

Somehow I will reach the end of this week, then there will be the weekend and then early next week my other partner-in-care will be home.

Just tired.
Tired of holding it all together.
Tired of winter.

Okaasan has been fine - her conversations this week have been a bit vague - the old stories but with difficulty finding the words to make the stories flow. I supplied the missing words and she was off again.
I worked 3 nights and got home late, throwing supermarket-bought dinners together and sitting with Okaasan to eat them. I did some of her laundry and cleaned up her lunches. She actually washed a few plates.
Now it is a relaxed Friday and tomorrow I am taking myself skiing in a rented car. Just need to go away and relax somewhere away from responsibility.

The new kotatsu is fine and she is happy with that. The cats are enjoying playing with the box wrapping cords. The house is awash with unfinished piles of things: laundry in different stages of cleaning, papers, unopened packages. I am passing thru my home this week and not doing much else.

Lost it a bit one evening with Okaasan and told her off for using a harsh tone with me.
A student had given me huge, expensive strawberries and I was about to put them in the fridge.
"No!!! Don't do that! It's bad for the body to eat cold fruit!!No!" Okaasan shrieked at me.
Of course I reacted to her tone: "Oy! Don't use that kind of voice with me! I am family, I am NOT your house maid!"
And we both averted our eyes and busied ourselves with other tasks in the kitchen.....letting the simmering anger seep away.
In a country where there are many news stories of family members murdering the elderly in family fights, this was thankfully a small flare up. I meekly left the strawberries on the kitchen counter and made my escape upstairs.

I guess it IS the dementia, the lack of control over a emotion? A far too strong reaction to something? A casual: "Oh, it's better to leave them out of the fridge, they taste better etc" would have been enough. Not the shrieked orders.

Anyway. Almost the weekend.
It's been a really loooong week. Sometimes I feel every single year of my 52 years. This week was one of those times.
I need skiiing, and snow melting in my street, and a relaxed weekend.
And Dear Son to come home.

* Can't get into a topic about Dear Son's sibling (because I think there is a friend of the family reading this blog)...but just let me say....MAJOR USELESSNESS....we're not telling Okaasan, and I can't get into that person's private business here (just write publically about his mother's toilet accidents!!!!!;-))...but...oh wow.....some people really, really fail to make a success of their lives, despite being given all the tools of success. Okaasan is so lucky that the smart offspring and his super-smart girlfriend are caring for her.

Giggling our way thru the week ;-)

Goin' strong.


Okaasan and Me.


Lunch on the table in the flasks and gave her Y1,000 spending money before I set out on my day yesterday.

Interesting day for me: helped a friend take her two cats to the vets, then went downtown to attend a seminar about Foreigners and Inheritence in Japan (two wills? do the siblings get anything? what happens if you aren't married and thus NOT on the Family Register?) and then to meet a young woman who contacted me thru Couch Surfing - she is thinking of marrying her Japanese guy and wonders what life as a foreign wife is like in Japan!!!!!!! oh wow....WHERE to start on that topic!!!!!!
I did tell her - check his family arrangements - who is likely to be caring for the aging parents in a few years??? Are there lots of helpful siblings living near eachother who can take turns? Will it be you alone???? Important stuff like that which you don't consider when you are just concerned with the romance of it all.....I am now VERY concerned about Foreign Oyomesans of the Future!


Home about 5 pm.
Okaasan just heading out. Another gorgeous autumnal day missed.


Easy dinner: freshly made soup for her, with a piece of fried fish, broccoli, rice, pickles. Leftover veggie soup and cheese for me.


She was back about 6.15 pm. She really doesn't go far or stay out long these days.

Okaasan got to the table, saw the fish and started giggling. At the fish! Hand to her mouth, rocking back and forth. Giggling.
"Oh! It's so small! This is so cute! So small!...usually bigger than this...." giggle giggle giggle.


This over-reaction to something is an Okaasan point I've become more aware of recently. This year maybe. A joke or a funny situation sends her into ratures of giggles/hand to mouth/whole body rocking in delight, something just a bit strange or if she feels a bit guilty - more and more giggles. She often comes home and walks thru the kitchen door - and giggles at us...
The other day I found her giggling at the kitchen wipe cloth that I'd left scrunched up in the sink, instead of hanging carefully on the dish drying rack.


Giggling. At a wash cloth!  :-))


One of the dementia videos I watched the other day mentioned this too - loss of control of emotions. Of course working both ways - happiness AND anger. Luckily - oh so luckily - at the moment we see Okaasan's over-happiness about life. I absolutely intend to keep it that way.
Okaasan is basically a positive, happy, out-going person. Like mother, like son. She's always enjoyed life and seen the funny side of things and been open to new experiences (joined a hula dance class within weeks of her husband's death and signed on for the class trip to Hawaii immediatly).


So we are starting with a basically happy person here. It's my mission to make sure she stays that way and that we don't tip into darkness and anger and confusion and paranoia.


So. Giggling at the little, fried fish. Fine.

And then. I produced my trump card for this weekend.
The Glenn Miller Orchestra concert.
These are tickets I bought ages ago. Thought it would be a good thing for Okaasan and I to go and do and enjoy together. We do so little a deux that I thought it would be a good opportunity. Oyomesan and Okaasan bonding time.


So I told her I'd got concert tickets for this big band sound concert today - she and I will go.
Oh ! Such happiness. She poured over the concert flyer, read and reread all the list of songs endless times and went on and on about the music and post-war Japan and music.


A very successful dinner.
Thanks to a bit of fried fish and Glenn Miller.


Onwards.