A Day at the Beach
By
Nancy Sinsheimer
Nancy Sinsheimer is a hypnotherapist and writer who reads this website from California. She and her mother still share a love of music.
I took my mother for an outing to the beach. Mom, who lives in a nursing home and has Alzheimer's, went through my CDs while I was in the market getting our picnic.
She picked Garth Brooks and David Allan Coe, both country, which she never used to like but she didn't remember that because we listened to all the fast-paced songs on the way to the coast as she clapped and sang along.
"It's nice we can still share music," I thought, cranking it up louder because she's so hard of hearing.
My early years were graced with song. Mom sang along with the radio during the day and danced through the house at night when our musician dad played his ukulele and sang. But that was a long time ago.
Today, I just wanted to have fun. I told myself not to get hooked into her argumentative ways. Just let it go. That shouldn't be so hard for me, but it is.
Mom's convinced that if I just said the right words, I could get her doctor to prescribe her, an asthmatic living in a nonsmoking nursing home, medical marijuana for her arthritis, and I could make Medicaid pick up the tab for a new power wheelchair so she could go exploring.
I reminded myself to enjoy the time we had together, no matter what she said or did. There were no cars on the road, only cows watching from the fields, so sometimes I would jerk the steering wheel slightly from side to side, "dancing" the car to the music, which made her laugh like it did my daughter when she was little.
We had the windows open because Mom was too hot, yet wouldn't take her jacket off, so it was a wild ride through the green hills with music blaring and warm wind rushing in, whipping my hair around my face.
At the beach, Mom tottered with her walker from the parking lot across a patch of deep sand to the picnic table. She dogged plugged away at it with me inching along beside her, silently pleading: "Don't tip over!"
She ignored the sandwich and strawberries and ate chocolate cookies and soda. She smiled at the kids and babies with their buckets and toys.
Watching the children reminded her of the hours we'd spent at the beach when I was little. She can't remember 20 minutes ago, but she can remember the old days.
"Remember all those shells you brought home in your pockets?" she asked.
But our good time reminiscing was interrupted because she could not, "for the life of her," understand why dogs were allowed on the beach. She commented loudly on this whenever someone walked by us with their terrier or golden retriever.
I suggested she might enjoy her visit more if she could just pretend she liked dogs for the day. After all, I said, she's forgotten so many other preferences maybe she could be flexible about the dog issue, too. It would make life easier.
But "easier" is not anywhere in this equation. She remembers, tenaciously, things that she wants to harass me about and doesn't remember the things I would like her to remember. And it seems that dogs are never going to be her friends.
I'm certain now that even after she has forgotten who I am, she'll still cling to her notion that: "Dogs are full of horrible germs and only want to slobber on you!"
I took deep breaths so I could allow the ocean breeze to sweep the tension right out of my body, even when Mom started in again about the medical marijuana.
I looked over at her and smiled. Surprisingly, she seemed to be having a good time, too. I think I finally understood that disapproving loudly is one of the ways she has fun these days.
When we got back to town Mom sat for a moment in the car gathering the energy to stand up. I tried shaking the sand out of her walker in the nursing home parking lot, but it has little holes lining the metal legs and the sand refused to come out of them in more than a trickle.
It wouldn't come out when I wanted it to, yet the sand spilled freely as she clomped up the walkway and through the front door. I decided to just let it do that. Everywhere Mom goes for awhile she'll be trailing a fine fairy dust, a memory of our day at the beach.
© Nancy Sinsheimer 2010
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