Senior Dropouts

My mom just pulled my dad out of day care. That is a sentence I never thought I'd write but it's true. Not because I didn't think she'd yank him out at some point but more just because it's totally weird to be talking matter-of-factly about my dad being in day care.

It was only two days a week but for those two days we knew that he was not falling asleep in his recliner. We knew that he did multiple types of activities and was fed both breakfast and lunch. We don't really know if he liked it because the damn Alzheimer's makes those types of conversations impossible as he says everything is great no matter what you're talking about but can never give any details about what happened that day. But it was two days of non-sedentary action and interaction with other people.

The bus would pick him up in the morning and bring him back in the afternoon. I always wondered about that, about what that bus ride was like. When my mom would walk him down the driveway to meet the bus in the morning, a lot of times he would try to help her onto the bus too and would get a little confused when she didn't join him. She said it was really difficult to do and too difficult to get him up in the mornings and that it took too much out of her to keep this up. Sigh.

But up until this week, I imagined that this bus full of "active seniors" turned into some type of field trip where the seniors started acting like kids on a school bus. The troublemakers would be at the back of the bus, sticking gum under the seats and using curse words. I can't see my dad as a troublemaker at all but I can see him and his seatmate playing one of those stupid car games that are great on road trip. You know, like the license plate one or I Spy. Maybe my dad would check out some of the ladies; he has always been a boob man and I can easily see him trying to cop a feel or at least joking with his friend about the rack on the "girl" a few seats in front of them. I see the bus driver and their helper playing the role of chaperon and tortured school bus driver who keep yelling at those damn kids to shut up and sit down!

Or if it didn't get that raucous, I could easily see it turning into a singalong. My dad still loves to sing and really hams it up in more dramatic moments in a song. Anyway, so they'd get there and then I'm not sure exactly what happens. I know that once they had a luau and my dad had to wear a Hawaiian shirt. I bet on other days they did some sort of chair exercises and maybe a craft. Like summer camp for adults. And I liked the idea that him and his sister weren't too far apart, even though I knew they didn't combine the residents with the day care folks. I can just see them though at their luau, joking and probably eventually trying to get people to join them in a verse or two of "Harvest Moon."

I really don't think the problem with day care was that it was too much for my mom to get him out the door, although I can certainly see that played a part as when he is determined to sleep it is very difficult to get him to agree to do anything besides napping. But I think the main problem is that she can't be away from him. It might seem sweet but its always seemed a bit too extreme for me. I guess because I've always been single but it just seems like way too much togetherness. My ideal husband/boyfriend would live in the house next to me or even better, we would have a hugeass house and live in separate wings so we could have sufficient alone time.

Also, my mom has never been a "joiner" and when my dad retired 23 years ago, I think she became convinced that they should never ever be apart. Dad, on the other hand, used to be a "joiner." He joined the choir, a wood carving class, a cake decorating class, a group that prepared food for the homeless, tried his hand at writing children's book, and plenty of other things. She was less than thrilled at all these activities he did without her but she didn't want to join in. After a while, he dropped pretty much everything except the wood carving.

I know that when my mom is apart from my dad she worries about him and the fact that he can't really tell us about anything he did at day care when he gets back makes her think it's not worth it. I'm trying not to judge her decision too harshly as there's nothing I can really do to convince her otherwise and honestly I can't imagine what she's going through because although this hurts me too, I don't spend every moment with him.

Sometimes she drives me up the wall, with her weekly to monthly proclamations that she is moving to Montana, or telling people that we turned off her water and made her go down to the river with a bucket, or locking me out, or calling me at work with an emergency that turns out to be that they are almost out of hominy. But the truth is, I love that little nut. So I'm going to tamp down the "tough love" part of me that wants to march right over there and tell her to put on her big girl pants and let him spend time away from her. Instead, I'll take a breath, eat some Cinnamon Life cereal (along with Cap'n Crunch, it is my go to dinner when life seems chock full of suck), and plan a vigorous session of chair exercises when I spend Monday with the 'rents.

This is all far heavier than I normally like to post but it's what's in me tonight. Just be glad I didn't get into the fact that my parents still have a book called "Sex in the Great Outdoors" that for some reason persistently ends up displayed rather prominently in their living room. I guess it's not for nothing that there's six of us kids. Gah! Ok, now I want to poke my eyes out which is a sign that I need to call it a night.