When my mother first moved to Atria, all
those many years ago, the thing that she hoped most of all was that she
would live to be "hunnert." She thought it would be really cool to
live to 100 and I remember countless discussions about whether or not I
thought she would live to "hunnert."
Today she turned 99 and is only one year from
that goal, but she refuses to believe she's 99 and "won't" be 99. She
has forgotten her goal of "hunnert,"
But we doggedly celebrated her birthday
anyway. And actually by the end of lunch, she was remembering that we
were celebrating her birthday, which was a great surprise. Also, we
went to the main dining room and she actually briefly recognized the woman
she had lunch with every day for 2-3 years.
Ned and I got there early. He, who
thinks of everything to make a party festive, brought stuffed eggs--her
favorite--as an "hors d'oeuvre."
She was also pleased to get a box of
chocolate for a gift.
I had hoped there would be some cards for her
to open since she loves cards so much, but there were none, except the one I
brought (Walt's sister sent one, but to our house and it has not arrived
yet).
Ned decided we should eat in the main dining
room, instead of the memory care dining room, and he walked her down there,
while I followed in my walker.
As I took this, I remembered taking the
exact. same. picture of my cousin walking my aunt down the hall in the
facility where she lived.
Momma didn't remember ever being in the
dining room where she ate 2x daily for 3 years, but she thought it was a
nice place. Ned tried to take the traditional "Grandma birthday"
picture.
It turned out pretty well. Does this
lady look 99?
I tried to get a picture of the table...
By the end of lunch, as I said, she had an
inkling that it was her birthday and I think she enjoyed herself. I
know she enjoyed her birthday ice cream.
No comments:
Post a Comment