Or her and "Holy" in the same sentence, she should be forbidden to even say that word or ever sing that song.
We have a high of 78 today, it's like springtime out there. But come Friday we're supposed to hit a low of 24, and 21 on Saturday with a possibility of snow and ice. We are in the lower end of the area where the ice storm will be sweeping all the way from North Texas up to Pennsylvania. It will be nothing here compared to states north of us. So if you're in it's path, you may want to get ready in case there are power outages.
Oh, it actually has a name, Winter Storm Cleon.
I heard one Dallas forecast say's will be like it was when the Superbowl was here.
My mother in law who was the latter stages of Alzheimer.
Now that is another story of the mystery's of life and God's incredible presence, and how some things just fall into place so perfectly.
Her name was Adilia, and being with her those months before she died was a privilege I'll never forget. She called me her "companion" as I sat with her. She whispered in my ear one night that she liked being babied. She would forget who I was, and I'd show her my wedding ring and she knew me, but would ask who I was married to. She called her son, (my husband) a very handsome man, and why didn't I flirt with him, he seemed like a nice guy and I'd tell her OK , then give him a kiss and she thought she was a good matchmaker. She also was shocked that she was a mother
She had gotten out of her house late one night and fell and thankfully went to a neighbor, and they called us and I took her to the hospital. She was very determined to go home, and asked me to write down her address so she could call for a cab to take her home. I told her no cab driver is gonna pick up an old woman in a hospital gown dragging an IV along with her. That night she put the tv remote in a sock and whacked a nurse with it, thinking they'd kick her out, so she was medically restrained, and I hated it.
They said she needed to be in a nursing home when she was released, and we went looking and found a very nice one,but it wasn't home. I'd go sit with her and get her ready for bed each night, and she'd shuffle to the door to give me a hug ,the Italian kiss on each cheek , a Buona Notte, and watch me walk to the end of the hall and she'd give me a wave before I turned the corner. They said she's sit in a chair all day waiting for me to come., and it was getting harder each time I left her behind.
She tried to escape several times, and did get out of a locked door, twice, that had an alarm, and would beg me each night to take her home, or if I could find her a room to rent with her own bathroom, and I'd walk out and cry. We'd closed up her house, and my daughter had moved back home a few months before, and we are raising our grandson and have four dogs, and her coming home with me wasn't an option.
So one Friday in September , I kept thinking of one of my sisters, and it wouldn't go away. She'd been laid off from Bank America a few years before and her money was getting low, her hospice patient had died the month before, and she had a two bedroom two bathroom townhouse with (Adilia called it the courtyard) a small side yard , so after asking if He was talking to me, I called my sister and asked if she wanted a roommate. With that one phone call things just took off, and she had a room of her own with her own bathroom and we brought her "home, and did hospice for her. I knew she was scared, but wouldn't show it, and I rode in the backseat with her, and told her everything was OK, she'd have what she asked for.
She walked into the house and we showed her around , then she laid down and went to sleep on the sofa in the living room. She slept late into the afternoon, then had dinner (she wouldn't eat at the nursing home) and we put her to bed, and she slept for thirty three hours straight. We had a baby monitor so we could hear her if she needed us, and we'd check on her and see if she'd wake up, and we'd called her doctor who said it was common for Alzheimer patients to sleep for long periods. She settled into her old routine of sleeping late , then a strong cup of coffee and a donut, and we'd watch her favorite movies. She loved James Bond with Sean Connery, and had a dark side for slasher movies (one of her favorites was Motel Hell with Rory Calhoun), and anything Steven King.
I'd do mani-pedi's and she loved when I painted my nails (I'm not a waitress red) , but hers had to be a light pinkish for older ladies she said. We gave her a pair of flannel sleep pants and she took to them like a duck to water, she thought them to be the greatest thing. She called my sister the loud cook and asked why she (my sister) had the room upstairs while hers was downstairs. My sister has cats, and had a large male orange tabby and he'd lay at her feet on the ottoman (not a footstool) and she loved it....until one evening she reached down to pet him and he scratched her and later she asked me if he was special to anyone, I told her she couldn't get rid of the cat. She'd ask if my sister would come to see her and I'd ask which one and she'd tell me " the nice one".
She told me of her life in Italy and how she came to America in 1952 when my husband was two years old. When the army was leaving Trieste they told her that her son was an American and was coming with them, and she could stay behind or come along. She came to America on an Navy ship, and was dumped more or less in New York with a plane ticket to Dallas and she rented a room with a private bath. She was an only child and her parents followed her to Texas several years later. They brought Cesira's (her mother), 1955 Fiat sedan, her father's 1953 Topolino and a new Fiat for her. She gave it to us in 1975 and we called it the "little boot".
She'd tell me of life in Italy before WWll and we'd go through her photo albums of places they'd traveled, and of family and loved ones. There were some of building that had been bombed and piles of rubble in the streets. She said the British had better bombing patterns than the Americans. Her father ran the projector in a theater in the basement of the Catholic Church, and one night a bomb hit the church and killing the Priest and her father said he had brain matter on his shoes. She said she was shamed by a Bishop when she went to the Vatican ( on her honeymoon) because she was wearing sandals and she still held a grudged. Before she could marry she had to have a letter telling of her morals and good reputation. She didn't see her wedding gown until she put it on the morning of her wedding.
Her grandmother had been a maid of Franz Joseph and her father side of the family were the shipbuilder, the Doria's. She loved the internet and that she could see Trieste, and places she'd been. Then there were days that she'd forget many things, names, places and faces. She swear there were wrinkles in her bed and sometimes we'd make the bed three times before she was satisfied. She wanted to try in the clothes in her closet once and kept putting the same thing on as I was hanging something up and I took to throwing it on the other side of the bed so she couldn't see it and want to try it on again.
We made gnocchi and her favorite sauce for the last time in late April and she took to the emergency (hospital bed) bed in her room. She said it was for me and would I ask my husband if I could stay with her some nights. Some days she only spoke Italian. She went into a coma the first of May and died May 19th. She was eighty six years old. I miss her every day.
