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Almost two years and the dreaded visit is now over. Seems in spite of the many of my reasons for not wanting to go, it was a good visit after all. I had been fairly well prepped on the condition and situation with Mom, so it didn't seem to hurt as much as I thought it would. Much of my nervous anticipation had to do more with my previous visit. At that time, Mom was on some rather powerful drugs, including Haldol, a drug that is prescribed to paranoid schizophrenics to control hallucinations. Unfortunately in her case, it appeared they were causing hallucinations instead. That visit was absolutely the worst, and this one was mild in comparison.

I knew she would not know who I was and was mentally prepared for that. What really surprised me the most was how much she was able to remember. On my first visit, Tuesday afternoon, she was in bed and not fully awake, but the nursing aid put her glasses on and she answered many of the questions Dad asked her. He held up fingers and asked her how many. He asked her if she could see us clearly and she responded that she did. Then he asked her to spell clear and she did, both in English and Portuguese. Then he threw a few basic arithmetic questions at her which she also responded correctly to.

Her long term memory is still fairly intact with the exception of knowing who her children are. I asked her if she remembered Madgi. Madgi was a family servant, her nanny, when she was a child and was still with the family even when I visited Brazil the summer I was 14. Not only did she tell us about Madgi, but her husband, and the name of the cook. She mentioned her cousin Gilda and Gilda's husband, Abel. Of course, she does recognize Dad.

What a difference in how he treats her now that she is in a nursing home. Dad is kind of a controlling type, one of the reasons I am so glad I do not owe him any money. I never visited them often after I left home, mostly because I hated the way he talked to her like she was a child and not like she was his wife. Don't get me wrong, Mom could dish it back too, which is probably why that marriage has lasted 63 years. They played off each other, but there was always stress. As a result, three of us are controlling, and two of us are mellow.

Seeing him being sweet to her now that she is not living with him is refreshing. He misses her, a lot more than I thought he would. He has always been somewhat of a loner, and now that he is seeing all of his friends die off, he is becoming more of a loner. Thank God for my brother who lives next door and keeps an eye on him. For all we know, he could drop dead and nobody would discover him for days.

Without a doubt, nursing homes are depressing. My Thursday visit was better. She was not in bed, and we took her out on the patio and talked. She actually couldn't stop talking. Not that you could make much sense of what she was talking about, but they were whole sentences. After that, we went into the cafeteria where there was some man leading the group in songs from when these folks grew up. The smiles were infectious.

Oh yeah, almost forgot, the other reason I didn't want to go never came up the entire time I was there. Perhaps Dad finally got the hint that my weight issues are between me and my doctor. All in all, not a bad trip, even if it is the last visit, I will have a pleasant memory of my Mom this time.