CRAFTS for HOLIDAY

We are so thankful for the care that my MIL gets.  She is in a home that the staff are so caring and just love her.  The environment is very personal with a small number of residents in each unit so she has a living space outside of her room with a TV.  There is another area furnished with couches and chairs that has windows all the way around it so they can see outside or if you aren't fighting COVID you could walk outside into a courtyard.

My favorite thing to see that they offer is the ongoing number of crafts they provide for the residents.  My MIL loves to do "crafts" and back in the day was quite the seamstress.  She would decorate for Christmas by making a lot of her own decorations before we had Pinterest and Etsy!

Here is a picture of her around Thanksgiving doing one of her crafts.  She is on the right:

COVID Crazy

The COVID19 pandemic still has a hold on us!  It has been like no other world event any of our generation has ever witnessed.  Since March it has been a roller-coaster of lock-downs and "cant's".

The saddest thing this pandemic has done is to isolate already isolated people.  My MIL is at a memory care home that has done a fantastic job of keeping their residents safe and healthy from this virus.  The sad part of that is they haven't allowed visitors unless you get tested (more recent strategy) or can demonstrate you have had the vaccine.

But from March up until November 2020 you were not allowed to visit or bring anything from the outside.  My MIL had a birthday in July and we couldn't take her present to her.  She got it in December.  We have been able to talk to her through a window while we are on a cell phone and she is on the home's phone.  In two separate visits we had out daughters and grandchildren go with us to see her.  We sat outside and tried to communicate with her through the glass window.  (not opened)  My MIL did not understand and could not connect the phone conversation with the people standing outside her window.

For the first time when we visited her in December she did not know our names.  She just could not recall them as she normally does.  She called my husband her son and referred to me as his wife.  It was very hard to hear and see that.

Our daughters went with us in December so we could take her presents and sat with us on the proverbial bench to talk to her.  My MIL can be quite funny and of course the confusion she was having caused her to say some of her classic lines.  This would get her granddaughters to laughing and the laughs would turn into tears.  That pretty much sums it up---you have to laugh to keep from crying when you see how her mind is slipping further and further away.

When we left our daughters told us that was cruel to do that kind of a visit with someone suffering from Alzheimer's and urged that we think that through before doing it again. We are hopeful that in 2021 we will turn the corner on the virus and return to face to face visits.  They need that human interaction---we all do!