Wait on This

In the past few weeks I've been to Florida and back twice. First to locate an assisted living facility for mom and then a week later to pack her up and move her in. Mom is now happily settled in her new digs, and she and Maxie are enjoying their patio and the beautiful butterfly garden it overlooks. 

When my mom was better able to manage her life she was meticulous with the organization of her bills. Sadly when her mind started to fade she just saved everything regardless of importance...it took four trash bags to go through her desk alone. As I dug deeper and deeper into those packed desk drawers it became clearer that mom's mind had been fuzzy far longer than we realized.

Amongst the piles of receipts, expired grocery coupons and late bill notices were numerous little spiral note pads and post-it notes scribbled with the everyday details of her life...dates of various appointments, birthday and anniversary reminders and details of phone conversations with everyone from the car mechanic and her friends, to her children. One notebook contained an account of my dad's last stay in the hospital. A torn calendar page from May 2nd held the note my mom wrote to herself the night daddy died.

Tucked away in an envelope in the far reaches of a drawer I found an envelope marked Wait on This.  Inside were the gold pearl earrings my dad gave my mom on their wedding day. I'm pretty sure mom intended to have them made into earrings for pierced ears when she had a little extra money. That same drawer also held a copy of my parent's wedding vows and a beautiful photo of my mom at age 16.

When we left her there that first night I cried all the way to the car wondering if we'd done the right thing.

Now that she's safe and happy it's clear this was the only thing to do.