Two Homes

My mom living in her own home presented a challenge between balancing maintenance of her home and her needs with maintaining my own home and the needs of my children and husband. Of course, this isn't unique to having two residences; that challenge has remained constant regardless of where my mom was living. However, I found myself stretched between the two.

During the school year, I would make going to grandma's a "play day" for my daughter. She could play at grandma's while I worked on paying bills and sorting mail.  But I made an awful lot of mistakes during this period of decline, probably because I didn't grasp or I was in denial about what was happening to my mom.

Some things that I wish I would have done differently are:

• I wish I would have hired yard maintenance rather than trying to keep up on it as well as my own
• I wish I would have hired "meals on wheels" to bring in a few healthy meals a week. I did not realize how poor her nutrition had become until a couple months before removing her from her home.
• I wish I had hired someone to help clean her home occasionally.
• I wish that I had helped her record or write her personal history before it became inaccessible in her mind

I realize that not everyone has the means to hire help, but in my mom's case, she could have hired at least some of this help, and it would have helped me to meet the needs of my family and my mom better. 

I involved my children in cleaning and yard care which was a good way for them to serve their grandmother, but I also spent many hours away from them depending on the older kids to watch the younger or depending on my husband to put kids to bed while I helped my mom. There are good lessons learned, but there were also times that my children sacrificed as my time was split. There was no perfect solution and I did the best I could.

My mom was fortunate to have attentive neighbors who would occasionally call if something were off. I will always be grateful for the love and care they showed her.