Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Liberty Mutual NEEDS to STOP Calling My Mom


          Mom has been tested for Alzheimer’s at least twice.  We’ve been told that she doesn’t have it. But she does have some form of dementia.  A distorted memory loss.  Some days she’s been there, others she has not.  For the most part it seems she’s been elsewhere – first on exotic vacations and then sharing her childhood and teenage years in San Francisco.   She just didn’t seem to be anywhere today. 

          She was just finishing the dishes when she let me inside.  I greeted her and asked if she had taken her blood.  She had to process the information as she always does when I ask the question.  She said she hadn’t.  I then asked her if she’d eaten breakfast.  She said she had.  And so I told her that we’d have to wait in order to get a proper reading.  She looked at me with childish eyes and confessed that she had forgotten how. 

          She said that she needed to go to the store.  She said that she wanted to purchase some cough drops – a large bag of them.  I took her to Sam’s Club as they sell items in bulk and would have more cough drops offered in their packaging than the regular stores.

          The mail usually doesn’t come until I’m just about to leave – or when I’m pulling out of the driveway.  But today it was early.  Very early.  I guess because of having had off Veteran’s Day yesterday?  What a boatload of mail, too.

          Mom dismissed herself to go to the bathroom, and I hurriedly fingered through the mail and pulled out mail from various charities and Capitol One and set them aside to go through later to make certain it really was all junk.  It was. 

          Corey received five pieces of mail.  I’m certain that two of those could have been trashed as well.  But mom insisted he needed it all and we ended up going to the post office as she’d put it all in a large manila envelope.  Note to self:  make up labels to give to mom so that she can just forward Corey’s mail without having to pay for it.  Even after I show her, she could still forget why she has all these labels with Corey’s name and address.

          We drove passed the school that my sibs and I had all attended.  Mom says, “There is the school that I went to . . . that’s probably the same one that you went to.”

          “Yes.  I went to that school.”  She didn’t.  Not as a student anyway.  It wasn’t even built until 35 years after she was born.

         We were going through Taboo cards trying to get each other to guess the words on our cards.  I explained how to play it a few times. Each time she would answer the phone  I would have to re-explain.  

         One of the calls that she received was from Liberty Mutual.  According to her, they call on a weekly basis.  It is never a human being.  It is always a machine asking to press this number or that number.  Why doesn't she just hang up on them?  What is Liberty Mutual thinking to have a machine call their clients?  How many of those clients are capable of pushing the correct numbered button? 

         Mom showed me her supply that came from Liberty Mutual.  She's set for a while.  They don't need to call every day or every week or every month.  She's good.  Seriously.  She isn't in the right frame of mind or patience to be pushing buttons.

          We finished the puzzle book that she and Kayla had started.  And so we left the house again to purchase some puzzle book replacements. They seem to be helping.

          We had started the third puzzle when I excused myself to return home.  She seemed disappointed.  But expressed gratitude for having had come. I needed that.

          I want my mom back.

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