Roses For Valentine's Day

  I ran into town today and we ended up at Walmart. As we walked in I told Phebe that with the weather being warmer and the fact that we were there by ourselves without any kids to watch out for the temptation to spend money would be greater. Kind of like you feel like celebrating for some reason.

   So I told her, "Now don't let me spend money in here on anything that is not on my list" She laughed and committed to at least trying to stop me. Now I am not a big spender usually. But I know the feeling when I really feel like I could :) I learned from Grandma Kropf how not to spend money. You just don't do it. You don't buy stuff you don't need.

   But of course we had to walk right past the men's clearance sale. Everything is on sale there and Steve and the boys badly needed new dress shirts. So yes I did buy one for each of them. We walked on.....the women department has clearance sales too! I stopped, I looked, I longed after a sweater which thankfully was a size to small or I probably wouldn't have resisted. But I walked out of there with nothing!

  I took a quick run past the coffee hoping they had organic, which they didn't, so I was delivered from that temptation right away....no stress!

  We breezed past the Valentine's Day candy but it was so picked over and no dark chocolate, so who really cares. Then would you believe, I was so unprepared for this. I came upon a whole table full of marked down roses! So beautiful! I was so drawn to them. Phebe mentioned that she wasn't doing well at keeping me on task and I told her I was thinking of Grandma and her "Awww! Grandma loves roses" was my undoing. I bought them....and I am so glad I did.

  Mom loved them!

 I knew she likes to hold her flowers so I pulled just one out for her , she held it and looked at it and sometimes she would get a little smile. I liked that.

  Before I left though I traded the rose for a super soft Teddy Bear she has there, because I don't want to leave her alone with a rose. I'm not sure what she will do with it and I don't want her to eat it.

 She held the bear and padded and stroked it. She really liked that too. She likes to feel the softness and that bear is incredibly soft.

  I left before Dad came in, he said he is changing his visiting pattern a little because they want him to feed her in her room. Something about she sticks her tongue out when she eats and they think she is biting it. Dad said someone is coming in to check it out.

Visiting Mom Yesterday

   Angie called me yesterday, right before lunch, and said she was planning to visit mom. Would I like to go too?

   I thought it was a great idea since I needed to take Isaiah to his piano lesson anyway, we would go there first.

  I have been taking Isaiah for piano lessons for the past six months now because he plays by ear and I thought it would be good for him to learn to read music.

I think he is learning. At least I hope he is. He says his teacher likes his music. More often than not though I see him listening to a song and then playing it without music in front of him.

His teacher likes for him to play a new song for her every week. He said she corrected him on his song yesterday where he was playing it wrong at one place. I guess his ears messed up.

  So be that as it may be. I just trust his teacher. If she allows him to play that way I figure she knows what she is doing. She is 85 years old. She seems to be in good health. Maybe teaching and playing piano keeps her mind in good working order.

Mom is 85. I wish she was playing and teaching piano.

When we got there yesterday she was still in the dining room. She had just finished with lunch so we took her back to her room. She was in a happy frame of mind. She was so delighted to see Isaiah. She would just beam with joy and smile whenever she looked at him.

I'm not sure if he is Isaiah in her mind or not. He could be Lucas or Marc to her. He has grown a lot this past year and could look more like his older brothers to her than the little boy he was 4 years ago, when she would have known without a doubt who he was.

We were remembering yesterday that it was 4 years ago that Dad was at Mayo lying at death's door and the Doctors were telling us he would be going to a nursing home, if he ever left the hospital alive at all. They said we must prepare for a new normal. At the very best he would be on a feeding tube.

  They were right about one thing. He isn't the same. He walks with a stoop and is a lot thinner and older. But they were wrong about his quality of life. He is very self sufficient. Basically we clean his house, do his laundry and provide meals in a hit or miss fashion.

When I went to clean his house on Sat. I freaked out a little. I saw his sidewalk was way too icy. When I left it was almost dark and he wasn't home from seeing mom yet. I thought about how horrible it would be if he fell in the dark and couldn't make it into the house and no one would know. So later I called Darwin and they got it salted and taken care of.

  When I think of old people, I wonder, why does life center so much around "us"? Old people still matter. They have real lives and real memories. Why do they get " forgotten"? Why do we look at them as "over the hill" or like a lost worn out shoe left under the bed?

My mom is only a shell of her former self, but she can still smile!

My Dad? He is a rare wonder. I love to hear his thoughts and ideas. He has a good understanding of who God is and I could sit and listen to him and Steve talk for hours.

  I think we could learn something from the old Native American culture when it comes to honoring our elders.

The truth is, we are only one or two steps away from being old ourselves.

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