The Day My Mother Thought She Had Been Shot
Her face contorted in agony, and I knew her distress was real
My mother didn’t like being left alone.
This was one problem I never anticipated, because she lived by herself for more than two decades. She was an independent woman who drove a car until she was 99, so the last thing I expected was that she would freak out when I took a walk.
But dementia does strange things to people. The first time I tried to exercise after moving my mother in with me, my sister called as I was approaching the one-mile mark. “Where are you? You’ve got to get home now!”
I had told Mama I was going for a walk; left her sitting peacefully in her recliner. But according to my sister, our mother was wailing and crying because she didn’t know where I was.
Heart pounding, I cut my walk short and dashed home to reassure her everything was fine. I found her in the recliner, moaning that she couldn’t find me because she thought I had deserted her.
From then on, I took elaborate measures before exercising. I turned my mother’s cell phone off so no one could call and ask where I was, since phone calls reminded her I wasn’t in the room. I made sure she was engrossed in one of her favorite TV shows, then left snacks on the TV tray…
