my mom died.

It’s still hard. 

I still miss her horrible. 

I still think of her every day and I still wish I could talk to her just one more time.

There are things I wish I would have told her, questions I wished I would have asked..

Now?

They’ll go unsaid…..unasked. 

She wasn’t the best mom and sometimes I thought she was the worst.

I wasn’t the best daughter and sometimes I think I was the worst.

But, that’s not what this story is about.

This story is about THE BEST GRANDMA, ever.

And, it begins on a swing, in my backyard about 12 years ago.

…………………….

It was early summer, 2007 and my daughter Melissa had stopped by, she wanted to talk to me about “something.”

We went outside on the patio and sat on the swing.

I could see she was nervous.

My mind began to conjure up scary thoughts.

What the heck was she gonna tell me?

Was she seriously ill?

Was she getting a divorce?

Was she moving far away?

She stuttered and stammered and finally blurted it out.

“Mom, I’ve never, ever gone against your wishes, I’ve always believed in you and I know you’re not gonna like this but I’m doing it anyways.

I’m doing it because in my heart I know it’s the right thing to do.

Grandma is all alone. 

She needs us.  

I’m going to Michigan to get her and bring her back to California to live.”

I was close to horrified. 

I had no idea what she wanted to talk to me about but this was the furthest from my mind.

…………………….

I fell apart that day, right there on the swing.  

I cried and I begged but she stood firm.

Within a week, I was taking anti-depressants and Melissa was planning her trip to Michigan to bring her Grandma to California.

I tried to talk to her, to change her mind.

She had been my most obedient child.

But this was a woman I was dealing with.

I could see the horrible pain in her eyes, revealing how hard her decision was for her to make but I could also see she believed in what she was doing enough to look away from my tears and not give in to my begging.

I tried to argue that her heart was in the right place and although it was her idea, in the end, it would all fall on me.  

All the care and responsibility of my 85 year old mother would be mine, no matter what she said, I knew in my heart and head that’s where this would go.

…………………….

I had a full life. 

I had a job that I commuted to 5 days a week, an hour each way.  

I had a marriage that was better than I could ever have dreamed up, and it was all gonna come tumbling down.

This all may sound horrible selfish of me and it’s nothing I want to even TRY to explain in this story, that would take a volume of books.

Hopefully it’s enough to say that my childhood was pretty much a never-ending nightmare of physical and emotional pain and abuse.

It took me a long time as an adult to deal with what I’d endured as a child.

There was a long period of time when I had no contact with my mom at all.

I needed the distance.

I knew it hurt her and I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to handle it better but it was all I knew how to do at the time.  

Therapy helped me put it all away and I was able to apologize to my mom for any hurt my absence had caused but we weren’t close. 

I didn’t need her in my life. 

I didn’t want her in my life.

An obligatry phone call every week was enough.

I probably wouldn’t ever forget, but it was in the past and the life I was living currently was full of love and happiness, everything I’d dreamed of when I was a little girl trapped.

I felt resentful. 

When she was young and strong, I was abused. 

I still have the scars.

Now she was old and in obvious need.

…………………….

She’d been living alone in her apartment since her husband died the year before.

When I spoke with her on the phone, I could tell she shouldn’t be living alone.

I tried to convince her it was time for her to move somewhere that she’d be closer to family and friends.

There was a great senior-living complex adjacent to her church, a block away.

Her two sisters, sisters-in-law and many friends lived there.

I had offered to come and help her make the move but each time, she refused.

Now Melissa wanted to bring her to California.

……………………..

I kept trying to reason with Melissa.

Where was she going to live? 

Did she have any money?

How much could she afford?  

What were her medical problems? 

Her medications? 

Questions ran through my head all day.

Worries and bad scenarios kept me up at night pacing the floor, crying, waiting for the anti-depressant to kick in.

Melissa had no answers other than it would all work out.

That didn’t do it, wasn’t reassuring to me.

I knew it was going to end up my problem no matter what she was saying so I knew I had to pull myself together and accept the nightmare I was facing.

…………………….

First problem….. where would she live?  

She was fairly independent, but shouldn’t live alone. 

Melissa had compiled a list of 12 Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly in our area. 

We went to each one, spoke with the administrator and the Director of Nursing, toured the buildings and randomly asked questions of the residents.

We did two-a-day and then had to decide.

When we put it all together, we chose the middle price and the closest to our homes but the major reason was we really liked the administrator.  

She left us feeling that my mom would be happy and safe there.

A one bedroom independent-living apartment was going to be open the week my mom was scheduled to arrive.

Between her social security and a small pension, I knew she could live there for at least two years.

That was short term.

I hadn’t thought past that and I wasn’t ready to.

Next…..her stuff.  

Melissa contacted a few moving organizations.  

She took the lowest price, quite a bit lower than the rest and it made me a bit suspicious.

For the cost of the moving van I thought a better idea was to donate her furniture, it was old and not in good shape and buy all new in California but I wasn’t running that show.

…………………….

Melissa flew to Michigan a week before Lobo and I did and by the time we arrived, the hard work was done. 

She had met with my mom’s doctor, had copies of all her medical records and had refilled all her prescriptions so she’d have enough to get her through until she was established with a new doctor. 

She’d taken her to say good-bye to both her sisters.

A scene Melissa said was heartbreaking.

My mom was fairly healthy, but she needed a cane to walk.

She’d been plagued with Lymphedema of both legs since she was in her fifties. 

Her legs looked like they weighed 60 pounds each. 

It had to take an amazing amount of strength to lift them one in front of the other to walk but she did it.

And they hurt.

I can’t ever remember my moms legs not hurting but she just kept going. 

She had a motorized scooter but rarely used it.

……………………..

My mom’s neighbor had an adorable Yorkshire Terrier puppy…..Melissa’s weakness.  

Melissa and the puppy fell in love.

And she was beyond ecstatic when the woman explained she couldn’t keep him and would Melissa like to take him home with her?

In a flash, Melissa made the flight prepartions then bought a new carrier for him along with blankie, toys and food. 

She was on Cloud Nine.

……………………

The moving van didn’t show up on the agreed upon day…..the day before we were flying out.

Melissa got the royal run-around when she contacted the company.

They promised to be there first thing the next morning.

They weren’t!

…………………….

Panic time. 

We were flying out that afternoon and my mom’s stuff was sitting in her apartment all boxed up with no moving company to move it.

Luckily, Melissa found another company but they couldn’t come to load up until after we were in flight. 

She also called the airport to double check the puppy’s reservation and was told no pets allowed on the flight.  

Somehow there had been some misinformation about flying with pets.

We had no time left, we had to leave for the airport.

Heartbroken, Melissa gave the puppy back. 

I mean heart BROKEN!

And Beg, our friend from forever, came to the apartment and waited for the van to arrive, load and then be gone. (Thanks again, Beg.)

…………………….

I was disgusted with the way the airport inspector at the gate waved that wand all over my mom checking for what? a rifle?

He even made her stand up from her scooter.

I got through easier than my mom did, for crap sake.

Getting her scooter loaded was also a little nerve wracking but it got done. 

It all moved fast….. the gate, the scooter, loading on to the plane, take off from Michigan and landing in California.

And then…..we were home. 

…………………….

My mom spent the first night with us and it worked out OK.

She was thrilled to be in California with us but at the same time, I could also see how scared she was.  

This was all so new, so much and damn….. she was 85 years old!

I felt sorry for her and I wished things had been different so that living with us could have been an option.

But, it wasn’t.

I think my husband, who adored me…..would have left!

…………………….

Melissa arrived in the afternoon and the three of us went to look at her new home.  

Shortly after my mom spoke with the administrator, toured the facility and saw her apartment she became alive with excitement.

Her furniture wasn’t expected to arrive for 5 days but the administrator offered her a furnished room to stay in until her van arrived.  

My mom was over the top excited and stayed from that day on.

It was dinner time when we said good bye.  

She was in her scooter.  

We watched her drive it into the dining room and bump into a couple tables.

She was scared and nervous.

We felt so sad and sorry for her.

Melissa and I walked to the car with tears in our eyes.

…………………….

Her furniture arrived.  

She didn’t like the way it looked in her adorable little apartment and wanted it all thrown out!!!

Melissa, one of the worlds greatest shoppers, complied and when she was done, all the old stuff was gone and everything in her apartment was new with an Ocean/Palm Tree theme.  

…………………….

The day after my mom moved into her apartment, the administrator paid us a visit to let us know she had resigned! 

To say we were bummed, didn’t cover it.

She knew she’d been the biggest reason why we’d chosen that facility and she must have known at the time we were signing the lease that she was leaving.

But, my mom was happy and loved everything.

She sat out on her patio and fed the birds and watched the flowers grow.

She met friends quickly, joined groups, took bus trips and was having a good life.

…………………….

My daughter Julie, along with Melissa and me became a team.  

We established her with a doc whom I’d known from working ER.  

I became her seamstress, making slacks that fit her legs.

I became her nurse, making sure she took her medication every day as she was suppose to.

I became her chaueffeur, making sure she got out once or twice a week for lunch or just a wheelchair push in the mall.

I became her cook when she got hungry for something homemade.

I became her baker when her sweet tooth needed some chocolate.

 

…………………….

As I’ve already mentioned, she was the best grandma ever.

She bonded with my girls from their beginning and made herself an important part of their lives.

They loved her greater than any words I know to say.

She stopped by almost every day on her way home from work and when my girls saw that green car in the drive-way, I could hear them from down the block…..”Grandma’s here,” and they’d come runnin’ with big hugs and kisses for her.

She was the one who drove downtown Detroit by herself to purchase Shawn Cassidy tickets for 4 teeny boppin’ girls.

She’s the one who toured spook houses with them at Halloween time and went down slides out of the second story windows.

She’s the one who created The Fairy Princess and would leave magical gifts in their rooms for them when they weren’t around to know it was her.

She’s the one who kept one girl with one friend every Friday night for an all nighter for many years.

She really was the best grandma.

She adored each one of them and they adored her back and they loved having her in California and near.

…………………….

I think she had a chip inserted in her finger so all she had to do was pick up her phone and it called one of us.

We all lived within minutes of her so we were never too far away.

At least one of us spent time with her every day.

My other daughters and grandkids also visited, she always had lots of company…..family. 

She loved spending time with everyone, but sometimes she was so busy we’d have to search the facility to find her.  

She had a genuine interest in each one of us…..wanted to know everything about what was going on in our lives.

My girls confided in her.  

They trusted her. 

She kept their secrets.

She gave them wise advice.

We played board games with her, took walks and talked and laughed lots. 

We were all involved with her community.

We often ate lunch with her, attended all the facility functions, played Bingo once a week, met all her friends and much more.

A few months after she arrived, I had no choice but to quit working.

I was becoming exhausted trying to work full time and be at my moms beck and call whenever.

……………………

Holidays had always been a big deal to my mom.

She had boxes on top of boxes loaded with decorations.

If it was a holiday, she had decorations for it.

Her complex held contests.

With the help of Melissa, (lots and lots of help!), she won the Christmas apartment decorating contest her first year there.    

…………………….

Before long, she was doing so much walking around that she needed the help of a walker.

Eventually she became more dependent on her scooter and….. she was a horrid driver!

She drove her scooter just like she’d driven her little green car many years before…..reckless and much too fast!  

We were forever patching up “little bumps” as she called them, in her apartment walls and doors.  

…………………….

In the beginning we were able to transport her everywhere ourselves with her transport chair fitting in our trunks but after she began to use her scooter, we had to find a different form of transportation.

We tried 3 different van-transport companies and my mom picked the one she felt most comfortable with.  

Those drivers became like family to us.  

They were our life-savers…..our expensive life savers!

But thanks to them, she was able to attend every family gathering and we had lots; birthdays, holidays and warm summer Sunday barbecues.

…………………….

The new administrator and Director of Nursing were hired at the same time.

They seemed nice enough.

What I thought was a bonus was that the new D.O.N. was going to live on the third floor of the facility.  

It made me feel safe.

An RN was going to be there 24/7.

They quickly realized we were a very involved family and we all kept close tabs on my mom.

We thought they treated her like a queen.

The D.O.N. wanted to take responsibity for my mom’s medications and administer them to her.

I wasn’t ready for that.  

I kept her drugs in a locked box and she and I had a good system that worked for when and how she took her medications. 

…………………….

When my mom got sick, it was usually urinary tract infections.  

I’d bring her to our house until the antibiotics kicked in and she felt better.

She’d never been real fond of dogs but there was something special between her and our Terrier, Mr Lincoln.

When she’d stay at our house ill, Mr Lincoln would barely leave her side.

He’d sit next to her on the recling love-seat with his two front furry paws and his head on her lap, all day. 

I slept on the floor next to her in our spare bedroom at nighttime.

Between Mr Lincoln and me, she was never alone.

…………………….

Before long, my mom really was the Queen of the entire facility.

Everybody loved her!

When the sales person brought in potential residents, one of the things they did, was schedule them for lunch with my mom.

She closed the deal every time.

They even made her business cards which labeled her their Ambassador.

Mary Lou was one of my moms favorite friends. 

They were great pair.

Both of them always looked like they were ready for the day; hair fixed, make-up on and  polished nails.

They each had great taste in clothing and they may have been in their 80’s, but they were “with it” and they were funny.   

Teeny, tiny Mary Lou loved to drink wine and laugh.

Many, many nights we wheeled Mary Lou up to her apartment after partying with my mom and our family. 

Melissa and I would lift her up on her bed, put her nightgown on, cover her up, turn off her lights and shut the door. 

But, one day Mary Lou moved away.

All she would tell us is she didn’t like what was going on.

We didn’t know what she meant and we had no reason to complain.

My mom had lots of other friends, but there was only one Mary Lou.

…………………….

One day after about a year, the D.O.N. approached me and suggested  I turn my mom’s medications over to her and let her handle everything and give myself a break.

It sounded good so I turned over the locked box containing her meds and the key. 

…………………….

Within a few months, my mom’s personality began to change.  

She became crabby, even mean.
Whenever she used to thank us for bringing her to California, she’d always say she didn’t know what to do to thank us.

Our answers were always the same…..”just be happy.”

Once she said something so cruel to Melissa that my sweet Lobo got down close to her face and told her if she ever talked to Melissa like that again, it would be the last time she saw any of us.

It was distressing and sad to all of us and we didn’t understand.

…………………….

Early one morning I received a call from the D.O.N. to let me know my mom was in an ambulance on her way to the ER.

I rushed over.

She didn’t look good. 

I was scared.

I didn’t know what was happening.

She was admitted and kept in the hospital for a week.

She went from almost a coma back to my mom in that short time.

The docs couldn’t give a definitive diagnosis as to what happened but we were just happy to have her well again.

We took her home and she continued to improve for a while.

And then strange things began to happen.  

My mom would tell me that Marlene, the D.O.N. was giving her the wrong pills.

I had made my mom real aware of what pills she took, why and when and she maintained Marlene was giving her the wrong pills.

I talked to Marlene about it and she explained that, as anyone who takes regular pills knows, sometimes a different pharmaceutical supplies the pills and they look different but they’re the same thing.

I was good with that and explained it to my mom.

Time went on and my mom again began to fail.  

We all saw it.

She began talking to Walt, her husband who had died the year before she moved to California and would be puzzled when we’d tell her we didn’t see him.

She also started telling us that someone was coming into her room at nighttime with a ski mask on and standing at the foot of her bed staring at her.

Julie and Melissa became hyper-concerned about what their grandma was telling them. 

They believed every crazy thing she was telling them and practically begged me to “do something.”

I saw her picking at invisible things in the air, talking to her dead husband and sister and seeing people in her apartment who weren’t really there.

I discussed it with Marlene and we decided it was dementia taking over my moms thought process.

I tried to convince my girls but nope, they believed their grandma and “something strange was going on,” and I should DO SOMETHING!

One morning she woke up to find that Walt’s ring which she wore on a chain around her neck was gone. 

I mean she NEVER took that chain off, never, not even for showers.

Someone MUST have taken that chain off of her neck.

I reported the incident to the administrator and the D.O.N.

They both said they’d look into it but both thought my mom took it off and lost it.

I didn’t believe that.

Not for a minute.

Shortly after that happening, my mom called me over to show me a large muddy footprint on the rug at the foot of her bed. 

I didn’t know what to think.

I told Julie and Missy about it.

We began to wonder about everything that seemed to be happening.

 “Mom, you gotta do something.”

I couldn’t think.

What was going on?

And then she got ill again.  

We took her back to the ER and after examining her, the doc could find nothing really wrong.  

He told us that her medication just wasn’t working for her anymore and we should take her home because her body was dying.

We took her home, a priest came and gave her the Last Sacrament.

Our hearts were broken.

We all said good bye.  

It was horrible.

Julie and Bob held Bobby up to her and that sweet baby said, “Good Bye Great-Grandma, I love you.”

Bobby was probably my mom’s favorite.

He loved going to great grandma’s.  

She had a drawer in her living room table where she kept treats just for Bobby.

Julie, Melissa and I barely left her. 

Marlene wasn’t happy about it but I took over her medications and I’ll be damned…..she got better!

She continued to improve for a few months, I gave the medication responsiblity back to Marlene and then it happened again.

Back to the ER.

They gave her some IV Fluids in the ER and put her back on an ambulance and sent her home.

The ER doc did suggest that she was no longer able to live independently and should be put in an assisted living situation.

I spoke with Mary, the administrator that afternoon about my mom becoming assisted living.  

Marlene was included in the meeting.

The rate per month was going to go up quite a bit.

I couldn’t think.

I remember crying and saying, “we don’t have enough money for another year at this rate.”

I’ve never forgotten her answer.

She glanced at Marlene, then me and said, “don’t worry about it, your mom’s not gonna live another year.”

Now…..my nurse brain knows that an administrator does not have super-powers to predict how long someone was going to live but, I wasn’t being a nurse, I was being a daughter, a worried, scared daughter.

“How do you know that?” I wanted to know.

“I just know” was all she said.

Julie and Melissa had rushed back to the facility and arrived just as the ambulance was unloading my mom.

By that time, Marlene was standing at the elevator door, blocking their ability to get on.

Marlene told them they were NOT going to go with their grandma to her room.  

She needed to rest.

Something happened at that moment. 

They began to put the puzzle together and decided that Marlene was the missing piece.

They’d been suggesting to me lately that something strange was going on.  

They tried to get me to complain to the home office. 

They wanted me to ask for an investigation and I kept asking them…..”investigate WHAT”?

All they could answer was, “Mom, something’s very wrong here. It’s Marlene, we don’t trust her.”

Never mind that I had told them to lighten up a bit, Marlene would take good care of their grandma, after all….she was an RN.

Never mind that my sweet man took them both into a back bedroom and told them to back off they were making me a nervous wreck.

Never mind that both my siblings had sent them messages to mind their own business.

They had decided between the two of them that no matter what…..they were going to pursue because something stunk. 

They made sure that Marlene and the administrator saw them at my  mom’s every day.

……………………..

There were two horrible phone conversations during that time.  

One was between one of my siblings and the administrator. 

The administrator said some horrible things to my sibling about my family.

Things insinuating that none of us really cared about my mom.

The next conversation was to my oldest daughter.  

The administrator told my daughter that she and the D.O.N. had reason to believe that Melissa and I were trying to kill my mom, so they were watching us carefully!!!!!!

Why on EARTH would the administrator say those things?

I began feeling like I was in a horrible Alfred Hitchcock movie.

My girls had been right.

Something stunk!

Before I could gather my thoughts to confront the administrator, there was another trip to the ER.

This time my mom had suffered a small stroke and she was going to require skilled nursing.

…………………….

Social Services helped us find a Skilled Nursing Facility and she was transferred.

She was put in a lovely private room and her rehabilitation began.

She worked so hard at getting her speech back and she did it.

She never came all the way back but enough that she was my mom again.

We knew she wouldn’t be returning to her lovely little independent apartment and we knew we had to vacate it.

It was hard.  

She loved her apartment, everything inside of it and her life there. Everything was changing.

……………………

Julie and Melissa were STILL positive something bad had happened to my mom while living there and they weren’t letting go and then….. there it was.

One afternoon while coming down the staircase from her apartment, we saw Marlene.  

She was walking out of the facility with a police officer on each side of her.  

They put her into a police car and…..she was in handcuffs!

The administrator was nowhere to be seen.

We looked around.

Some of the employees were standing, watching.

“What the heck is going on?”, we wanted to know.

They began to talk…..

One of the aides had seen Marlene stealing and taking residents pain medications for herself.

Actually swallowing pain prescriptions that belonged to geriatric patients who were living in constant pain, like my mom.

Aging people who trusted her!

She was a thief and she let them live in pain to feed her drug addiction!!

She’d also been seen giving prescriptions written for one residents to another.

I thought of my mom telling me that Marlene was giving her the wrong meds.

I’d believed an addict over my mom. I felt sick to my stomach…..horrible.

And in a heartbeat, it all made sense.

My mom had been complaining for about 6 months that her pain meds weren’t working any longer.  

I’d even taken her to the doc and had the dosage increased.

The hallucinations were from being given the wrong medications.

Who the hell knows what she’d been given?

I wanted to break into that police car and POUND THE HELL out of her.  

I had trusted her.

SHE and the administrator were letting my mom die!

…………………….

All hell broke loose!

TV cameras arrived, we voted Julie to be our spokesperson and she did a great job.

She told our story, laced with anger and it was front page in our local papers.

……………………..

It turns out, we weren’t the only family this had happened to.

Others had been going through the same thing at the same time, we just didn’t know them enough to trade information.

There were two residents who died.

Their families had no reason of understanding why.

…………………….

There was a court trial.

My mom insisted on going each time.  

Every time she saw Marlene, she screamed at her from her scooter, “YOU DID THIS TO ME, YOU DID THIS TO ME, YOU DID THIS TO ME!”

The judge never slammed his gavel at my mom’s yelling.

I appreciated that.

She NEEDED to yell and he allowed it to happen.

…………………….

When it was over, Marlene lost her RN license forever, and was sent to jail for ten months.

The administrator disappeared and no one ever found her.

What we learned during Marlene’s trial was she and the administrator had worked together previously in southern California and both had been fired under unusual circumstances.  

They were a team!

We also learned that the facility where my mom lived did not thoroughly check either of them before hiring them.  

I was convinced that had they been more diligent in checking, neither of them would have been hired.

The nightmare they put so many good people through would not have happened.

It angered me and because of this, I agreed to be involved in a 4-family lawsuit against the Residential Care Facility for the Elderly.

……………………..

It wasn’t long before we found ourselves sitting in a beautiful building downtown San Francisco in mediation.  

I was uncomfortable with the process, I’m not a lawsuit person. 

Julie and Melissa were my strength. 

My mom’s attorney was a caring, gentle young man and he really did all the work.  

We told my mom’s story and answered his questions but he did the rest.

…………………….

At the end of the day, we signed a document swearing to never disclose the amount of the settlement.

…………………….

The day that check arrived, was the day I told my mom that she was going to be financially comfortable for the rest of her life and she could have whatever she wanted.

My goal was to spend every bit of that money on her and have a zero balance the day she left this planet.

We took her shopping.  

She loved nice clothes.  

There was one “rule.”

She was not allowed to look at the price tag.

If she liked it…..we bought it.

We took her to the Macy’s cosmetic counter and she bought the best of everything she wanted…..creams and make-ups she could never before afford.

All of a sudden, she could!

We took her to a near-by salon every week for hair, nails, eyebrows…..whatever she wanted and when she didn’t feel like going to the salon, they came to her!   

We had 2 pair of custom shoes made for her.

She hadn’t been able to wear shoes for a year because of the Lymphedema swelling.

Whenever she wanted to come to our houses to visit, we called the transport van and they brought her and later picked her up and took her home.

She had a big TV in her room and we were even able to bring in a few of her favorite pieces of furniture.

We made it all as comfortable for her as we could but still, her life was badly altered because of the monster who hid behind an RN badge.

My family continued to rally around my mom and we made the best of everything that happened in the Skilled Nursing Facility but…..

that’s another story………..

I will add here that if you’re curious, you can look her up on your Search Engines.  

There’s at least half a dozen stories about MARLENE DELP, the woman who did this to my mom.

In the line of photos, she’s the one with she short, white, spiked hair.