Dinner with Mother

Once each month, the Pioneer Home holds what they call a “Festive Dinner” where each resident gets to invite their family to come eat with them. They typically are a themed dinner, so this month’s decorations were all green leprechauns and four-leaf clovers.

Bryan and I arrived to find mother seated at a table with our places reserved beside her. She was happy and chatty, although I must admit that she did not make much sense. Her sentences were fractured and disjointed, and I never could quite figure out what year she was present in. She did keep asking about her car and wanted me to take her to go see Hank about getting a new one. She also mentioned several times that all her jewelry had been lost (she did not bring any of that with her when she moved for fear of losing it all). But overall, I think she had a good time.

Dinner consisted of Corned Beef with Cabbage and Potatoes. A few pieces of “bangers” on the side to add some more Irish flavor to the plate. Mother did not eat a whole lot, but I snuck my beef onto her plate, and she ate it all. Desert was a choice of Carrot Cake, a Cup Cake (I don’t know what flavor) or a piece of Grasshopper Pie. Mother and I chose the pie while Bryan had the carrot cake.

The music was, of course, Irish – and we listened to that for a good hour and a half while eating. There were three ladies up on stage, one playing an base guitar, one playing a dulcimer, and the other playing either a violin or a banjo. The music was quite good – the singing, not so much. Still, mother really enjoyed it.

Eventually we walked her back to her room and said goodbye. It’s so hard to walk away from her each time I visit. She never wants you to go and always follows you, no matter how many times you tell her she needs to stay.

Here is her room, by the way. She has a lot of space, with pictures up on the wall and everything. She says she is happy there and does not want for anything more. I think Kelly is working on getting her a nice comfy chair, though. She will be able to take naps on it while looking out her window.