Sunday, January 19, 2014

A Dear John letter but not what you might think...

Dear John, I apologize.  Yesterday I totally lost it, I did and I don't feel good about it.  There you were grilling in your back yard when this crazy woman next door let loose at her poor demented husband in the drive way.  I hope your 4 yr old son wasn't witness as well.  And I want you to know that I have seldom yelled at my husband in anger in all 56 years of marriage...however I do yell sometimes if he has forgotten to put in his hearing aids.

Okay, it seemed like a simple task for my husband to take the potted plants that had been escaping the freeze out of the garage and back to our patio.  He was insisting that it be done NOW even though I was in the midst of cleaning the refrigerator in the kitchen.  Midway through my task I went out the back door to take out a bag of trash.  He was just standing in the garage and it was obvious he didn't know where to start so I grabbed a big pot, shoved it on the dolly and ran it to the back yard.  He still didn't get it so I did it again.  Finally between us we got all the pots delivered into the sunshine.
Now the next step:  I asked him to water the newly delivered pots, he agreed so I walked back in the house.
An hour or so later of cleaning the kitchen, I realize I haven't seen him on the patio.  I go to the driveway and he is standing with the hose in the garage.  The garage floor is covered with water...water all over the floor of the garage irregardless of whatever may have been sitting on the garage floor like the bag of charcoal, the new box of kitty litter, etc.

This is when I lost it and screamed at him, " You just put water all over the f...king garage floor." in my not-so-nice fishwife voice.  Geezus!!  Of course, he was baffled as in his mind he was cleaning out the leaves that had blown in.  Know what happens to a kitty litter box when it gets wet?  I hope you don't find out.

How many times do I need to get this lesson?  ALZHEIMER'S PATIENTS  can't anticipate consequences of their actions.  Not only do they have short-term memory problems but they have difficulty looking down the road to the future.  So I apologized for yelling at him but he didn't remember that I had.  Now there is the joy of short-term memory loss.

So John, please forgive my language.  I would like to think it won't happen again but I have given up making any promises about my future behavior.

Fondly,
The Crazy Old Woman Next Door Who Lives with a Crazier Old Man

1 comment:

  1. I understand fully, I am sure we will come out at the other end of our journey with Dementia as different people, hopefully better.

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