Happy birthday Mom

Today, my mother is 91 years old. She is holding a small arrangement of flowers my wife picked out for her for the occasion. Mom loves them. My daughter was excited just to be carrying them and give them to her grandma. They were the hit of the party. She needs every bit of happiness we can help her get because she has had a rough few years. She had been living alone (my father died in 1993) in her house until September 2014 and managing pretty well. My wife and I had been trying to get her to move closer to us since we married 22 years ago but she "didn't want to be a burden". Then, she broke her hip in May 2014 and things haven't been the same since.

I need to write up what happened after that before I forget all the details. But the end result is that she sold her house and moved from a tiny town south of Pittsburgh to an assisted living facility on Cape Cod so that I can be close to help her. It hasn't been easy. She has gone from one medical problem to the next. The last problem she had was that she fell and hurt her head and had to go to the hospital to be checked out. That was before Christmas. After she got out of the hospital, she was moved to a nursing facility to get some physical therapy she she could move back to her apartment in the assisted living facility. She was supposed to be back in her apartment by the end of the year. Then she developed a respiratory problem and was sent back to the hospital for a week. Now, she's back in the nursing facility for physical therapy again. That's where this picture was taken.

Before the fall before Christmas, Mom had only needed oxygen at night while she slept but now she is on oxygen all day and at a higher rate. But she is definitely doing better. She is more alert than she was when the respiratory problem wiped her out. She had been confused and even had trouble eating. She was in bed most of the day but now she can sit in her wheelchair for long periods and knows more about what is happening around her. When she gets back to reading her Bible and doing her crossword puzzles, I'll know she ready to move back to her apartment.

The bottom picture is a better view of the flowers. You can click on it to see it better but these are not very good pictures. Something doesn't seem right with my camera. It has real trouble in low light situations but even with the flash, it doesn't take clear pictures like it used to.

Everything wears out over time. Some things can be fixed and some things just can't be helped. With people, it's important not to give up hope. You have to be realistic but I think the best thing for my mother is understanding, hope, love and planning for her 92nd birthday.