The Something Store

Before I write this, let me point out that this is not spam. I do not work for the company and I gain nothing from this.

Back in July the local radio station was talking about a website called thesomethingstore.com. The idea is that you pay $10 and they send you something. You have no clue what you are getting. It is a totally random something. They guarantee that the something will be worth at least $10 MSRP. And they ship it for free.

I jotted down the website so that I would remember it come December. My idea was that I would order 5 somethings. One for each member in my family, including myself. I thought it would be fun to unwrap a totally random gift. I was right.

I ordered the 5 somethings and they came about 2 weeks later. All in one package. This looked like it was going to be a problem. I was hoping to get each one at a time so I could wrap each without seeing the item. I had my brother open the package for me and count the items so that I at least knew there were 5. Not only were all 5 there, but they were each wrapped in plastic envelopes which hid the contents. Perfect.

On Christmas Eve I stopped at the Dollar store and bought 5 identical gift bags. That night I dropped one item in each bag, covered it with tissue paper and sealed the bag. I wanted there to be no way to tell the size of each item. Christmas morning I lined up the bags and let my middle guy picked the first bag. We sat and watched as he opened his package to find a pale blue paisley print neck tie. He says he won't wear it but the look on his face was fun. My daughter picked next. She got a pretty nice scarf. My oldest son then picked a bag and opened it to find a framed picture of Bob Marley and a tiger. Interesting to say the least. My wife got a scarf and I got a mango scented perfume. lol

Nothing in the bags was anything spectacular but, they were each valued at least $10. the laughs we got watching each person open their random something was priceless and well worth it. I think this is going to be an annual tradition. It was so fun!

Mom has Alzheimer's

My wife was the first one to notice something was wrong. That was probably 5 or 6 years ago. She commented about how my mom seemed to be more confused than normal. She mentioned it to me and also to my sister and dad. We all dismissed it as just being normal for a person as they aged. Maybe we were ignorant. Or maybe we chose to be in denial. Whatever the case, my wife would bring it up every once in awhile. Each time saying it seemed worse. Eventually it became too noticeable for us to deny. Not long afterward, mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

I hate to admit it, but even after the diagnosis, I chose to keep my head in the sand. While I don't have the close relationship with my parents that many others seem to have with theirs, this is still my mom. I didn't want to face the fact that she was never going to be the same person I knew growing up. It is really only the past year that I could not ignore it any longer. Even my dad who is the "king of denial" faced reality before I did. Probably because he lives with her and sees her every day. I do not. Though, by that logic, my sister who sees her several times a week took longer than any of us. Even my brother saw it.

It started out with simple things like forgetting what she said 5 minutes before or by getting confused easily about what she was trying to say. After that came the forgetting appointments even though she wrote them on the calendar. Then the forgetting of things like birthdays or other milestones. She no longer is allowed to drive. She blames my father for that despite the fact it was the doctor that said she needed to stop. My dad gave her car to my brother in order to avoid her sneaking out while he was working. That was several months ago. It has been rough on my dad. Despite the fact we all offer help, unless we simply go and step in, he refused to ask.

Sadly as of now, she is starting to lose more of her long term memory. I was there about 2 weeks ago and said something about my brother and she looked at me confused and asked, "You have a brother?" When I reminded her of who he is she said, "Oh yeah." This is an incident that I shared with my sister but will not tell my brother. I think he would be hurt. And since he already suffers that "Middle Child Syndrome" I do not want to compound it.

Last weekend my wife took mom out Christmas shopping. During the outing my wife mentioned our son Kevin. Mom asked, "Kevin who? My Kevin or your Kevin?" I am not sure if she forgot my son or more likely that "her Kevin" is my son and she simply did not connect my wife as his mom. She later saw a white SUV and commented how it was exactly like my wife's car. We have not owned a white SUV since the early 90's. My sister does have one so this can be taken either way.

This is the first Christmas in my life where the morning will not be spent at my parents home for breakfast with the entire family. We have always spent it at home. Even after we all got married, we brought our spouses and our kids and crowded into the dining room to spend the morning together and happy. My dad approached me the week before thanksgiving and said mom was already stressing and crying over Christmas. He did not think she can handle it anymore at their house and he was hoping one of us kids would step up to help by moving it to our house. Of course I agreed. My brother does not have the room for 17 people at one table and my sister's house is being renovated. I have no dining room but I do have a sunroom that can handle us all. A couple space heaters and 17 bodies at 98 degrees should warm it up just fine.

Christmas will be different in setting only. I am determined to keep it the same as we have always done over the last 50 years. I don't know what the next year will bring or how much my mom will forget in that time. So I want to make sure that the day is just as special to her as it has always been to all of us.