Where's my damn remote?

OK, I am the worst blogger ever.... the longer you delay something the easier it is to keep delaying. I went through a period of second guessing my decision to publicly chronicle my mother's battle with the forgetness disease. This illness that is rarely named, not because we are afraid to say it, but because she doesn't remember she has it. We let her have that illusion. Then comes the moments, farther and farther apart, when she looks at me with fear in her blue eyes and she whispers "This is so humiliating. I hate this." And then the moment is gone and she shuffles away, looking for someone to sneak up on and scare or trying to find her remote control.

The remote control is an object of great power at the Diaz house. My mother uses it in a vain attempt to connect to a world she no longer understands. She will often settle on a spanish station and turn the volume up as loud as it will go, as if she will suddenly understand spanish if only the sound is loud enough. I asked her why she was watching spanish novellas when she didn't speak spanish. She thought about it a minute and said, "I guess I forgot that I didn't speak spanish." That makes perfect sense to her and is actually a pretty good answer.

Jesse discovered the power of the remote one day when he and MaMere got in a fight about her physical therapy. Jesse is a saint, in case I haven't said it let me say it again: the man is a saint. He does physical therapy with MaMere on a daily basis. She does her leg lifts and sit/stand, and uses her three pound weights while Jesse sits with her physical therapy folder in his lap, a Jack and Coke in one hand. (I have it on video, the irony does not escape either of us.)

Some days she refuses to exercise and Jesse, bless his heart, tries to use logic to convince her. It goes like this:

M- "I'm not doing it. I'm a 70 year old woman and dammit I don't have to do anything I don't want to do."
J- "You have to exercise mom, this keeps you up and moving."
M- "I move just fine, and besides the nurse/doctor/physical therapist (this changes with the day) told me I don't have to do it anymore."
J- "No, they told you THEY don't have to come anymore as long as YOU do your exercises everyday."
M-"I'm not doing any goddamn exercises and you can't make me." This usually ends with her kicking her feet as she sits on the side of her bed and her slippers go flying off.

Jesse gets his feelings hurt, MaMere sulks, exercises eventually get done, but it takes an emotional toll on Jesse and MaMere.

This daily ritual began again one day with MaMere refusing and Jesse cajoling. MaMere changed her argument though and it proved to be her downfall in the fight against physical therapy. "I'm not doing it, I am watching my damn shows" she yelled as she waved her remote at Jesse. The lightbulb went off in a blinding flash. "Fine," Jesse said as he grabbed the bobbing remote. "When you decide to do your exercises you can have this back." He left her room and hid the remote from her and a standoff ensued. MaMere severely misjudged Jesse's resolve in this matter and after a short time she broke.

"Ok, fine. I'll do the goddamn exercises if I can have my damn remote back," she said, waving a skinny arm at Jesse.

"Mom, this isn't for me, it's for your benefit."

"I just said I'll do it, let's get the damn show on the road. I'm missing my damn shows."

One night Jesse and I were watching TV in the family room. MaMere came out of her room and loudly announced that she is walking laps around the house and will we please give her remote back when she has done enough laps. She stands straight and walks at a fast clip, looking over to make sure we are watching her.  "Did you take her remote again?" I asked Jesse. "No, we did exercises earlier, I don't know what she's talking about." A beat later I said "Should we tell her we don't have it?" "Wait until she does ten laps around the house, she needs to walk anyway."

Paybacks are a bitch.