Update on "Life is like a box of chocolates."

Back at the end of February I wrote of how my mother had Alzheimer's and my quandry of what to do. Since then things have resolved themselves in ways I couldn't have forseen.

Seems it isn't Alzheimer's, that's her way of coping with a complete memory loss of two weeks duration when she was completely delusional instead of only partially so (no joke, absolute fact). After they locked her in the happy farm my cousin was contacted and got involved in straightening out the mess. To make a long story short, my mother is now at an assisted living center less than two miles from my home. She's adjusting and back in the land of the sane. Maybe for the first time in decades.

The old joke about getting your meds adjusted comes to mind. She's on some psychotropic meds that keep her on an even keel. Now she's more stable than I can remember.

In the run up to her moving here from California I'd envisioned a confrontation that would address a lot of crap going back years. That came to a screaming halt when I met her after she flew out here with my cousin. This is a different woman than I'd dealt with in my past. Just a little old lady trying to get by.

I was really enlightened by my cousin a day later. This was during a drive back to the DFW airport so she could catch her flight home. That's when I found out about the psych ward, my mother's delusions, her hallucinations, etc. And there's a lot under that "etc." I won't go into.

So, knowing a bit about self medication as practiced by alcoholics and remembering my time in the Bizarro Universe while growing up I'm left with wondering if she was crazy all along. How culpable are the mentally impaired, especially when their actions took place during a time when psychiatry was still regarded as one step above voodoo (at least in my neighborhood)?

And all that resentment I'd carried was for no real good reason. Just a burden I've laid down now because it's of no use to anyone.

So my earlier life wasn't Ozzie & Harriet, it was more like the Osbourne's tv show. Deal with it slick. At least I survived.

Funny how things turn out sometimes. Just when you think you know all the answers you discover you never understood the question.