[Rose in RoseBear]

My Mamma had "organic brain syndrome," but was still aware enough to know she didn't want to be in that nursing home. She would walk and walk and walk ... sometimes 18-20 hours a day. She walked away from the home at least once, and told me she was looking for a bus she used to catch to go home. She wanted to go home so badly ... but she was living in the past, and the "home" she wanted was long gone.

If I had it to do all over again, I'd do the same thing. I live in Austin; her life and the rest of the family were in San Antonio. I couldn't've cared for her; she wouldn't've let me. She alternated between seeing me as a contemporary and seeing me as some brand of enemy. Being an only child, it would have all been on me ... and I don't think I could have handled it.

[Ramius]

Sometimes, Rose, there isn't a good thing to be done but only the thing that must be done.

My grandfather was afflicted with ALS. It is a horrible thing to be around. In the last several months of his life he had no idea that he was still being cared for at home. We had set up what amounted to a hospital room in our home, and we had nurses coming by with some frequency to make sure all was well. But he thought he had been put away in some nursing home, and he hated everything about it. There was nothing we could do to convince him otherwise.

We did everything possible for him, and everybody was there every day for him, but he died thinking he was left alone in a nursing home.

[SuziQ]

but she was living in the past, and the "home" she wanted was long gone.

Yeah, Mama had lived at our family's Fish Camp even since Daddy died in 1981. My just older brother bought her house in Hattiesburg, and that was fine until she got sick. Then all she wanted to do was 'go home', which meant Hattiesburg. She couldn't do that, and it just irked her! She spent a lot of time packing suitcases because Bill ( my Daddy) was going to come pick her up and take her home. But by the time she had to go into the home, she was not even saying that. She knows she's not home, but it doesn't seem to bother her now. Thank God for that.