I am in a place of waiting for direction again. Making time for prayer on this situation of patience is very necessary.

In the last two weeks, I’ve discovered some financial mistakes and had some frustrating conversations with Elly. I was able to deal with the missed mortgage payment and the fallout continues to be that it’s not her fault but the bank’s for not sending the payment coupon.

I will have to do more digging to find out for myself if it was sent and she bundled it and filed it away with last year’s statements or just lost it. My determination to confront the dementia or mistakes she’s making has pretty much come to an end. I see how there is no way to find understanding when there is denial even when the words are acknowledging some forgetfulness.

I am working at narrowing down what mail is actually given to Elly so I can get a handle on her bills. Some mail is really easy to withhold and others are more difficult because of magazine subscriptions of which she has probably a dozen. I wish Reader’s Digest Corporation had not been invented because it’s just too confusing.

I am practicing patience as I back off from the confronting. I am quietly just taking over the weekly pill box and reordering the prescriptions. I will quietly take the checkbook from the drawer and leave a note that we will do the bill paying together now. This is the week to do this, as my Awesome Hubby and I will be leaving next Wednesday to go to the mountains just an hour and a half away. We will have time alone together and then, for the weekend, we”ll be hosting 45+ folks for a Community Camp-Out there in the same spot for the past 15+ years.

We won’t have any cell phone service at our campground nor around any of the hiking spots we usually go to. The ranger will be our contact should anything come up here at home that would need our attention.

I am pretty sure this week should be good timing to work with Elly about the checkbook. If she has issues while I am gone, her son will back me up if she calls him. He wants me to take the checkbook and my AH & LRS have said it’s time for me to do this. My Nurse-Sister will be in charge of checking in with Elly during the day. Unfortunately our LivingRoom-Son will be gone at the same time on the weekend.

I am trying to laugh at some of the ways Elly has made excuses about the mistakes she is making. Elly has been telling me to describe the situations that she has made mistakes or forgotten things. So I described the one issue with the mortgage payment, which wasn’t on my radar until this issue – she’s always taken care of it. Elly asked me in June for the bank statement, so I gave her a printout of the Credit Union statement in which she has her checking and savings.

What she was really asking for was her mortgage statement – totally different institution and account! So, she missed the payment. When the loan company called at the end of the month, she asked me to call the bank, again I assumed Credit Union. I checked online and didn’t find any problem, waited till the next day. The next morning Elly asked me to call the bank since a man had called the day before and wondered why she didn’t make her mortgage payment!

Light bulb goes on in my head!!! Now she remembered why someone from the bank had called and I knew which institution it was right away. I went down and made her June & July (early) payment. Last week we got the mortgage statement in the mail (late of course) but it was dated before I made the payments so they didn’t show. Elly couldn’t understand why her payment didn’t show and actually called the mortgage institution and argued with them – that’s when my LR-son came out to the garden and said that I needed to come into the house right away. When I pointed out to Elly the details of this situation, she understood and seemed clear and then proceeded to make excuses. We went round and round the Mulberry Bush in many ways.

My mantra has been “Grandma, that just isn’t like you!” In this case I stated, “Usually, you know exactly when your payments are due AND you always write the account number on your checks when you make payments. You aren’t doing that anymore.” Her response was, “I have made habits so that I can remember even when it gets hard so that these mistakes don’t happen.” I pointed out to her that she didn’t follow through on her habit.

She responded, “When I am sitting in my chair, I am thinking. Some things I don’t have to do the same way anymore. I have decided to change them. I know what I am doing. I am perfectly capable of handling my finances.” That leaves no room for discussion or fault on her part. When I made the payment at the bank I had to have her account number and she had stopped writing the account number on her checks as she wrote them – she uses duplicate/carbon checks. I looked at her online banking and had to go back to March to find a check with the account # written and then was told by the bank that it was a partial account number!!! I came home and right away signed up for an online account for the mortgage loan. I printed the online account statement that showed her payments and stapled it to the recent letters from the mortgage bank so she could see it was paid.

I will be having more get-away time as I go back to work at the beginning of August. I am also a camp manager during fall camp season at Huntington Lake. I leave on Fridays after work and come home on Sunday afternoon. This job helps provide vacation or “get-away” money as well as my get-away after a long summer at home.

I usually work with my Older-Son who was the head chef; I was manager and sous chef. This year, O-Son lives in Arizona and is getting married in November. Now, I will be working with a “new” fall cook, not a chef. I don’t know if I’ll have more time outside the kitchen or not. I still look forward to “hosting” folks at camp, one of my other favorite Jobs-I-can’t-give up!!! Some day my dream is to live at camp with my AH! I do miss him from August until mid-October during fall weekend camp season.

Now it’s time to be the chef here at home again as the 5 p.m. dinner clock is calling. Why can’t that be one of the habits that get changed!