Shoe Fetish

Lately, Mom has a bit of a shoe fetish. When she was in moderate stages of the disease, she used to be OCD about laying out her clothes for the following day, shoes and socks included. She'd also place her pajamas on the footstool that sat in the corner of her bathroom/vanity area. The obsession has continued, even though she no longer changes her clothes by herself anymore. I think it's just the motion of doing it; she remembers that she has to put clothes in the corner but she doesn't remember why she does it.

The thing is, Mom is not only laying out her own clothes and shoes. She collects dad's shoes and whatever shoes she can find throughout the house and puts them in her corner. There have been several occasions where my, or other family member's shoes, have gone missing. When that happens, we know the first place to look: Mom's corner. And sure enough, that's where we find them! One day, not long ago, I actually had to hide my shoes because she kept coming out to the living room to retrieve them and take them back to her room! It gives us all a good chuckle.

Sometimes, Mom will actually attempt to wear the shoes she collects. Last week, I heard heels clacking down the hallway as Mom made her way out of her bedroom. The sound made me raise my eyebrows and I laughed out loud when she made her grand entrance wearing my dad's church shoes.

Sometimes, with all the sadness that dementia brings, you've gotta find things to laugh at. I know as we look back on memories with Mom, her shoe fetish will always give us a good chuckle!

Just For Mom

Part of mom's disease (semantic dementia) is obsession or fixation on certain things. One of the things she became fixated on early in her disease was going to the LA County Fair in the fall and buying earrings for my sister and picture frames for everyone; not just any ol' picture frames, but specific frames that had each person's name carved out of wood and made into a matting inside the frame. Years ago, she bought these frames with both her and my dad's names as well as each of her three children's names. Inside the frame, she inserted a baby picture of each person. She must have done this right before she was developing her dementia because it was shortly after she had done her own wall that she started buying the frames for each of her children and grandchildren. Every year a new grandbaby was born, she would wait for months until it was time to go to the fair and buy another picture frame. One year, she even became obsessed with going to the fair so that she could buy one for her sister for her upcoming birthday.

Every time mom would come to one of our houses, she would hound us about the picture frames. She wanted to know where they were at, why they were on a shelf rather than a wall, why one of the frames was blank (with no picture). I remember one holiday season (2012) I had put my picture frames away in order to display my holiday decorations. Mom was confused at why I had moved the picture frames. Everytime she came over, she would ask about the pictures and was very disappointed that I didn't have them on display.

"I just put them away for the holidays mom; I'll bring them back out after Christmas," I would explain.

Even after I brought them back out, she was dissatisfied. You see, I displayed them all wrong. I used current pictures of my kids, and I hadn't even gotten around to putting a picture in my or my husband's frame. Mom would usually say something like,

"You need to put in baby pictures like I did on my wall, it's so good too. That's how you're supposed to do it."

Well...for the past couple months I've been working on redecorating the downstairs of my house. I finally figured out a good wall for those pictures and decided to do it "right", just for mom. The sad thing is, I don't know if mom will even notice them now; I haven't heard about it in quite a while. Nevertheless, I dedicate this wall to my mom and think of her everytime I look at it. What a fun idea to display all of our baby pictures! I can't wait for mom to come over to my house again and see my new wall.