Description
Mom taught us from an early age to hold our long-sleeved shirts with our fingers before pulling on a sweater or a coat. This is a necessity if you don’t want your sleeves to end up all bunched up around your elbows. As Mom’s disease progressed, this is a skill that never left her. She would instinctively grasp the cuff of her shirt before we helped her pull on her coat. I always loved this… such a smart lady. In the photo with Scott and our dog Cooper, Mom is wearing a green coat, but she actually has another coat underneath. I know she used her cuff holding method to keep the first coat from scooting up her arms.
The other story is told by my husband, Mike. He met Mom shortly after our blind date… he was just 17 years old, so he knew and loved her all of his adult life.
Communication was never an issue between me and Alice. When I was dating Diane and I was in high school, she always made me feel a part of her family. As part of the family I sometimes received the laugh when I said something she thought was funny, however I also received the look she would give to someone who said something that she didn’t think was appropriate. As her illness progressed her ability to speak deteriorated and eventually she stopped talking… but this didn’t stop her from being able to communicate. She still had her smile, and with me she had her thumbs. I don’t know how it happened, but when visiting with her one day I just held her hand and we smiled at each other…. there was communication there for sure. But at some time she started to move her thumb around and the next thing I knew we were thumb wrestling. For the last part of her life Alice and I may not have communicated in the traditional sense, but we did it in a way I will never forget… by thumb wrestling. It is a special memory that I have of Alice and I feel lucky to have had this little one on one activity with my dear mother-in-law.
