It's not where you'd expect to find happiness

When my 94-year-old mother’s health started to decline from dementia, poor eyesight, hearing, and old age, I was having trouble finding ways to make her happy.

Long walks were becoming physically impossible, and she had trouble concentrating during local concerts and lectures. And, getting her in and out of a car was exhausting (for both of us). But then an unexpected venue became Mom’s happy place: our local hospital’s emergency room.

In 2018, Mom became a resident of the Regency Assisted Living Facility in Glen Cove — two miles from my house and one mile from the community hospital. A year ago, she was moved into the Regency memory care unit for residents with dementia. And, sadly, in the past three years, she had become a frequent guest at the hospital due to falls at the Regency.

But a strange thing happened after one of the frightening calls that Mom was going to the hospital by ambulance. I’d rush there and see the stretcher being wheeled in, and this time I heard Mom’s voice — a happy voice — chatting with the emergency medical technicians. “I was a great ice skater,” she’d tell them. “But I was an even better handball player.”

Mom was a happy patient.

She’d be connected to various tubes, have her vitals checked, and was forthcoming with the doctors and nurses. And, when it was quiet, I’d sit and talk to Mom.

One night, we discussed the Yom Kippur services we’d just attended. “I thought the rabbi’s sermon was terrific,” I said. “Did you like it?” Mom shook her head. “I couldn’t hear it. What was it about?” I responded, “Women who refuse to wear their hearing aids.” Her playful punch almost pulled out her tubes.

At times she would go Gracie Allen on me. “Would it kill you to pick up the phone and call me?” she’d say, furiously. “You know I can’t hear!”

Amazingly, the angry dementia that would rear its ugly head on some Regency visits never emerged in the hospital. She was cheerful and lucid. Her dementia, in a way, was charming and endearing. To me, a lifelong bachelor, she’d discuss that subject after apparently being deep in thought on it:

“I wish Saul would find a nice girl,” she’d say.

I’d reply, “I’ll bet it will happen one day.”

Mom: “Could you talk to him?”

I’d answer, “Well, that’s kind of a personal subject.”

Mom: “He’ll listen to you.”

“I’ll try,” I’d say.

Mom would worry all the time. If I mentioned I was going food shopping the next day, she’d take my hand and ask sincerely, “Do you have enough money?” I’d check my wallet, count the dollar bills, and assure her I had enough for, at least, until Tuesday.

And then it happened. I got that dreaded call from the Regency that Mom was being rushed to the hospital, but not because of a fall. “Your mom is unresponsive,” an aide said sadly.

This is it, I thought. I got to the hospital quickly. I paced in the waiting room. One woman was wheeled in, but it wasn’t Mom. Then another. Finally, I saw her and heard her voice: “You’ve never had a Mallomar cookie?” she incredulously asked one aide. “You don’t know what you’re missing!”

After passing a series of tests, Mom was released and sent back to the Regency.

That was Mom’s last hospital visit as a “happy patient.” A few months later, on April 7, she died in her sleep.

READER SAUL SCHACHTER lives in Sea Cliff.