Shopping Alone

My mom loves shopping.  She loved browsing in stores when she was able to drive herself to stores.  It's the reason she misses driving as much as she does, no way to get to where she wants to go when she wants to go.

This morning she woke up in a good state of mind.  Her blood pressure was a bit high first thing this morning but after she had all of her supplements and breakfast, she was in a good blood pressure range.  She felt good.  She was finding her words and she made sure that I knew that she wanted to go shopping.

I have been informing her right along that any day that is a pool day, we will be spending it here at home.  She gets that, she knows how much I love the pool and my garden.  A garden that is getting my attention today, nothing is getting between the Earth and me.  Not even my mother.

My mom was all mopey, she wanted to go out.  She said to me as I worked in the garden.... "I am going to call a cab.  I have to go shopping.  I want to go shopping.  I need to find someone who will take me... not you of course, but someone."

My reply, "Good luck with that."

It suddenly struck me, why not offer to drop her off at the little strip mall about 2 miles away?  When she first stopped driving, she would have me drop her off there all the time.  She enjoyed browsing and the feeling of freedom.  A feeling that she still had control of her life.

"Ma, how about I drop you off over at Burlington Coat Factory?  You can shop around and I'll come back for you when you tell me you want me back?"  I said to her with an enthusiastic voice.

"You'd do that for me?  Oh boy, I'd appreciate it."  She replied as clear as I've seen her in over a year or more.

"Get your purse and glasses.  Meet me downstairs."  I said to her.

Within minutes my mom was at the front door, waiting and excited to be going shopping by herself.

It felt right to let her go.  If she wanted to go she must be feeling like she can handle herself alone.  I've seen her refuse me dropping her off over there for quite sometime now.

There's a dollar store over there too and her favorite supermarket that she always shopped at because everything is cheap.  She knows what she can and can't eat, I think she wants more oranges.  It will be fun for her to go in that store alone too.

I am confident that she'll be OK.  I put a note in her pocket listing her name and address with our phone number in case she gets confused all of a sudden.  I'll go back in an hour to check on her.  My gut is not wrenched or worried, I know she'll be fine.

Won't it be awesome if this is a steady routine?  Maybe she can handle going to the Senior Center in town alone too?  She used to go but then things changed and she couldn't handle being away from me.