Patience Was My Ally
Patience needed to be my strongest ally, dealing with the changes and my mother's complaints about the thieves in her new home, who even took her chequebook apparently just for the cookie recipe written on a cheque. I hoped the new location might assist in diminishing Mom's perceived thefts, but after a while it got worse. She thought that "they" were climbing to her third floor balcony with a rope pulley. The same people were the culprits, and had apparently followed her there from her old apartment. She called me at home and at work, complaining about things missing or putting me on guilt trips for not paying enough attention to her. One day her ID was gone, and I worried that I'd have to apply for duplicate ID for her, but later found the packet in her purse which was hidden in the oven. Another time her glasses were smudged with fingerprints when she woke in the morning, and she blamed the thieves who brought along a little boy to smudge her glasses. I asked...