I talked to my son on the phone. Thomas is speech impaired but verbal, very verbal. Sometimes he’s a little difficult to understand but if you listen to him it’s not that hard. You mostly have to pay attention. For instance he mentioned that he ate dinner and I asked him what he had for dinner. Pasta, he answered and then said, “what about you?” He was asking what we had for dinner today.
I miss him. We had a nice routine before being quarantined; every Sunday I would pick him up after church, get him a haircut if needed, or go shopping for a little while and then go back to my house. We usually stopped off to get Thomas a bottle of soda before heading to my house. Thomas would stay for dinner and hang out afterwards for me to give him his 7 pm meds. After he had his meds he was ready to go back to his house and “relax.”
He’s an interesting person my Thomas. He has an amazing memory; my goodness he remembers everything, no kidding. And he’s thoughtful. Thomas was telling me how he spoke to staff at his day program and I said you must miss your program, Thomas answered, “I miss you a lot!”
It’s difficult to explain the quarantine to him. While on the phone Thomas said, “Remember when you said you’d never pick me up anymore?” I was like ooooh…Punched in the gut that he thought that. I explained that it is the “government” that says we can’t pick him up, that we will pick him up when this sickness is over. I also spoke to the house manager who said that some of the residents’ families have taken them home for the duration of the quarantine. That is not an option for us since I currently have no idea when or where I’ll be working from day to day. I don’t think Thomas would want to come here for an extended period of time as he no longer considers my house his house. He fully declares “his house” as his home. The first time he said that to me I was very taken aback and a little hurt in a way. But then I realized it is a good thing because it meant that he had adjusted to living at the group home and truly settled in. Soon we’ll have dinner again.
Menay O; mom to 4, Christian and thrift shopper on the side... 