The Importance of the "Re-Direct"

When your parent or loved one becomes fixated on an extremely negative aspect of their life that cannot be changed, or will not be forgotten once the situation is rectified, but the memory persists, the Re-Direct becomes extremely important and critical to your sanity...  This is longer than most of my posts.  Go and get a beer or a glass of wine if you think this might help you.

My mother had to share a bathroom with a fellow resident.  It was all understood from the beginning when she moved into this fabulous boutique facility.   The problem was that the first resident didn't go to the bathroom very often...  Then she died...  The room was vacant for a time...  About 8 months or so...  Enough time passed that my mom thought that the shared bathroom was her Private Bathroom...   

Major blow up occurred when the new resident showed up and used the "shared bathroom"...    Again, again and again......   According to my mother, she was spending way too much time in there and my mother started Guarding the Bathroom....  TMI...

For months, this was all I heard about, multiple times a day.....  In any case, months later after my mother's dear friend and housemate, not the bathroom hog, went to Heaven, my mother had an opportunity to move to her room in the same facility.  It had a PRIVATE BATHROOM....   It was the 17th time that I've moved my mother in six years.     I was not at all thrilled with this situation but I was so weary of hearing about the months of negative bathroom tales that I relented...

We got her moved and settled into a lovely new room with a PRIVATE BATHROOM just down the hall.  Think that's easy?  Just wait and see....  Had to move all the clothes, rehang the pictures and get the flat screen just right....  Had to get all the photos adjusted just right on her dresser.    

Think you're done?  No way...  She's got the perfect room.  The perfect view.  The private bathroom and plenty of closet space for her glamour girl wardrobe...   She now thinks the room is too small...  I think she wants to move again...  Whatever...

Back to the long awaited point of this post...  Find your Re-Direct phrases...  Check in with their Navy days or stories about their childhood and their siblings.  Ask about what their mother fixed for dinner and how wonderful it was..  This can help re-direct from their negative comments.  

 I had a recent experience that I was dreading...  I promised to take my mom out for brunch on a Sunday.  Most often, my husband can join us.  This particular day he was working and couldn't get away..    I prayed that I would have patience to listen to all the negative stuff and find a way to turn it around.  Once in the restaurant, as I feared, she started in about the lady hogging her bathroom and all the rest of the negative stuff...

There was a wonderful pianist playing...  I asked her if she had a favorite song...  At first she spouted out, "NO"....  A few minutes later, she said "You Are My Sunshine" is my favorite... " I raced up to the pianist with a generous tip and asked him to play it...

Simply Miraculous!!!  She took my hand and we both started singing it together...  This seemingly small gesture transformed our day and her experience.  It is a happy memory that I will cherish forever!

Go find your Re-Direct.