As the Crow Flies

My father later said that it was the most difficult thing he had done in his life. Before he took Mammam to the nursing home – The Manor, they called it - there was a long discussion about the idea of having her live with us in our house. I don’t remember who thought what, but I remember that it was a discussion had time over time for a number of years leading up to her admission. I don’t recall a debate on the decision.

The Northumberland County Mountain View Manor is on Trevorton Road. Looking at it from a distance one can realize just how close our house (A) was to The Manor (B). Because of the terrain, the roads had been built to climb the mountains in a serpentine fashion. From our house to The Manor was nearly a three mile drive - but as the crow flies, it very close. I didn’t know that then.

They told my parents that it would be best if we didn’t visit her for a while at first; they wanted her to acclimate to her environment. Her environment wasn’t entirely new to her however. Many years earlier but only several years after Dzjajie died, Mammam found it necessary to seek employment. After some training she took a position as a ‘Nurse’s Aid’ at The Manor. Years later, as a patient there, she thought she was at work again and she turned out to be a great help around the nursing home. As her Alzheimer’s progressed that changed and, for a period, her risk of flight was high. She wanted to leave. Eventually she didn’t understand the possibility of leaving. Then her brain stopped running her body and she was bed-ridden. She was in a fetal position when she died.