Alzheimer's bends the mind of those afflicted, but it also bends the minds of those around the afflicted. We have had to re-shape our own thinking to deal with Mom and her Alzheimer's. We've done things we wouldn't normally do...for the better of mankind, and Moothakind.
I've addressed the existence of Hamish in my blog before but I'll restate them now for clarity. Mom loved children more that anything; her own children...her children's children....and everyone's children. We discovered at the nursing home that Mom was quite fond of a little baby doll that belonged to another resident (having a doll is not uncommon with Alzheimer's patients). We decided that Mom should have her own, so Dad and Julian went shopping for a doll with all the qualities deemed necessary. Not an easy task as Julian had identified some pretty exacting specifications. Imagine an 88 year old man and a 20 year old shopping for a dolly. Who needs reality television?
They finally settled on a doll that resembled a 6 month old. Of course the doll needed a name and the name had to be not just Scottish but the ultimate Scottish name. We settled on Hamish.
Hamish became a huge hit with Mom. Julian was a master at using Hamish to bring Mom out of Alzheimer's induced funks. To this day we never really knew whether Mom thought Hamish was a real baby or if she was just stringing us on by saying 'coo coo coo' and kissing Hamish on the cheek. It didn't matter because it made her happy and it made us happy.
Now that Mom is gone there is a question as to what should be done with Hamish. I'd like Julian to have Hamish because they're practically brothers. This could create 'issues' though. Imagine if Julian met a girl that he really liked and he brought her back to his place. Chances are his date wouldn't be too comfortable dating a twenty-something economist who lives a doll who came from Walmart. You must admit that the optics look bad.
I guess for now that Hamish will live with either Dad or me, unless he chooses to emigrate back to Scotland (in our minds he was not 'made' in China). In remembrance of the glory days of Hamish at Mom's nursing home, I'm going to offer you a little video clip. This clip is very telling as Mom doesn't even appear in the video! She was fast asleep so Julian and I played with Hamish (remember..."Alzheimer's also bends the minds of those around the afflicted"). Here's the link from May 23, 2013): http://narrowleaf.blogspot.ca/2013/05/whos-prince-of-scots-ian-vs-hamish.html
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