Riding the retirement home bus to Trader Joe's restored my faith in humanity

I’m in Solana Beach, California, staying with my mom at her assisted living facility for three weeks to keep her company and help her since my dad died earlier this month. It’s a lot. She has Alzheimer’s and most days she’s pretty spry, but she has down times when she doesn’t want to do much, except smoke. I’ve been keeping her busy, which seems to keep her spirits up. We ride the La Vida bus with her fellow La Vida residents to go shopping. The bus goes to different places each week — to Vons grocery store, or CVS, or Trader Joe’s. The Friday morning Trader Joe’s trip is a real crowd pleaser. I’ve been twice now, and both times have been eventful.

Last Friday I noticed a commotion near the checkout. The staff were gathered around a man, and I didn’t recognize him, but I asked my mom if he’d ridden the La Vida bus with us, and she said yes, so I went over to see if I could help. It was Sam, and he was not feeling well. The staff had found a chair for him, and given him a bottle of water. They were asking him if they could call someone for him, and I introduced myself and said I’d also ridden the La Vida bus — it was expected to be back in 10 minutes, and offered to wait with him, which he accepted. The Captain of Trader Joe’s and I helped Sam and my mom and their groceries get to the benches out front and we waited with the other La Vida residents for the bus to pick us up and take us back to La Vida. The bus was late. The oldsters were starting to get antsy, but the Captain of Trader Joe’s and I pulled out all the stops to keep them entertained. We all chatted and got to know each other while we waited, —the bus was 20 minutes late now, and we were running out of material and the La Vida residents were getting tired and anxious to get home, and this is when the most beautiful thing happened. Everyone started telling me and my mom stories about my dad.

I learned my dad had taken up painting, and was very bad at it, at first, but after a few months of quietly working on his art he brought all his paintings down to the art teacher and they were so good she got teary telling me about it. She told me she was planning to put on a one-man show for my dad’s paintings, and how excited my dad was about that, and how sad she was that he’d passed away before his art show. I learned that my dad had given another resident artist a photo of my mom and dad from their wedding — their 56th wedding anniversary would have been next Saturday, and the artist was planning to make a painting of the wedding photo for their anniversary, but she’d put it off because she’d been busy and when she found out my dad died she was so upset she hadn’t done the painting it haunted her. She told me how sorry she was for not having that painting for my dad. I started bawling in the Trader Joe’s parking lot and Sam, who was feeling better now, patted my back to comfort me. The Captain of Trader Joe’s came out of the store with two gorgeous bouquets of flowers and gave them to my mom and me — she’d overheard the news that my dad had passed away, and she gave us the flowers. Thank you, Captain Katie of Del Mar Trader Joe’s. You are such a compassionate person. You take such good care of your community. I hope you know how lovely you are.

The bus got there and the driver was flustered. It was her first day, the long-time driver had retired last week, and the new driver was overwhelmed. Things had not gone well at Vons — the second stop on the shopping trip for the residents who did not go to Trader Joe’s, so she was running behind. I helped her load up everyone’s groceries while she onboarded the folks and their various mobility apparatuses. Just as we were about to leave, another Sam (who I learned is known as Sunset Sam), came ambling out of Trader Joe’s with a full shopping cart. It’s a good thing we were running 30 minutes late because I’m pretty sure we would have left Sunset Sam behind. (On today’s sojourn to Trader Joe’s the driver, now a week in, told us she was taking roll now, which my mom and I agreed was probably a wise plan.)

Sunset Sam sat next to me on the bus ride home. Twice. Sunset Sam is a character. He’s an old hippie who loves kombucha and arnica oil. He has dreadlocks and a carved walking stick, but he’s known for his cart. His cart holds all his earthly possessions, and he likes to take his cart everywhere, but he’s not allowed to take his cart on the bus to Trader Joe’s, so he leaves it behind in the lobby of La Vida, but he still takes several burlap sacks with him. The sacks are full of large glossy photos, and Sunset Sam likes to show people his photos. The residents of La Vida know all about Sunset Sam’s photos, but I was a new and captive audience, so now I also know all about Sunset Sam’s photos. They are lovely. Lots of sunsets. Sunset Sam told me about his accident. He was driving his lady’s car and he was speeding and someone backed out of their driveway and hit him and his car rolled over (but he wasn’t wearing a seat belt, which he claimed saved his life — I did not argue this point with him), and now he has a brain injury. He remembers everything that happened before 1976, but has a hard time with the recent stuff, he told me. His brain makes connections. He likes dates. He likes things to be in patterns of 3. Sunset Sam almost missed the bus to Trader Joe’s this morning, and the driver said welp, I guess Sunset Sam isn’t coming today, and everyone on the bus said well, that’s okay, but then as we were pulling out of La Vida, Sunset Sam came hauling ass down the hill with his cart of possessions and the driver stopped the bus and jumped out and yelled “Slow down, Sunset Sam!” She put Sunset Sam’s cart in the lobby and helped him with all the burlap bags of photos he wanted to bring to Trader Joe’s. Sunset Sam bought 15 gallons of water in Trader Joe’s. He also bought ice cream and several bouquets of flowers. Sunset Sam likes to hand out flowers to people. Everyone on the bus got a flower. My mom and I got 3. Today my mom bought Sunset Sam a bouquet of flowers because he always gives everyone flowers so we all rode home on the bus holding our flowers. Sunset Sam told me about his accident, again, and about the time he saw Paul McCartney play in Michigan, and about the joint he smoked in the parking lot with his lady, and about the mushrooms he ate, although he’s not a fan of mushrooms. They weren’t his drug of choice, he told me. Nor mine, I said.

When we got home from Trader Joe’s my mom had a nap. She’d been up since 2am, smoking. I knew because the smoke started wafting in my bedroom window at 2am and woke me up, and when I got up at 7am the pack of cigarettes I’d bought for her was all smoked up. I’m supposed to be giving her 8 cigarettes a day, but this is not pleasing my mother. She wants more.

The other issue is the cat. The cat’s name is Bear, and you are going to have to bear with me while I tell you this story — it’s painful. My dad got Bear from a lady on Facebook that had no business selling cats to old people (or anyone). My dad did not tell anyone he was getting my mom a cat because he knew no one would be onboard with that decision. At the very least, we would have insisted he adopt through a responsible agency that would ensure the cat was a good match. Bear is not a good match. We don’t know much about Bear’s history — when my sister found out about the cat she contacted the woman who sold my dad Bear, asking for veterinarian records and Bear’s health history, and the woman screamed at my sister and did not give my sister any of this information. Bear was delivered to my parents in a paper bag by two children under the age of 10. We have since learned a few things about Bear. Bear had been in a fire. Bear is extremely traumatized. Bear does not know how to use a litter box. Bear is not socialized. Bear hid in my mom’s closet for a year and only came out after everyone else went to bed. My mom has Alzheimer’s and can’t remember if she fed Bear, so Bear gets fed many times a day. Bear is extremely obese. Since I have been here, I’ve bought Bear a new litter box and new litter in the hopes of getting Bear to use the litter box, rather than peeing in the closet. Bear is now peeing in front of the litter box. Every day. Multiple times a day. My mom is moving out of La Vida soon, to live closer to my sister in Sunnyvale, and Bear is coming with her. My mom has decided she needs to buy Bear a leash so she can put Bear on top of her walker and push Bear out to the smoking area of her new assisted living home, and she plans to walk Bear on a leash. Here’s when I need to remind you that my mom has Alzheimer’s and does not remember our conversations, so she does not remember any of the things I’ve told her about the problems with Bear, and her plan. After I told my mom (again) why walking Bear, an obese, traumatized, unsocialized, elderly cat on a leash is not going to be feasible, we made a shopping list for the next time we ride the bus, and she wrote cat leash at the top of the list. If my dad wasn’t dead I’d have some words for him about Bear. The problem is that Bear and my mom have bonded, completely. Bear follows my mom everywhere she goes. My mom feeds Bear everything off her plate. Bear is aggressive now, and tried to swipe a piece of turkey meat out of my sandwich and showed zero signs of backing down. I had to eat my sandwich in my room. Bear does as she pleases. So does my mom.

The rest of my family start to arrive on Monday, and my dad’s funeral is next Friday. I am trying to stay alive and sane until then. My mom and I are working on organizing a suitcase full of old photos. I ordered some new albums, and I’m taking notes on who all the people are so we have a record. It’s fascinating — my mom’s short term memory is completely shot, but she remembers so many of the people in the photos. I love looking at these photos with her.

I’m finding the moments to enjoy with my mom, but also taking breaks from my mom and Bear, which helps. My cousin picked me up and we went for a gorgeous hike overlooking the ocean. We ate delicious tacos. I am soaking up the glorious California sunshine, eating ripe avocados and walking to the dog beach down the street to watch the dogs surf. I watched the Beach Boys documentary, which I loved. Tonight my cousin and I are going to try to see the Artemis II splash down in San Diego. I found my dad’s binoculars so hopefully we’ll be able to see something. Xoxo