My name is Paula Johnson and I am in the middle of my journey with my Mother in Law. My journey started back in 1983 when I met her for the very first time.  My husband’s and my courtship was quick and brief.  It was love at first site!  The first date was at the end of May and we were married at the end of July.  Momma and her good friend hand sewed my wedding dress.  Sewing has been a large part of her life and she even did some professional sewing. 

Because of the childhood that I had, she became my second mother.  She taught me what friendship and family was about.  She took care of her husband at home until he passed from his chronic emphysema and then decided that she would like to travel a bit.  She sold us her home (the home her husband built and that my husband grew up in) and bought a motor home. 

After two trips across country and realizing that is was less expensive to drive a car and use motels, she parked her motor home on a pad that we set up on the property.  She lived in that motor home since then; until just recently.  During this time she volunteered at Kaiser (20+ years) and traveled via car; crossing this country from CA to AK, IL and back again every summer for years. She has progressively lost her ‘self’ for the last few years.............

I am Elaine and I live in Memphis. My mother began deteriorating physically, emotionally and mentally after her husband (my stepfather) passed away in September of 2002. She insisted on maintaining her independence in spite of a series of falls and other accidents in her retirement apartment. I hired sitters to stay with her. That was expensive but it was a helpful solution-- though temporary. Mom complained about the "strangers" in her place.

On September 23,. 2003 I went to Nashville and told her she was coming to live with me. I brought her home to Memphis and hired help to stay with her while I was at work. Those were difficult days for both of us. I brought her to live with me because something had to be done. There were too many emergency room visits that I had to manage by long distance telephone calls. But neither one of us was particularly happy with the situation in my home. She could not accept that she needed to have supervision. I could not maintain enough patience day after day. We agreed that an assisted living arrangement would be an improvement. So she moved into a place where she had a room of her own but she lived as part of a community. She fell and broke her orbital and mandible bones on the left side of her face. She went into a semi-coma and the assisted living place said she was no longer appropriate for their facility. So she moved into full time nursing care and has been in a nursing home ever since.

My name is Loree, and I am just now entering this roller coaster ride.  I just do not know how some of you cope with this and my mind boggles when I think how hard this is for me now and it is nothing compared to what some of you are going through. Now that I look back though, this has been coming on for a long time. The notes to self pasted all over my MIL's house for the last several years should have been a clue.

My name is Kathy Hatfield, and I live in a small town in North Carolina with my sweetie, David, and my Dad, Lyman, who has Alzheimer's and has lived with us since my Mom died suddenly in 2004.