Part 2 ~ What To Do About Aunt Dot

Aunt Dot will be 90 years old in November. She seems to be trying to block out what has happened to her, therefore, she has started just saying "I don't remember" to complicated questions I have to believe she just don't want to deal with it anymore. To some, due to her age, she sounds as if she is losing her short-term memory. I believe she has just had too much on her mind and that mind just needs a rest and I truly feel she will rally. I feel this way, but my brain is questioning that feeling.

I just want my Aunt Dot back as she was. She has always been so independent and strong.

Living alone makes older people vulnerable to con men. They are easy targets for quick money . They are alone, they need so many small things done around the house and yard.

They soon make strangers friends as they are lonely. My Aunt Dot is like thousands of others, they are in need of someone to drive her... to the grocery, the drug store or to the Doctor....
PLUS someone to cut the grass and other odd jobs fir them. Once a friendship is established, they are invited into their homes for visits as they need visitors.

Aunt Dot has been through a year that no older person should have to endure.
Yes, she has been a victim of a scam that has gone on over this past year. The little guy slowly won her trust and soon her money took wings.
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I can still see her as she was ~ young and enjoying life. I can still visualize her gentleman friend who drove the shinny black car and wore stylish clothes. It didn't take her long to be head over heels in love as he was so attentive. As it turned out, he also was married. This devastated Aunt Dot.

The war came to an end and immediately she meet a tall, dark and very handsome Texan . He was as she always said, the someone who came back from the war. He had been a Flyer and had flown many missions over Germany. She was taken by him and she made him a quick cure for the failed romance with "Mr Too Good to be true."

Well, Mr. Too Good didn't want to lose her and said he would win his freedom for the wife and marry Aunt Dot...Mr. Too Good apparently was desperate...but his offer came just a little too late.

I remember the last time I saw Mr. Too Good. He came our house late one afternoon to see Dot. I rushed to meet him running about the house to the front stairway. Reaching the stairway I was stopped by the sight before me. My mother was standing tall, looking down at Mr. Too Good. She had stopped him before he had gotten to the top. He moved back and leaned on the concrete ledge and was looking up at my mother. Apparently, neither of them took note of my presence across from him at the bottom of those wide steps. My mother told him Dot was not at home. She, in her most cruel tone, seemed to gloat when she reported Dot had met another. Mr. Too Good, with hat in hand, slumped back bracing himself on the concrete

Children in those days were to be seen and not heard, but on this day, I was not even seen... I stood there being totally ignored as their adult conversation about love and fidelity filled my head with far more than a 5 year old should know about life. I remember holding my breath and wishing she would be nicer. I felt his pain. My mother blistered his ego and maybe broke his heart as well. He stood there ...I can see him now...dressed in the latest 1940's style suit and holding hat in hands. He was explaining to my mother that he loved Dorothy beyond words. Her reply to him showed no sympathy and ask him to leave and never come back or try to see Dorothy. I felt sorry for him, as he looked down at his hat and turned it around in his hands....and after what seemed forever, he whirled around, bounding down the steps to his shinny car. I hated to see him go. I was such a little girl and I felt so sad to see him hurt as I knew Aunt Dot loved him beyond words as well. That was one of the secrets she shared with me. She told me she would always love him. I felt I would never see him again and I didn't.

To be cont...