The Bath Lady comes every Saturday morning and again every Wednesday evening. Our current Bath Lady is Linda. We are very happy that Linda comes twice weekly to help Mom with her shower.

When Mom first moved in with me, in the summer of 2007, it took me awhile to realize that she wasn’t bathing. I had no idea how to even bring up this subject with my own mother. I thought she might be worried about falling in the shower, so I got a shower bench, hand-held shower head, and attached a grab bar to the side of the tub.

When I got it all fixed up, she looked at it and said, “I really prefer taking a tub bath.”

“Then why haven’t you taken a bath in the past six months, since we moved here?”

“I don’t know.”

It took me awhile longer to realize that she just wasn’t going to, maybe didn’t even remember how to, bathe on her own. When I would try to get her into the shower, she would always have some excuse as to why it wasn’t a good time. With her resistance and my reluctance, baths just weren’t happening as often as they needed to.

I finally called an agency and asked for them to send a bath aide on a weekly basis. The first few times, Mom tried to refuse, but I pointed out that since the bath lady was there, she was getting paid whether Mom took a bath or not, and that was $28 of her money being wasted. Being a child of The Great Depression, Mom could not stand to waste anything, especially money.

Mom has since come to appreciate her regular bath schedule, as have we all.