Reminders of a loved one come from the strangest of places

Over the weekend, I was watching the Unauthorized Melrose Place Story on Lifetime (yes I know, feel free to judge me for my guilty pleasures.)

Let’s just say I was in a nostalgic mood.

The commercials were not geared towards the Generation X crowd that was likely watching the movie, but an older demographic. Commercial after commercial, I felt like I was being bombarded by memories of my parents. Can’t a girl catch a break while watching a stupid movie?

First, there was the Colace ad, and that reminded me of Mom’s long battle with constipation over the last year of her life, and how that lowered her quality of life.

Then there was the Ensure ad, which of course made me think of Mom’s last month or so, and how that’s all she consumed, her meals coming down to chocolate, vanilla or butter pecan flavor drinks. I also was responsible for ordering Ensure for my dad when he was in the nursing home. Dark chocolate was his favorite, which was strange, because he never was a big chocolate lover.

Finally, there was the Depends ad, though this was for a new, “sexier” version for younger women with only mild bladder control issues. In fact, Mom really didn’t have an incontinence issue until the last week or so of her life, once she started the morphine. The ad made me remember a humorous moment years ago, when a Depends representative showed up at the newsroom I was working in to promote new products for the Health content channel I was helping to manage. My coworker got the giggles and you know how contagious giggles are! Fortunately, the Depends rep had a good sense of humor. I guess you have to when you work there.

Little did I know that a couple of years later, I would spend quite a bit of time perusing Depends for my father, as Alzheimer’s made him incontinent.

I’m guessing most people my age watching such a movie would completely tune out such ads, because it has nothing to do with their lives. But as caregivers, we become quite familiar with many things we thought we never encounter.

Who knows, maybe Mom was judging me from the other side for my movie choice!