Zetty's coworker thought she was dead!

It was a regular morning. Well, not morning for most people, but the start of my day, probably 11:30, Noonish. I'm a full time caregiver and a comedian. The nighttime is where I thrive. Don't judge me. Anywho I'm going through my email, my personal email at that. My Account acknowledges an unknown email sender, and is tagged as might be spam, might be fraud. The subject is are you the daughter of Yvette Smiley Smith? Well hell, you got me at that. If that's your fraud, hook, line, and sinker, you caught the J Smiles fish. I tripled 1000 click on this email to open it up, who in the world has my personal email and then is asking me if I'm Zetty's daughter with her whole IRS government name? Curious, yes. I will spare you all the details in the entirety of the content of the email, but it appeared to be a dude, at least that's what he held himself out as in the email. And he was a colleague of my mom when she was killing it in the game as a CPA, forensic witness expert accountant, blah, blah, blah. bluh bluh bluh. He got my email from another former colleague. He dropped all those names, which is why the hairs on the back of my neck started to relax. I mean, slick, silky like, like a perm with conditioner. The kicker was his sentence. I hope I'm not being too forward and kurt, but it's been over 10 years since Jock died, I have not talked to your mother. Is it true that she's still alive? I thought she was dead. Sir, what a way to get to your point. Yo, wait a minute. Are you telling me that there are people out here thinking my mama is pushing up daisies now? What? Yeah, her brain a working quite right. It is a whole bunch of stuff she can't do, but dag gone she ain't dead yet. I'm like, what? You already got my mama in heaven. Singing cherub songs with Jesus, the Apostles, Mother Teresa, Biggie, and Tupac. Sir. Sir. Parenting Up, caregiving adventures with comedian J Smiless. Is the intense journey of unexpectedly being fully responsible for the well being of my momma. For almost a decade. I've been chipping away at the unknown, advocating for her, and pushing Alzheimer's awareness on anyone and anything with a heartbeat. Spoiler alert- I started comedy beacuse this stuff is so heavy. Be ready for the jokes. Caregiver newbies, OG, village members trying to just prop up a caregiver, you are in the right place.

Hi, this is Zetty. I hope you enjoy my daughter's podcast. Is that okay?

Zetty's co-worker thought she was dead!

Parenting Up family, the flood of emotions I felt while reading that email, 360. I was elated, an email asking me if I'm my momma's daughter. What is this? Maybe it's a long lost relative. Maybe there's an insurance policy from my dad's death that's about to make me stupid rich. Maybe someone wants to do an article or my mom. I don't know. The maybe that did not cross my mind, a person from her past trying to confirm that she's still breathing. Hello. I went from total elation, giddy face, big smiles, to sweaty palms, heart palpitations, anger, pissed devotee, I think that's a word, well, it's a word now I just said, y'all know what I mean. To empathy, to joy, to peace, to balance, all in the span of like three minutes. I said, Oh, my goodness. This is how random news can send people into shock, or a heart attack. Because you can just get too much input too quickly. I'm not going to say the gentleman's name, because he does listen to the podcast now. However, as I was reading the email, he gave such details about my mother's career, well before the internet existed, and I thought he's the real deal. And then the names that he dropped, were really a part of her inner professional circle during the 1990s and early 2000s, when my mom was making a tremendous name for herself, all across the United States. I started wondering, because that's what I do. Why didn't he know that she was alive? And why is he crying on the email? You know, you can tell if somebody's crying in the email, how many ellipses, dot dot dot? How many commas and semicolons and attacks, and exclamation points how much emotion is in the text? This man was pouring out his heart to an email that he hoped was me. You guessed it, when I hit reply, said, Hey, I am the Yvette's daughter. The email exchange became more intense, and more intentional. It is inappropriate, but I did think well, wait a minute, now you're going to look deep into what my momma meant to you and how happy you are to know she's alive. Even if she does have Alzheimer's, just knowing she is on this earth will help you sleep better at night. Well now just what kind of relationship was this sir? And yes, he spoke highly of his wife and his children. But I wasn't born last night and it wasn't born yesterday and I am silly. I was like, hmm we count our relationship professionally were we doing over here? Okay, now I'm not about to try to ask Zetty or this gentleman who cared so much about my mom, but it did cross my mind. Ultimately, as a caregiver, I felt wonderful that my mom's life meant that much to a person that I didn't know. You know what I mean? Typically, you think after 10 years of my father's passing, and my mom having this awful disease, I would have bet $1 to a bucket of spit, shout out to my grandfather. May he rest in peace that everyone who knew my mom and was still alive, was aware of her health. And if you're aware of her health, then you know she's alive. She got to be alive to have Alzheimer's and J Smiles is talking about it. I have comedy show.s I have podcast. I'm raising money for Alzheimer's. I tell her family and friends, I asked them to tell other people. But he didn't know and it appears that he is somewhat savvy with a mouse pad. My heart really was warmed, that a person not related to my mom and not tethered to her so strongly that I immediately had a cell phone, email or snail mail address could be so emotionally and spiritually impacted. We never know who our LOs have touched. The gravity of their impact is enormous. It's way more than we realize as their family caregiver. Inhaling that for a few minutes, gave me more energy and more spirit to care for my mom in recognizing the wonderful things that she's done that I will never know. I think I've figured out why he had no clue about my mom being alive. I call her Zetty everywhere and in social media, I'm J Smiles. Yvette daughter was not a comedian when he last spoke to Yvette, so he would know to look for me under that moniker. Another thing is, my last name changed since he last worked with my mother, so he couldn't even have done any kind of Google search for me. Once that his diagnosis was complete, and her body was ravaged by Alzheimer's and NPH, I closed her business. I cut off her cell phone and I sent out professional letters to everyone that was a current client and in her immediate email inbox, that's all I had to go on. Who knows how many human beings that my mom communicated with on a semi regular basis, around the holidays, around anniversaries, maybe sporting events, maybe at professional conferences. Perhaps they'd never saw each other, except at the annual CPA, sigma digum and they don't even know. Oh, man, that kind of stuff hurts. I got an inbox on a social media platform, from my mom's former secretary from the 1970s and early 1980s when she was director of the Public Service Commission for the state of Alabama. This person also was directed to my moniker and my name, and hey, this is how you can find Yvette through her daughter. I was like wow and the direct message was full of love and care and concern. Now this lady knew my mom was alive, but only because the person who gave her my information was able to share that with her. She had no idea where my mom was, or what her state of being was. This lady was so happy when I responded you would have thought she won the Powerball mega bucks, for those of you who don't live in the United States, that's the lottery where you pay $2 to American dollars, and you could possibly win $500 million is gambling. Like bingo, there's no strategy to it. It's pure luck. But this lady responded in that way just to be able to talk to me, because that made her feel as though she was once again connected to Yvette. As the family caregiver, we are so in the weeds, it can be easy at times to lose sight of individuals on the periphery of our loved ones life of yesteryear. Those people matter or they used to matter a lot to our LOs and they kind of just got cut off, oftentimes, without a chance to say goodbye, or a chance to visit or be involved, perhaps even to just understand the decline in health and what occurred. Yhis one guy sent a handwritten note to the house, now I don't know how he got our postal address. But he talked about how much he has thought about her over the years and he heard that she was a widow now and wondered if they could talk. Sir, are you hitting all my mama through the post office? Well I tell you what, it's not gonna work. You gonna learn today in my Kevin Hart's daddy's voice. Uh-huh, what are you doing? I was disgusted. Now potentially my mama would have liked him. I don't know. She's not capable of figuring that kind of thing out according to me. Before y'all go beat me up about it, his man didn't leave a cell phone number nor did he send a picture, you know what I'm saying? Now you don't have to let us know what you look like now. Now if Zetty dated you back in the day I know you were fine then, but what is you now? And I spoke incorrect English on purpose to emphasize how much we got to know these things. I did not bother to respond to him. Everyone else who has attempted to contact my mother has received a response from me. His felt a little pervy, a little like he was attacking a vulnerable woman who lost her husband. He didn't sound like he was really trying to see how she's doing, check on her health, or if she needed anything. It was like, Oh Jock is dead. Boom, it's my chance. Let me get up, pounce on this. Get in there. Ah ha. Jock ain't that dead. Over time, I have been really encouraged by the thoughtfulness of those who knew my mom. Cards, gifts, people really saying gifts without knowing the size of clothes or shoes, or if she drinks wine or if she likes flowers. They figure out what our address is, and they send stuff. I am always grateful because first of all, money is hard to come by. I don't care how much of it you have. You got to decide to spend it on my mother and you took your time to shop and then get it to us. There are a lot of people that my mom specifically held down over and over and over and over and over again and they've yet to even visit or they visit her like twice and she's been sick for over a decade. So to receive prayers, or chocolate or balloons from individuals that I either never, ever heard of or have a vague recollection of their name is extraordinary. Parenting Up family, we are doing the work of the Universe. What you put into your LO is for more than you and your LO. It is for the relationships that they built and sustained throughout their lifetime. You never know who may be looking for them who may need to say goodbye, or give them a hug, or say hello, or send a card, just one last time. It has nothing to do with you or me. It's the universal energy that we are helping to push forward. Now don't be a fool, J Smiles is not condoning you to go opening your door or email or give out your cell phone number to randoms and strangers. You will be able to tell if they drop enough info and names in circumstances where it seems that oh wow, you really did have a special connection with my LO and maybe seeing a picture of that person or you telling your LO a story that this person has recounted to you could actually assist your LO in some fleeting moments. The majority of our LOs life, we weren't a part of. Okay, I'm really trying to say most of the moments, most of the hours most of the days before your LO got ill, uou don't know where the hell they were, what they were doing, and who they were swapping stories, chopping it up, with breaking bread with. So Be open. Be open to who may reach out. And even though it's a new person to you. it may be that old good milk and honey, warm bubble bath type emotional feelings for your LO.

Do you have a comment about today's episode? Is there a topic that I've never covered that you want me to handle in a future episode? Cool, text a Purple Heart to +14047371449. Of course, I'm gonna put that in the show notes.

Number 1, once you've decided to share your LOs, Alzheimer's or dementia related illness with the public. I encourage you to cast the net as wide as possible-family members, friends or friends, co-workers of co-workers, who did they like to go to the gym with, people at church, who did your LO vacation with, maybe it was extended vacation groups. You never know what meaningful tried and true relationships could be out there or your LO that could benefit you too. Maybe there's someone who would be willing to visit, sit with your LO, help out with shopping, going to doctor's appointments, or bringing some level of happy to your LO that takes a bit of the stress or strain or pressure off of you. Number 2, when you locate these new people or these periphery people be prepared for them to panic when you say your LO has Alzheimer's or dementia. They may have a bit of a meltdown. And it can feel odd and weird like oh okay, wait hold on now. I mean it' uh my mama and I'm the one who's having to deal with her on a daily basis. I mean, actually, ma'am, if you love her that much, how come you didn't know she had Alzheimer's, I mean, where you've been for the last 2,3,4,7,12,20 years like that might run through your head, but try not to say it out loud. It could be very hurtful and traumatic to a person, when they find out that your LO has Alzheimer's. And the last they heard 2,3,4 years ago, your LO was doing great, they were on a cruise somewhere in the Caribbean. Number 3, consider having a social media page or blog with your LOs name attached. That could be the easiest way for anyone who really loved and is missing your LO to locate them. I'm not suggesting that you recount every movement your LO makes or that you share private medical details. Something simple, that's a landing page of sorts that you can check once a month, three times a year, but for anyone who has a earnest pure interest in locating your LO that you're unaware of. It would be a good starting place to help the universe to find that connection.

We keep the Parenting Up caregiving content coming on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. As well go to www.jsmilescomedy.com and sign up for Parenting Up newsletters. That's it for now, thank you for listening. Please subscribe for continuous caregiving tips, tricks, trends, and truth. Pretty, pretty please with sugar on top, share and review it too. I'm a comedian, Alzheimer's is heavy, but we ain't gotta be!