I wanted to drop in and leave a quick note, since I've been fairly remiss with the blog the last couple of weeks.
This Saturday, Mom was in the common room watching the big television when I arrived, and we did not talk that much. It was hard to have a conversation, because to make sure mom hears you, sometimes you find yourself talking more loudly than is really polite to other residents in a common area.
So, we talked a little, we watched a little TV, as Mom preferred. I think it's disorienting when she's anywhere other than her room, and I don't think she focuses on the TV -- it's like someone who has it on as background noise. I am not sure she can pick out various sounds as well as you and I might -- that faculty that allows you to home in on one voice you know out of a crowd seems damaged. Maybe I'm overgeneralizing. In any event, she hasn't shown much interest at all in television.
When she was confused, however, she told me all about her son Dan before she understood I was Dan (again.) At least one gets an honest assessment that way. She definitely likes the guitar, it turns out... she even tells "strangers" about it.
On Sunday the weather was beautiful, so we went downstairs and outside on the patio, and I sat next to Mom, and talked with her. Really, this weekend I talked more to her. She is still talking more, but her lucidity was just not at all sharp this weekend. I took a long time assuring her that they weren't expecting her at the local school to help the first graders read, and that she did not have an operation scheduled. I think she patches together narrative from things remembered and things overheard. We probably all would.
I won't go into the physical side of things, but there is no major change. Her right arm is suddenly very active with a variety of nervous habits in the last month or so, but she does not have control over it. For brief amounts of time I can ask her to do things like try to hold onto something, but nothing more complex than that. She mainly seems interested in repeatedly rubbing the top of her left arm with her right hand, but denies that the arm hurts or itches.
Whattaya gonna do. I don't want to ask that her arm be restrained - it's the only thing she moves. But we'll see how much trouble it makes.
Mom continues to have the sweetest year she can, under the circumstances. For any of us who wonder whether a given year is sweet enough, she makes a persuasive and eloquent argument for the wonder of a good meal, a drive, a book, or a conversation. So if you pray, she's a catalog of things for which to give thanks, and if you don't, she's a catalog of things to be happy about. And in the midst of all she doesn't have, she still shows an appreciation of those little things still left for her to enjoy.
All's not rosy, as you might expect. I think she's beginning to be lonely a lot more, because she's more conscious of time passing, and I think she's frustrated with her circumstances, when she focuses on them. But she does stay attached to those good things she finds scattered about the passing hours.
When I left Sunday, I said "I'm going now, but I'll be back on Saturday." There was a long pause, as there often is, and she replied, "No choice."
But she laughed this weekend too, and enjoyed the breeze on a sunny day, and opined that I play lovely guitar. And she also made me laugh Sunday, when I was just playing a blues progression in the background (relax, nothing maudlin, just a little funky,) while we talked.
"You just play the same thing over and over," she said... but she laughed while she was saying it. It was a glimmer of her old sense of humor, not a purely innocent observation. That was my cue to pick one of the half dozen or so songs that she likes, and to get on with it already -- as Zappa put it, "Shut up and play yer guitar."
She surprised me a little Saturday too. An old guy who was also propped up in a geri chair in the common room groaned loudly. She said "is that me?" I said no, it was someone else, who must be uncomfortable -- but since we're in public, we should probably not discuss him. "That would be judicious," she said.
I mean, who retains "judicious" sometimes, and can't find the direct object in sentences other times? Her vocabulary is still in there... But hanging on to a thought until the end of a sentence is hard.
In any event, it's the busy season where I work, and I'm hoping I can get in a little early. Thanks to everyone who's writing to/talking with/thinking of her, and I'll try to reach folks this weekend when I'm there.
Everybody be well, be healthy, and have a sweet new year.
Dan
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